I’m wondering a bit about this definition. One interpretation of it is that you’re saying something like this:
“The expected future suffering is X. The risk that event E occurs is an S-risk if and only if E occurring raises the expected future suffering significantly above X.”
But I think that definition doesn’t work. Suppose that it is almost certain (99,9999999%) that a particular event E will occur, and that it would cause a tremendous amount of suffering. Then the expected future suffering is already very large (if I understand that concept correctly). And, because E is virtually certain to occur, it occurring will not actually bring about suffering in cosmically significant amounts relative to expected future suffering. And yet intuitively this is an S-risk, I’d say.
Another interpretation of the definition is:
”The expected future suffering is X. The risk that event E occurs is an S-risk if and only if the difference in suffering between E occurring and E not occurring is significant relative to X.”
That does take care of that issue, since, by hypothesis, the difference between E occurring and E not occurring is a tremendous amount of suffering.
Alternatively, you may want to say that the risk that E occurs is an S-risk if and only if occurring brings about a significant amount of suffering relative to what we expect to occur from other causes. That may be a more intuitive way of thinking about this.
A feature of this definition is that the risk of an event E1 occurring can be S-risk even if it occurring would cause much less suffering than another event E2 would, provided that E1 is much more likely to occur than E2. But if we increase our credence that E2 will occur, then the risk of E1 occurring will cease to be an S-risk, since it no longer will cause a significant amount of suffering relative to expected future suffering.
I guess that some would find that unintuitive, and that something being an S-risk shouldn’t depend on us adjusting our credences in independent events occurring in this way. But it depends a bit what perspective you have.
I’m wondering a bit about this definition. One interpretation of it is that you’re saying something like this:
“The expected future suffering is X. The risk that event E occurs is an S-risk if and only if E occurring raises the expected future suffering significantly above X.”
But I think that definition doesn’t work. Suppose that it is almost certain (99,9999999%) that a particular event E will occur, and that it would cause a tremendous amount of suffering. Then the expected future suffering is already very large (if I understand that concept correctly). And, because E is virtually certain to occur, it occurring will not actually bring about suffering in cosmically significant amounts relative to expected future suffering. And yet intuitively this is an S-risk, I’d say.
Another interpretation of the definition is:
”The expected future suffering is X. The risk that event E occurs is an S-risk if and only if the difference in suffering between E occurring and E not occurring is significant relative to X.”
That does take care of that issue, since, by hypothesis, the difference between E occurring and E not occurring is a tremendous amount of suffering.
Alternatively, you may want to say that the risk that E occurs is an S-risk if and only if occurring brings about a significant amount of suffering relative to what we expect to occur from other causes. That may be a more intuitive way of thinking about this.
A feature of this definition is that the risk of an event E1 occurring can be S-risk even if it occurring would cause much less suffering than another event E2 would, provided that E1 is much more likely to occur than E2. But if we increase our credence that E2 will occur, then the risk of E1 occurring will cease to be an S-risk, since it no longer will cause a significant amount of suffering relative to expected future suffering.
I guess that some would find that unintuitive, and that something being an S-risk shouldn’t depend on us adjusting our credences in independent events occurring in this way. But it depends a bit what perspective you have.