Introduction

From a classical and neo-classical point of view, the concept of risk is closely linked to that of profit, in the sense that taking a risk legitimizes economic profit as it is perceived by the entrepreneur. As David Hume wrote, ‘men must have profits proportion able to their expence and hazard’. The rational agent is thus supposed to engage in evaluating risks ahead of time, in order to invest if and only if the rates of profit vary in the same direction as the intensity of risks. Such a procedure can be envisioned only when it is possible to determine ahead of time the probability of an event – hence the necessity of introducing the distinction between risk and uncertainty proposed by Frank Knight. On the one hand, we would be dealing with predictable events, the probability of which could be expressed in quantified form after having been calculated. On the other hand, uncertainty would signify the opposite: that is, the impossibility of assigning a mathematical probability to any given event.

In the standard literature, the notion of risk reflects first of all a probabilistic grasp of the future, and secondly, a purely economic conception of profit and therefore of the notion of risk itself, in that this notion cannot be dissociated from that of profit.