Utilitarianism and risk
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12598183 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Morten Fibieger Byskov (0000-0002-1682-2311, Department of Politics and International Studies, Northern University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 259-270 |
| Publication date | 2018-12-27 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Risk Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1366-9877 • E-ISSN: 1466-4461 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13669877.2018.1501600 |
| OpenAlex | W2907194174 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 29 |
In day-to-day life, we are continuously exposed to different kinds of risk. Unfortunately, avoiding risk can often come at societal or individual costs. Hence, an important task within risk management is deciding how much it can be justified to expose members of society to risk x in order to avoid societal and individual costs y – and vice versa. We can refer to this as the task of setting an acceptable risk threshold. Judging whether a risk threshold is justified requires normative reasoning about what levels of risk exposure that are permissible. One such prominent normative theory is utilitarianism. According to utilitarians, the preferred risk threshold is the one that yields more utility for the most people compared to alternative risk thresholds. In this paper, I investigate whether and the extent to which utilitarian theory can be used to normatively ground a particular risk threshold in this way. In particular, I argue that there are (at least) seven different utilitarian approaches to setting an acceptable risk threshold. I discuss each of these approaches in turn and argue that neither can satisfactorily ground an acceptable risk threshold
Actuarial science · Business · Economics · Epistemology · Normative · Positive economics · Risk analysis (engineering · Risk assessment · Risk management · Task (project management · Utilitarianism · Ethics in medical practice · Free Will and Agency · Philosophy · Risk Perception and Management
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Practical Ethics
Utilitarianism and Beyond
Anarchy, State, and Utopia
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Utilitarianism as a Public Philosophy
Utilitarianism
What’s Ideal About Ideal Theory
Risk, Contractualism, and Rose's "Prevention Paradox"
Ideal Theory in Theory and Practice
The Political Theories of Risk Analysis
The Ethics of Risk
The Perception of Risk
What We Owe to Each Other
The Morality of Freedom
Ideal vs. Non‐ideal Theory
Debate
Understanding Utilitarianism
Contractualism and risk imposition
Justice as fairness
Contractualism and Social Risk
Ideal and Nonideal Theory
| Citations per year | 0.33 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2020 - 2025 (6) |
| Highly cited | No |