bigideas

There is a wonderfully dark metric used by, among others, transport safety experts: CPF, that is Cost of Preventing a Fatality. When investing in a safety system, the decision will often come down to whether the cost of the system per life saved stays below a budget. Remember that if the driver of your train or pilot of your plane looks a bit sleepy. Bizzare as such measures sound, we make similar judgements about risk on our and others’ behalf all the time. For ourselves this might be no-one else’s business but when we impose risks on others we are making a moral choice, one that might well be heavily influenced by economics. When we choose, is there a line to draw between acceptable and unacceptable risk? Where would, for example, the risk from passive smoking come in decisions about smoking in public? Or the risk of inaction against climate change? Professor Jonathan Wolff will be leading our discussion on a subject that has serious theoretical and practical implications. Jo is Professor of Philosophy at University College London, Principle Investigator on the AHRC funded project, The Ethics of Risk and a columnist for the Guardian; just some of the many appointments and qualifications that make him and ideal Big Ideas expert.