Essays on the Morality of Risk Impositions

Abstract

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.