A unificationist approach to wrongful pure risking

Abstract

What makes cases of pure risking sometimes wrong? There is a strong intuition that the wrongness of pure risking stands in an explanatory relationship with the wrongness of the non-risky act. Yet, we cannot simply take this for granted insofar as in cases of wrongful pure risking, the risked outcome fails to materialize. To this end, I motivate and develop an under explored approach in the literature that I call Unificationism. According to the Unificationist account that I defend, the fact that pure risking φ is pro tanto wrong is grounded by a general moral fact that φ-ing is pro tanto or all-things-considered wrong, other things being equal. This relationship holds even if and when an agent's risky conduct fails to transpire or culminate into φ-ing ex post. I argue that this Unificationist account captures our explanatory intuition, avoids problems of extensional and explanatory inadequacy that existing alternative faces, and most importantly, renders Unificationism as a plausible view within the ethics of pure risking.