The ethics of technological risk

Abstract

Traditional risk management often reduces technological hazards to mathematical probabilities and economic utility, a process that frequently obscures underlying moral values and distributive justice. Technological risk assessment is inherently normative, involving value-laden assumptions about what constitutes harm, how it should be measured, and who holds the authority to grant consent. A multidimensional framework is necessary to incorporate ethical imperatives such as intergenerational equity, strict liability in the absence of informed consent, and the moral status of non-human subjects in biomedical research. Methodological challenges, including the incommensurability of disparate risks and the limitations of ideal-advisor welfare models, indicate that quantitative cost-benefit analyses are often insufficient for complex societal decision-making. Furthermore, the role of affect, emotion, and imagination in public risk perception should be understood not as a cognitive bias requiring expert correction, but as a crucial source of moral insight and a prerequisite for legitimate risk governance. Effective risk management requires moving beyond technocratic paternalism toward deliberative democratization, utilizing national ethics councils and robust regulative frameworks to foster trust and ensure accountability. Ultimately, governing technological risk demands a synthesis of empirical analysis and explicit ethical reflection, acknowledging that the determination of acceptable risk levels is a social and moral decision rather than a purely technical calculation. – AI-generated abstract.