Abstract

Several types of inferences are employed in the diagnosis and prognosis of patients with brain injuries and disorders of consciousness. These inferences introduce unavoidable uncertainty, and can be evaluated in light of inductive risk: the epistemic and nonepistemic risks of being wrong. This article considers several ethically significant inductive risks generated by and interacting with inferences about patients with disorders of consciousness, and argues for prescriptive measures to manage and mitigate inductive risk in the context of disorders of consciousness.