Guest editors' introduction: the philosophy of risk

摘要

What, if anything, can philosophers contribute to risk research? The stereotype of a philosopher is someone sitting in an armchair thinking about Big Questions, taking little notice of what is going on in the external world. Such an approach to risk research can hardly be fruitful.rnHowever, over the past few decades, philosophers have started to address issues that have no doubt increased our understanding of several important aspects of risk. To be more precise, philosophers have attempted to increase our understanding of the concept of risk, what it means to accept or not to accept a risk, what the ethical implications of imposing risk on others might be, as well as other issues related to the ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, and rationality of risk controversies. The philosophy of risk can thus be characterized as the philosophical inquiry into social, environmental, and technological problems arising from uncertainty about unwanted future events, in which tools from ethics, epistemology, decision theory, as well as other branches of philosophy are utilized.