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The Moral Problem of Risk Impositions: A Survey of the Literature
Author(s) -
Hayenhjelm Madeleine,
Wolff Jonathan
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
european journal of philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.42
H-Index - 36
eISSN - 1468-0378
pISSN - 0966-8373
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0378.2011.00482.x
Subject(s) - contractualism , consequentialism , context (archaeology) , positive economics , epistemology , work (physics) , layperson , economics , sociology , actuarial science , law and economics , political science , philosophy , law , paleontology , biology , mechanical engineering , engineering
Abstract This paper surveys the current philosophical discussion of the ethics of risk imposition, placing it in the context of relevant work in psychology, economics and social theory. The central philosophical problem starts from the observation that it is not practically possible to assign people individual rights not to be exposed to risk, as virtually all activity imposes some risk on others. This is the ‘problem of paralysis’. However, the obvious alternative theory that exposure to risk is justified when its total benefits exceed its total costs faces the standard distributional challenges of consequentialism. Forms of contractualism have been proposed as a solution, but how exactly such theories can be formulated remains problematic, especially when confronted with the difficult cases of mass, novel, risk such as climate change.