ArticleJournal of bioethical inquiry2012
Risk-benefit analysis: from a logical point of view.
Article in Journal of bioethical inquiry, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- A Pilot Evaluation of Expert and Novice Use of the Functional Analysis Risk Assessment Decision Tool.Behavior analysis in practice · 2025Article
- A comparative study on the governance approaches for biotechnological risks.Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2025Review
- Signposts in a familiar land?: a second (or third or fourth…) look at lingering bioethical concerns.Journal of bioethical inquiry · 2012Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In this paper I am concerned with risk-benefit analysis; that is, the comparison of the risks of a situation to its related benefits. We all face such situations in our daily lives and they are very common in medicine too, where risk-benefit analysis has become an important tool for rational decision-making. This paper explores risk-benefit analysis from a logical point of view. In particular, it seeks a better understanding of the common view that decisions should be made by weighing risks against benefits and that an option should be chosen if its benefits outweigh its risks. I devote a good deal of this paper scrutinizing this popular view. Specifically, I demonstrate that this mode of reasoning is logically faulty if "risk" and "benefit" are taken in their absolute sense. But I also show that arguing in favour of an action because its benefits outweigh its risks can be valid if we refer to incremental risks and benefits.
Indexed as
Identifiers
23180259What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.