Moral Context and Risks of Death

When an industry poses a risk of premature death to consumers, workers, or others, regulatory agencies employ a figure known as the “value of a statistical life” (VSL) to monetize the life-saving benefit of regulations designed to reduce that risk. Use of the VSL, which currently hovers around $9 million, has been highly controversial. While a number of prominent scholars have vigorously endorsed the VSL as necessary to the cost-benefit analysis of mortality risk regulations, other prominent scholars have vehemently rejected the very idea of attaching a monetary value to a statistical human life. This article stakes out a novel and more nuanced position based on a largely neglected aspect of mortality risk regulation: moral context.

Consumption risks—risks of death associated with using or consuming a particular product—typically fall on consumers who not only benefit meaningfully from the industry but who also bear all or substantially all of the costs of risk-reducing regulations. Using a VSL to guide risk regulation in this moral context is defensible on the basis of the norm of personal autonomy. By contrast, workplace risks—risks of death associated with employment in a particular industry—typically fall on workers who benefit from the industry but who do not bear the costs of risk-reducing regulations. In this moral context, using a VSL to guide risk regulation is not normatively defensible.

However, using the underlying economic concept of willingness-to-pay to guide the regulation of workplace mortality risks is defensible on the basis of the norm of equity.