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 risk itself is contingently harmful, it is unsuccessful as a general, exhaustive account of what makes pure imposition wrong. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Stefansson (forthcoming) argues that by emitting and offsetting, we fail to fulfil our justice-based duty to avoid harm owed to specific individuals. In this paper, I explore a case where offsetting fails to prevent some but not all risks of harms that our emissions impose on them. By drawing on a distinction between general and specific duties not to (risk) harm, I argue that if by emitting and offsetting, we satisfy some (if not all) of our specific duties we (...) owe others, then this gives us stronger moral reasons to offset than give to charities that do good more effectively. (shrink)

During times of emergency like the pandemic itself, governments are often seen as exercising “exceptional power”. Given the state of growing urgency in responding to the pandemic, there is a worry that governments may resort to exercising their exceptional power arbitrarily—either willingly, unintentionally or perhaps even negligently. When power is exercised by states or even by non-state actors arbitrarily over a person or group, that is, at their own will in the absence of appropriate institutional checks and balances, republican theorists (...) argue that we are confronted with a threat to our freedom as non- domination. In this chapter, I explore whether, and in what ways, worries about domination could surface in the context of government’s enforcement of risk- containment measures in response to the pandemic. While imposition of these measures is deemed necessary and important for reducing risks in response to the pandemic, their imposition is prima facie problematic if it constitutes or entails wrongful exercise of arbitrary power, thereby risking domination of citizens. I motivate this claim by examining India’s initial response to the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly focussing on the public health emergency legislature (or lack thereof) authorising the implementation of emergency risk-containment measures. (shrink)

This paper motivates institutional epistemic trust as an important ethical consideration informing the responsible development and implementation of AI technologies (or AI- Inclusivity) in healthcare. Drawing on recent literature on epistemic trust and public trust in science, we examine the conditions under which we can have institutional epistemic trust in AI- inclusive healthcare systems and their members' medical information providers. In particular, we discuss that institutional epistemic trust in AI-inclusive healthcare depends, in part, on the reliability of AI-inclusive medical practices (...) and programs, its knowledge and understanding amongst different stakeholders, its effect on epistemic and communicative duties and burdens on medical professionals, and finally, its interaction with ethical values and interests as well as background socio-political conditions which shape AI-inclusive healthcare systems. To assess the applicability of these conditions, we explore a proposal for AI-inclusivity within the Dutch Newborn Screening Program, thereby illustrating the importance, scope, and potential challenges of fostering and maintaining institutional epistemic trust in a context where generating, assessing, and providing reliable and timely screening results for genetic risk is of high priority. Finally, to motivate the general relevance of our discussion and case study, we provide suggestions for strategies, interventions, and measures for AI-inclusivity in healthcare more widely. (shrink)

What makes cases of pure risking sometimes wrong? There is a strong intuition that the wrongness of pure risking stands in an explanatory relationship with the wrongness of the non-risky act, other things being equal. Yet, we cannot simply take this for granted insofar as in cases of wrongful pure risking, the risked outcome fails to materialize. To this end, I motivate and develop an underexplored approach in the literature that I call Unificationism. According to the Unificationist account that I (...) defend, the fact that pure risking φ is pro tanto wrong is grounded by a general moral fact that φ-ing is pro tanto or all-things-considered wrong, other things being equal. This relationship holds even if and when an agent’s risky conduct fails to transpire or culminate into φ-ing ex post. I argue that this Unificationist account captures our explanatory intuition, avoids problems of extensional and explanatory inadequacy that existing alternative faces, and most importantly, renders Unificationism as a plausible view within the ethics of pure risking. (shrink)

Review of Harris Wiseman, The Myth of the Moral Brain: The Limits of Moral Enhancement, 340 pp.