ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book argues that risk emotions are important ingredients to moral reflection on risky technologies. It provides an alternative thesis, namely that emotions should actually play a vital role in risk debates as they point to important moral values that need to be taken into account in decision making about risks. The book also provides a normative philosophical discussion of the role of emotions in judging the moral acceptability of technological risks. It also defends a cognitive theory of risk emotions according to which risk emotions are necessary to have practical rationality and are therefore of vital importance to decision making about risks. It then provides for a critical discussion of current approaches to emotions, intuitions and moral values in decision making about risks. The book develops an epistemological argument for why emotions should be taken seriously in decision making about risks.
