ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the discussion of ethics in risk analysis by focusing on the qualities of the individual risk analyst rather than solely on the value possibly lost in a risky situation. It utilizes the term “risk analysis” as a verb signifying the analyst’s act of depicting risk. The chapter explores the issue of whether virtues really are so remote from the practice of scientific risk analysis. The risk analyst might exemplify virtue both in choosing the ends of an analysis and in striving to reach those ends through the highest ideals of human contemplation and action. In virtue theory, the ethical focus shifts from the risky situation to the act of analysis and to the analyst carrying out that act. In both utilitarian and Kantian ethical theory, the risk analyst is drawn to ethical questions in considering where value may be lost in a risky situation.
