IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jriskr/v13y2010i2p217-230.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A virtue ethical account of making decisions about risk

Author

Listed:
  • Nafsika Athanassoulis
  • Allison Ross

Abstract

Most discussions of risk are developed in broadly consequentialist terms, focusing on the outcomes of risks as such. This paper will provide an alternative account of risk from a virtue ethical perspective, shifting the focus on the decision to take the risk. Making ethical decisions about risk is, we will argue, not fundamentally about the actual chain of events that the decision sets in process, but about the reasonableness of the decision to take the risk in the first place. A virtue ethical account of risk is needed because the notion of the 'reasonableness' of the decision to take the risk is affected by the complexity of the moral status of particular instances of risk-taking and the risk-taker's responsiveness to these contextual features. The very idea of 'reasonable risk' welcomes judgements about the nature of the risk itself, raises questions about complicity, culpability and responsibility, while at its heart, involves a judgement about the justification of risk which unavoidably focuses our attention on the character of the individuals involved in risk-making decisions.

Suggested Citation

  • Nafsika Athanassoulis & Allison Ross, 2010. "A virtue ethical account of making decisions about risk," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2), pages 217-230, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jriskr:v:13:y:2010:i:2:p:217-230
    DOI: 10.1080/13669870903126309
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13669870903126309
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13669870903126309?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kristin Shrader‐Frechette, 2000. "Duties to Future Generations, Proxy Consent, Intra‐ and Intergenerational Equity: The Case of Nuclear Waste," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(6), pages 771-778, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kenneth Silver, 2023. "Markets Within the Limit of Feasibility," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 182(4), pages 1087-1101, February.
    2. Marina Balboa & Germán López-Espinosa & Antonio Rubia, 2012. "Non-linear Dynamics in Discretionary Accruals: An Analysis of Bank Loan-Loss Provisions," Faculty Working Papers 07/12, School of Economics and Business Administration, University of Navarra.
    3. Daniel J. Rozell, 2018. "The Ethical Foundations of Risk Analysis," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(8), pages 1529-1533, August.
    4. Johannes Brinkmann, 2013. "Combining Risk and Responsibility Perspectives: First Steps," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 112(4), pages 567-583, February.
    5. Max Boholm, 2012. "The Semantic Distinction Between “Risk” and “Danger”: A Linguistic Analysis," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(2), pages 281-293, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Taebi, Behnam & Roeser, Sabine & van de Poel, Ibo, 2012. "The ethics of nuclear power: Social experiments, intergenerational justice, and emotions," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 202-206.
    2. Behnam Taebi & Andrew C. Kadak, 2010. "Intergenerational Considerations Affecting the Future of Nuclear Power: Equity as a Framework for Assessing Fuel Cycles," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(9), pages 1341-1362, September.
    3. Lin Cai & Yating Xu & Kaiqi Zhang & Caiya Zhang & Zhengzhe Xiang, 2022. "A New Measurement of Global Equity in a Sustainability Perspective: Examining Differences from Space and Time Dimensions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-18, August.
    4. Jenkins, Kirsten & Sovacool, Benjamin K. & McCauley, Darren, 2018. "Humanizing sociotechnical transitions through energy justice: An ethical framework for global transformative change," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 66-74.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:jriskr:v:13:y:2010:i:2:p:217-230. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RJRR20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.