What is wrong with imposing pure risks, that is, risks that don’t materialize into harm? According to a popular response, imposing pure risks is pro tanto wrong, when and because risk itself is harmful. Call this the Harm View. Defenders of this view make one of the following two claims. On the Constitutive Claim, pure risk imposition is pro tanto wrong when and because risk constitutes diminishing one’s well-being viz. preference-frustration or setting-back their legitimate interest in autonomy. On the Contingent Claim, pure risk imposition is pro tanto wrong when and because risk has harmful consequences for the risk-bearers, such as psychological distress. This paper argues that the Harm View is plausible only on the Contingent Claim, but fails on the Constitutive Claim. In discussing the latter, I argue that both the preference and autonomy account fail to show that risk itself is constitutively harmful and thereby wrong. In discussing the former, I argue that risk itself is contingently harmful and thereby wrong but only in a narrow range of cases. I conclude that while the Harm View can sometimes explain the wrong of imposing risk when (and because) risk itself is contingently harmful, it is unsuccessful as a general, exhaustive account of what makes pure imposition wrong.
This workshop summary on natural language processing (NLP) markers for psychosis and other psychiatric disorders presents some of the clinical and research issues that NLP markers might address and some of the activities needed to move in that direction. We propose that the optimal development of NLP markers would occur in the context of research efforts to map out the underlying mechanisms of psychosis and other disorders. In this workshop, we identified some of the challenges to be addressed in developing and implementing NLP markers-based Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSSs) in psychiatric practice, especially with respect to psychosis. Of note, a CDSS is meant to enhance decision-making by clinicians by providing additional relevant information primarily through software (although CDSSs are not without risks). In psychiatry, a field that relies on subjective clinical ratings that condense rich temporal behavioral information, the inclusion of computational quantitative NLP markers can plausibly lead to operationalized decision models in place of idiosyncratic ones, although ethical issues must always be paramount.
The ongoing pandemic has led some people to speak about a ‘new normal’, since we have temporarily had to radically change how we live our lives to protect ourselves and others from the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. That expression – ‘a new normal’ – has been also be used in other contexts, such as in relation to societal disruptions brought about by things like new technologies or climate change. What this general idea of a ‘new normal’ means is unclear and hard to characterise, and there are diverging views about how to respond to a new normal, but one feature of a desirable new normal that most people would agree on is that it should be ‘safer’: safer technologies, safer institutions, and so on. But it is also important to consider what other ethical considerations and principles should be part of an ethics of a new normal. And it is also interesting to explore similarities and differences among different types of cases that can be classified as situations where we face a new normal. In this chapter, we will discuss the general idea of an ethics of a new normal, and consider what ethical distinctions, values, and principles are likely to be relevant in most instances where we face a new normal, including ethical considerations related to risk mitigation and ways of offsetting potential harms.
This thesis is a collection of five self-standing articles that engage with normative and applied questions surrounding the morality of risk impositions. The first part of the thesis considers the question of what makes imposing pure risks on others, namely, risks that don't materialize sometimes morally wrong. Suppose that you are taking a leisurely walk in the park when an inconsiderate speeding motorist drives right past you. In doing so, he imposes upon you a grave risk of harm. Luckily for you, the risk fails to materialize. Yet, there is a strong intuition that in subjecting you to risk, he acts wrongly, and also wrongs you in particular.Chapter 1 argues that imposing pure risks on others, like in the case of the speeding motorist, is sometimes wrong because it involves relating to others in a dominating, or a dominationlike way. Chapter 2 critiques an influential view according to which, imposing pure risks is sometimes wrong when and because risk itself is contingently or constitutively harmful.Chapter 3 explores the explanatory relationship between the morality of imposing pure risks and that of non-risky cases. The second part of the thesis deals in two distinct questions within applied risk ethics, and in particular, pertinent global catastrophic risks facing humanity. Chapter 4 dives into the ethics of extinction risk and asks whether permanent loss of possible people is a relevant wrong-making feature of failing to prevent the risk of our extinction materializing. Chapter 5 contributes to recent discussions in the literature on ethics of climate change risks. In particular, it discusses and rejects a prominent objection against offsetting our risky emissions, namely, that by offsetting, we fail to fulfil our duties not to harm or risking harming particular individuals.Dedicated to my late grandfather, APS. Thank you for giving me a sense of purpose.
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