Abstract
In this chapter I discuss one way in which emotions might play a role in rational decisions regarding the moral acceptability of technological risks and one way in which emotions tend to make such decisions less rational.
One way in which emotions can enhance the rationality of decisions regarding the moral acceptability of technological risks is by helping to clarify what exactly the risks are that a person associates with a given technological development. Once emotions have been used to help clarify what these risks are, the likelihood of those risks can and should be assessed by non-emotional means.
One way in which emotions tend to reduce the rationality of decisions regarding the moral acceptability of technological risks is by causing us to pay more attention to potential harm than the potential benefit of developing a given technology, or vice versa. It may be necessary to use emotional debiasing strategies to counteract this “luddite bias”.
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Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Sabine Roeser for her comments on several previous versions of this manuscript.
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Evans, D. (2010). Emotions as Aids and Obstacles in Thinking About Risky Technologies. In: Roeser, S. (eds) Emotions and Risky Technologies. The International Library of Ethics, Law and Technology, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8647-1_5
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