A Right against Risk-Imposition and the Problem of Paralysis

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 19 (4):917-930 (2016)
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Abstract

In this paper I examine the prospects for a rights-based approach to the morality of pure risk-imposition. In particular, I discuss a practical challenge to proponents of the thesis that we have a right against being imposed a risk of harm. According to an influential criticism, a right against risk-imposition will rule out all ordinary activities. The paper examines two strategies that rights theorists may follow in response to this “Paralysis Problem”. The first strategy introduces a threshold for when a risk-imposition is a rights violation. The second strategy drops the claim that rights are absolute and maintains that all rights infringements generate compensation duties. It is argued that both strategies face significant practical problems of their own and that the Paralysis Problem seems fatal for a right against risk-imposition in the absence of an adequate account of the morally relevant threshold risk.

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Sune Holm
University of Copenhagen

Citations of this work

Decision theory and de minimis risk.Martin Smith - forthcoming - Erkenntnis:1-24.
Probability, normalcy and the right against risk imposition.Martin Smith - forthcoming - Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy.
Rights Against High-Level Risk Impositions.Fei Song - 2019 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 22 (3):763-778.

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References found in this work

Anarchy, State, and Utopia.Robert Nozick - 1974 - New York: Basic Books.
Moral dimensions: permissibility, meaning, blame.Thomas Scanlon - 2008 - Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Anarchy, State, and Utopia.Robert Nozick - 1974 - Philosophy 52 (199):102-105.
The limits of morality.Shelly Kagan - 1989 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The Realm of Rights.J. J. Thomson - 1991 - Philosophy 66 (258):538-540.

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