^aRoyal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

Correspondence: Hélène Hermansson, Department of Philosophy, Teknikringen 78B, Royal Institute of Technology, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden. E-mail: heleneh@infra.kth.se

Abstract

Ethical aspects are crucial in the analysis of risk, but they have often been neglected. One of the reasons for this is the lack of operational tools for the ethical analysis of risks. A model for ethical risk analysis is proposed that focuses on the ethical relationships between three critical parties (or roles) that are present in almost all risk-related decisions: the risk-exposed, the beneficiary and the decision-maker. Seven crucial questions are proposed that can be used to characterize these relationships. It is shown with examples from the railway sector how they can be used to identify the salient ethical features of risk management problems.