Relatively new and now ubiquitous, smartphones and tablet computers are changing our lives by asking us to rethink the ways that we conduct business, form and maintain relationships, and read books and magazines. In the same capacity, mobile devices are redefining how health care is administered, monitored, and delivered through specialized technologies called medical apps (applications). In general, apps are pieces of software that can be installed and run on a variety of hardware platforms, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktop (...) computers. Medical apps, in particular, refer to a wide variety of software that focuses on health care (loosely defined). Whether these apps target the health-care .. (shrink)

This volume bridges contemporary philosophical conceptions of risk and responsibility and offers an extensive examination of the topic. It shows that risk and responsibility combine in ways that give rise to new philosophical questions and problems. Philosophical interest in the relationship between risk and responsibility continues to rise, due in no small part due to environmental crises, emerging technologies, legal developments, and new medical advances. Despite such interest, scholars are just now working out how to conceive of the links between (...) risk and responsibility, the implications that risks may have to conceptions of responsibility (and vice versa), as well as how such theorizing might play out in applied cases. With contributions from leading scholars, this volume brings together new work examining the interplay between risk and responsibility, exploring its varied philosophical aspects and applications to contemporary issues in law, bioethics, technology, and environmental ethics. Risk and Responsibility in Context will be of interest to philosophers working in ethics, bioethics, philosophy of law, and philosophy of technology, as well as scholars and practitioners in law, health and science management, public policy, and environmental studies. (shrink)

Wie sollen sich autonome Fahrzeuge verhalten, wenn ein Unfall nicht mehr abwendbar ist? Die Komplexität spezifischer moralischer Dilemmata, die in diesem Kontext auftreten können, lässt bewährte ethische Denktraditionen an ihre Grenzen stoßen. Dieser Aufsatz versteht sich als Versuch, neue Lösungsperspektiven mithilfe einer risikoethischen Sichtweise auf die Problematik zu eröffnen und auf diese Weise deren Relevanz für die Programmierung von ethischen Unfallalgorithmen aufzuzeigen. Im Zentrum steht dabei die Frage, welche Implikationen sich aus einer Auffassung von Dilemma-Situationen als risikoethische Verteilungsprobleme im Hinblick (...) auf die Zulässigkeit von entsprechenden Risikoübertragungen ergeben. Dabei wird zunächst eine risikoethische Interpretation des zugrundeliegenden Entscheidungsproblems skizziert, welches durch seine dilemmatische Struktur eine besondere Risikokonstellation begründet. Ausgehend von den Positionen von Sven Ove Hansson und Julian Nida-Rümelin wird für einen deontologisch-risikoethischen Ansatz argumentiert, der auf Individualrechten einerseits und einer interpersonell gerechten Verteilung der entstehenden Schadensrisiken anderseits basiert. Diese beiden Kriterien werden für den Anwendungskontext des autonomen Fahrens konkretisiert. Zum einen wird in Bezug auf das erste Kriterium argumentiert, dass individuelle Rechte genau dann als angemessen gewahrt gelten können, wenn die resultierenden Risikoübertragungen auf die Einzelnen in ihrer absoluten Höhe jeweils zumutbar sind. Zum anderen werden Schwierigkeiten skizziert, die sich hinsichtlich der konkreten Umsetzung des zweiten Kriteriums der Verteilungsgerechtigkeit ergeben. In diesem Zusammenhang werden beispielsweise ethische Herausforderungen in Bezug auf einen möglichen Vorteilsausgleich, das Prinzip der Schadensminimierung sowie individuell unterschiedliche Ausgangsbedingungen der persönlichen Schadensreduktion kritisch in den Blick genommen. (shrink)

Utilitarianism has an apparent pedigree when it comes to animal welfare. It supports the view that animal welfare matters just as much as human welfare. And many utilitarians support and oppose various practices in line with more mainstream concern over animal welfare, such as that we should not kill animals for food or other uses, and that we ought not to torture animals for fun. This relationship has come under tension from many directions. The aim of this article is to (...) add further considerations in support of that tension. I suggest three ways in which utilitarianism comes significantly apart from mainstream concerns with animal welfare. First, utilitarianism opposes animal cruelty only when it offers an inefficient ratio of pleasure to pain; while this may be true of eating animal products, it is not obviously true of other abuses. Second, utilitarianism faces a familiar problem of the inefficacy of individual decisions; I consider a common response to this worry, and offer further concerns. Finally, the common utilitarian argument against animal cruelty ignores various pleasures that humans may get from the superior status that a structure supporting exploitation confers. (shrink)

This article applies the concept of prudence to develop the characteristics of responsible risk-modeling practices in the insurance industry. A critical evaluation of the risk-modeling process suggests that ethical judgments are emergent rather than static, vague rather than clear, particular rather than universal, and still defensible according to the discipline’s established theory, which will support a range of judgments. Thus, positive moral guides for responsible behavior are of limited practical value. Instead, by being prudent, modelers can improve their ability to (...) deal with the ethical and technical complexity of the risk-modeling process. While the application of prudence to resolve ethical challenges in risk modeling, an issue of practical importance to managers, is a first in the literature, the practice of applying an ethical lens to issues of pragmatic importance for managers is well established in Maak and Pless (J Bus Ethics 66:99–115, 2006a ; Responsible leadership, 2006b ) among others. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

A constant refrain in both public discourse and academic research on shale gas development has been the necessity for ‘sound science’ to govern policy decisions. Rare, however, is the recommendation that effective policy on this topic also include ‘sound moral thought'. I argue that: (1) philosophy (particularly moral thought and ethical reasoning) and science must work in tandem for making good policy decisions related to shale gas development, and (2) this realisation is essential for policy-makers, journalists, researchers, educators and the (...) public. By examining the range of normative claims offered within academic and public discourse, the variation in claims across contexts and the degree to which the normative arguments are well-supported, I illustrate the important role increased attention to moral thought could play in forwarding policy construction on shale gas development. Finally, I offer recommendations for how policy-makers, journalists, researchers and educators can more actively acknowledge the importance of both science and moral thought in policy-making related to shale gas development. (shrink)

In response to Albrecht et al.’s (J Agric Environ Ethics 26(4):827–845, 2013) discussion on the ethics of assisted migration, we emphasize the issues of risk and scientific uncertainty as an inextricable part of a comprehensive ethical evaluation. Insisting on a separation of risk and ethical considerations, although arguably common in many policy contexts, is at best misguided and at worst damaging.

Research involving human subjects is much more stringently regulated than many other nonresearch activities that appear to be at least as risky. A number of prominent figures now argue that research is overregulated. We argue that the reasons typically offered to justify the present system of research regulation fail to show that research should be subject to more stringent regulation than other equally risky activities. However, there are three often overlooked reasons for thinking that research should be treated as a (...) special case. First, research typically involves the imposition of risk on people who do not benefit from this risk imposition. Second, research depends on public trust. Third, the complexity of the moral decision making required favors ethics committees as a regulative solution for research. (shrink)

Determining whether a research risk meets or exceeds a regulatory standard of risk acceptability is difficult. Recently a framework called the systematic evaluation of research risks (SERR) has been proposed as a method of comparing research risks with predetermined standards of acceptability. SERR purports to offer a systematic and largely determinate (definite) way to compare risks and say whether a specific research risk falls below or above an acknowledged standard of acceptable risk. Here the authors review some philosophical problems with (...) this framework, which they take to be representative of determinate approaches to risk comparison, and conclude that it should not be used in a stand-alone or determinate fashion. Instead, the authors suggest that a deliberative approach may be a more viable candidate for future development. Such an approach could be informed by methods such as SERR without being rigidly bound to them. (shrink)