ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters in this book. The book suggests that the picture is far more complex than this dichotomisation of experts and lay people suggests. It contributes to the ethics of risk by exploring issues concerned with moral responsibility and risk. The book focuses on ethical aspects of risk, particularly related to different notions of moral responsibility. It argues that responsibility ascriptions and distributions can be analysed in terms of two values: fairness and efficacy. The book explores how ethical technological development needs this kind of responsibility-taking to reduce and manage risks. It discusses responsible risk communication as requiring an ethically acceptable message, a legitimate procedure and an ethical analysis of its effects. The book deals with children as developing moral agents and how their development is facilitated or impaired by adults and through technology.
