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Title: ‘Lexical Priority, Decision Theory and De Minimis Risk’

Abstract: Say that one moral requirement takes lexical priority over another just in case violations of the former can never be outweighed or counterbalanced by violations of the latter. While lexical priority is arguably a feature of many ethical systems, attempts to model it within the framework of decision theory have led to a series of difficulties – a fact which is sometimes spun as a ‘decision theoretic critique’ of lexical priority. In this paper, I will develop an enriched decision theoretic framework that is capable of overcoming one of the major obstacles to modelling lexical priority. The key move is to introduce, into decision theory, a non-probabilistic conception of risk known as ²Ô´Ç°ù³¾¾±³¦Ìýrisk.