Niklas Vareman

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Epistemic Risk

The articles included in this thesis centre on what can be called the normative basis of risk analysis. Since risk analyses are decision procedures, they should adhere to norms of rational decision-making, and this they do. Most risk analysis schemes are built on a notion of the decision theoretic maxim that the goal of every decision is to maximize expected utility. However, for some thirty years now this maxim has been called into question. The idea is not that it is unreasonable in itself, but that the theoretical construct of which it is a consequence is in some way inappropriate. Idealizations of the theories are criticized for being too excessive. They do not properly cover cases where the decision maker has poor or, as it were, imprecise knowledge. If it is important for a normative decision theory to be not only ideal as a theoretical construct, but to have, in addition, a prescriptive purpose, that theory should also be applicable to actual decision makers.