Adriana PLACANI

This project re-conceptualizes retrospective moral responsibility in order to address cases of risk imposition. Moral theories have traditionally addressed retrospective responsibility ascriptions in contexts of complete certainty, where actual harms or wrongs are assumed to have occurred. These theories have implemented and relied on responsibility models that, by virtue of the assumption of certainty, omit the importance, moral ramifications, and grounds for responsibility attributions in cases of risk. On the face of it, then, it appears that traditional responsibility models are unable to address the moral and ethical nuances of risks because of their built-in suppositions. Rather than forsaking such models wholesale, this project’s working hypothesis is that they can be modified and extended to accommodate risk cases. The project’s aim is to re-conceptualize traditional responsibility theories so that risk cases may be properly addressed and, in so doing, develop a novel normative framework for the justified allocation and assessment of individual moral responsibility for risk impositions.

Adriana Placani is Assistant Professor in Political Philosophy at the University of Graz, Austria. Her areas of specialisation are moral philosophy, political philosophy, and ethics. Her current research focuses on the ethics of risk, particularly on the morality of risk impositions and responsibility for risks. Her previous appointments include a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Centre for Advanced Study of Sofia (Bulgaria) and a Visiting Scholar position at Columbia University (New York, USA). She received her BA from the Bucharest University of Economics Studies (Bucharest, Romania), her MA in Political Theory from Central European University (Budapest, Hungary), and her PhD from LUISS Guido Carli (Rome, Italy). Her publications include the edited volume Ethics and Risk in Ethical Perspectives, and various articles and book chapters (e.g., When the Risk of arm Harms in Law and Philosophy; Constitutive and Regulative Rules: A Dispute and a resolution in Phenomenology and Mind; Ethical Dimensions of Risk: Beck and Beyond in Law in the Risk Society).

PLACANI, Adriana, MEYER, L., STELZER, H., DÜVEL, E. & PÖLZLER T. "Ethics and Risks", in Ethical Perspectives, Vol. 25.3, Centre for Ethics of KU Leuven & Peeters Publishers, Leuven, 2018.

PLACANI, Adriana, MEYER, L., SCHUPPERT, F. & STELZER, H. "Risk and Rights: How to Deal with Risks from Rights-Based Perspective", in Towards the ethics of a green future. The theory and practive of rights for future people (DÜWELL, Marcus, BOS, Gerhard & VAN STEENBERGEN, Naomi), Routledge, 2018.

PLACANI, Adriana. "Constitutive and Regulative Rules: A Dispute and a Resolution", in Norm: What it is? Phenomenological and Pragmatical Perspectives, special issue (DI LUCIA, Paolo & PASSERINI GLAZEL, Lorenzo), Phenomenology and Mind, n°13, 2017, pp. 56-66.

PLACANI, Adriana. "Ethical Dimensions of Risks: Beck and Beyond", in Law in the Risk Society (FANNING, John et DE VRIES, Bald), The Hague, Eleven International Publishing, 2017, pp. 101-115.

PLACANI, Adriana. "When the Risk of Harm Harms", in Law and Philosophy, Vol. 36, n°1, 2017, pp. 77-100.