ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the concept of “representational risk.” The first section describes the concept and explains why it is useful to distinguish representational risk from inductive risk. The second section analyzes representational risk using a simplified health economics model on the topic of asthma and air purifiers, called the “LEAP-SIMPLE” model. By analyzing the nature of representational decisions and the unique downstream harms that can result from them, it can be shown how representational risk is a fruitful lens through which to analyze the role of values in science. The third section concludes by pointing to future questions philosophers could ask about representational risk.
Readers may be interested in these Handbook chapters as well: Ahmad Elabbar, “Values and Assessment Reports on Climate Change”; Kevin C. Elliott, “Arguments Against the Value-Free Ideal”; Greg Lusk “Philosophical Approaches to Values in Climate Science.”
