Ethics and risk

Abstract

Although risk is a fact of life, it was not extensively discussed in moral philosophy before the 1970s. Robert Nozick’s classic discussion of risk drew philosophical attention to the special problems created by actions that create risk but which may or may not result in any harm. This chapter begins with a description and analysis of Nozick’s argument. It concludes that familiar concepts in moral philosophy like harm, compensation, and individual moral rights cannot by themselves give a satisfactory analysis of the unique ethical problems created by activities that impose or attempt to regulate risk. This discussion leads to further examination of the relation between risk and consent. Appeals to consent are important in the justification of techniques of risk analysis used to reveal individual preferences for comparing risks, costs, and benefits in policy decisions. This discussion is followed by a review of issues involving justice and the distribution of risk. It focuses especially on some distributional issues that are unique to risk and reveal important differences between looking at the ethical dimensions of risk from an individual and from a societal perspective. The chapter concludes with some speculative remarks about future research into the ethics of risk that is prompted by increased awareness of risks imposed by new technologies, the prospect of reducing or mitigating the effects of anthropogenic climate change, and the increasingly likely prospect that decisions today may impose significant risks on future generations.