Sven Ove Hansson

In the last half century, decision theory has had a deep influence on moral theory. Its impact has largely been beneficial. However, it has also given rise to some problems, two of which are discussed here. First, issues such as risk-taking and risk imposition have been left out of ethics since they are believed to belong to decision theory, and consequently the ethical aspects of these issues have not been treated in either discipline. Secondly, ethics has adopted the decision-theoretical idea that action-guidance has to be based on cause–effect or means–ends relationships between an individual action and its possible outcomes. This is problematic since the morally relevant connections between an action and future events are not fully covered by such relationships. In response to the first problem it is proposed that moral theory should deal directly and extensively with issues such as risk-taking and risk imposition, thereby intruding unabashedly into the traditional territory of decision theory. As a partial response to the second problem it is proposed that moral theorizing should release itself from the decision-theoretical requirement that the moral status of an action has to be derivable from the consequences (or other properties) that are assignable to that action alone. In particular, the effects that an action can have in combination with other actions by the same or other agents are valid arguments in an action-guiding moral discourse, even if its contribution to these combined consequences cannot be isolated and evaluated separately.

Contrary to the received view, decision theory is not primarily devoted to instrumental (ends-to-means) reasoning. Instead, its major preoccupation is the derivation of ends from other ends. Given preferences over basic alternatives, it constructs preferences over alternatives that have been modified through the addition of value object modifiers (modes) that specify probability, uncertainty, distance in time etc. A typology of the decision-theoretical modes is offered. The modes do not have (even extrinsic) value, but they transform the value of objects to which they are applied. A rational agent's total set of preferences should be coherent, but from this it does not follow that her preferences over mode-containing objects have to be derivable from her preferences over mode-free objects.

Analytical tools that give precision to the concept of "independence of syntax" are developed in the form of a series of substitutivity principles. These principles are applied in a study of the rôle of language in belief revision theory. It is shown that sets of sentences can be used in models of belief revision to convey more information than what is conveyed by the combined propositional contents of the respective sets. It is argued that it would be unwise to programmatically restrain the use of sets of sentences to that of representing propositional contents. Instead, the expressive power of language should be used as fully as possible. Therefore, syntax-independence should not be seen as a criterion of adequacy for language-based models of information-processing, but rather as a property that emerges from some but not all the idealization processes through which such models are constructed.

When presented with a situation involving an agent’s choice between alternative actions, a moral oracle says what the agent is allowed to do. The oracle bases her advice on some moral theory, but the nature of that theory is not known by us. The moral oracle’s test consists in determining whether a series of questions to the oracle can be so constructed that her answers will reveal which of two given types of theories she adheres to. The test can be applied to moral theories in order to determine if they differ in their recommendations for action. Based on this test, a terminology is developed to specify different forms and degrees of distinguishability between moral theories, or types of theories, in terms of their recommendations for action. In conclusion, the test is applied to consequentialism and utilitarianism.

Ethicists have investigated ethical problems in other disciplines, but there has not been much discussion of the ethics of their own activities. Research in ethics has many ethical problems in common with other areas of research, and it also has problems of its own. The researcher’s integrity is more precarious than in most other disciplines, and therefore even stronger procedural checks are needed to protect it. The promotion of some standpoints in ethical issues may be socially harmful, and even our decisions as to which issues we label as “ethical” may have unintended and potentially harmful social consequences. It can be argued that ethicists have an obligation to make positive contributions to society, but the practical implications of such an obligation are not easily identified. This article provides an overview of ethical issues that arise in research into ethics and in the application of such research. It ends with a list of ten practical proposals for how these issues should be dealt with.

In order to avoid the paradoxes of standard deontic logic, we have to give up the semantic construction that identifies obligatory status with presence in all elements of a subset of the set of possible worlds. It is proposed that deontic logic should instead be based on a preference relation, according to the principle that whatever is better than something permitted is itself permitted. Close connections hold between the logical properties of a preference relation and those of the deontic logics that are derived from it in this way. The paradoxes of SDL can be avoided with this construction, but it is still an open question what type of preference relation is best suited to be used as a basis for deontic logic.

The purpose of this presentation is to introduce both the concept of risk and the precautionary principle, that is a major policy principle in present-day risk management. Since risk has been the subject of many misconceptions I will do this in large part by criticizing seven views on risk that I believe to have caused considerable confusion both among scientists and policy-makers. But before looking at the seven myths of risk, let us begin with the basic issue of defining “risk”. The word “risk” often refers, rather vaguely, to situations in which it is possible but not certain that some undesirable event will occur. In addition, the word has several more specialized meanings. Let me illustrate this by making a few statements about the single most important preventable health hazard in non-starving countries. First: “Lung cancer is one of the major risks that affect smokers.” Here, we use “risk” in the following sense: (1) risk = an unwanted event which may or may not occur. 1 (15).