What are people's thoughts on the appropriateness of focusing on expected gain to deal with uncertain or risky outcomes? I was prompted to this question by the following passage in John Broome's 'Can there be a preference-based utilitarianism?':
He doesn't offer an argument besides the claimed implausibility of thinking that 'one should be neutral about risk to good' (though footnote 4 does say 'This argument is more fully spelt out in Weighing Goods, Section 6.1. '). I don't necessarily find this implausible, but perhaps haven't thought about it enough. Are there any arguments on one side or the other?
Uncertainty can be handled within either a theory of right or a theory of good. Within the
theory of right, utilitarians sometimes offer this principle: when choosing between acts, one
should choose the one that gives the greatest expectation of good.2 Daniel Bernoulli appears
to have assumed this,3 and it is a version of what I call ‘Bernoulli’s hypothesis’. It is
implausible, at least on the face of it, because it implies one should be neutral about risk to
good. The act that produces the greatest expectation of good may be more risky than other
options: the variance in the amount of good it leads to may be higher than for other options. If
so, perhaps one should choose a safer act that gives a lower expectation of good. We should
not take Bernoulli’s hypothesis for granted, then. But once we give it up, it is not easy to
produce a sufficiently general principle within the theory of right to handle uncertainty
convincingly.
For that reason, I think uncertainty is better handled within the theory of good.4 As a
principle of right, I think utilitarians should say that, when choosing between acts, one should
choose the one that will lead to the best prospect. Then, within their theory of good, they
should have an account of the goodness of prospects. A prospect is a portfolio of possible
outcomes, each of which might come about. The goodness of a prospect will depend on the
goodness of its possible outcomes. Bernoulli’s hypothesis implies specifically that it is the
expected goodness of its possible outcomes. But there is room within the theory of good for a
more general account of the goodness of prospects.
He doesn't offer an argument besides the claimed implausibility of thinking that 'one should be neutral about risk to good' (though footnote 4 does say 'This argument is more fully spelt out in Weighing Goods, Section 6.1. '). I don't necessarily find this implausible, but perhaps haven't thought about it enough. Are there any arguments on one side or the other?