Risk, Responsibility, and Their Relations

Philosophical interest in the relationship between risk and responsibility continues to rise, which is in no small part due to environmental crises, emerging technologies, legal developments, and new medical advances. In spite of such interest, scholars are still working out how to conceive of the links between risk and responsibility, the implications that risks may have to conceptions of responsibility (and vice versa), as well as how such theorizing may play out in applied cases. This chapter provides an introduction and overview of the two concepts that are essential to this work - risk and responsibility. It examines the concepts of risk and responsibility by detailing some of their definitions, senses, and dimensions. This achieves the aims of introducing the topic of this book by way of outlining its constituent parts as well as orientating and guiding the reader. This chapter also details the ways in which Risk and Responsibility in Context, through its various contributions, brings together new work examining the interplay between risk and responsibility, exploring its varied philosophical aspects and applications in different contexts. In these ways, this chapter helps to contextualize and explain, rather than exhaust, the concepts of risk and responsibility and how they are treated in this book.