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You don't have to think of this as purely political policymaking.
Firms have to make these kinds of tradeoffs too.
What contexts do you have in mind?
Investments in workplace safety or product quality, where death is a known potential outcome.
Without tort, they'd invest up to the point where the marginal cost of safety is equal to the marginal benefit, and the marginal benefit is presumably determined by workers' compensating wage differentials. So in a sense, it would be determined by individuals preferences.
With tort, I suppose you can't avoid policymakers making decisions about this. If they set it too low, it probably won't be binding due to the logic above. If they set it too high, then there'd probably be deadweight loss due to lost trade.
Presuming unscrupulous profit maximizers. It is possible for owners and managers to have other-regarding preferences, you know.
But, yes, I was thinking of something like the case with tort.
Ideally, policymakers would not be the ones making this decision. Each person should make this decision on their own, together with their loved ones.