The 7th PE-DPS: Lior Nissim Grinman on risk and wellbeing

This session features our guest Lior Nissim Grinman (Hebrew University of Jerusalem).

The standard economic theory of decision-making postulates that people have a natural attitude towards risk with respect to utility. However, several philosophers have recently suggested that there is more than one normatively permissible way to think about attitudes towards risk. Furthermore, such pluralistic approaches to risk seem to be explanatory of several choice patterns that are commonly ruled out as irrational in orthodox decision theory. Even more recently, some of these philosophers have taken a further step by arguing that risk seems to have an inherent value in itself in decision-making. If convincing, this can have important implications for policymaking. Decision theory in its normative form is commonly used in public decision-making as a model to choose the policy that would maximize people’s well-being. Thus, adopting the pluralistic-inherent view of risk raises the question of what does risk expresses in terms of well-being. This presentation will argue that, first, accepting such a view towards risk should make us skeptical of purely subjective notions of well-being; and secondly, that it can be well captured using a perfectionist account of well-being.

The key claim of the presentation will be that attitudes towards risk should be thought of as a certain virtue – specifically, prudence and venturesomeness; and that these virtues are well captured within perfectionist account of wellbeing.

Key questions for discussion

1. Are all types of attitudes towards risk can be thought of as a virtue? Especially being risk-
   inclined?

2. Is having a "risk" attitude towards a goal essential for our capacities as humans? I.e. do we consider how prudent or venturesome we want to be in every decision we make?

3. Is a perfectionist account of well-being is well (or even best) suited to capture risk as a virtue or something that contributes to one’s well-being?