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More About This Title From Ethical Review to Responsible Research and Innovation
English
The scientific and technological upheavals of the 20th Century and the questions and difficulties that went along with them (climate change, nuclear energy, GMO, etc.) have increased the necessity of thinking about and formalizing technoscientific progress and its consequences. Expert evaluations and ethics committees today cannot be the only legitimate sources for understanding the social acceptability and desirability of this progress. Responsibility must be shared out on a wider scale, as much in society as in the process of research and innovation projects.
This book presents the main works of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) from a moral responsibility point of view, for which it calls upon no fewer than 10 understandings to bring out those which are positive and to support an interpretive and combinatory pluralism. In this sense, it demonstrates moral innovation. It analyzes numerous cases and proposes perspectives that are rarely discussed in this emerging field (current practices of ethical evaluation, concerns of the integrity of research, means for participatory technological evaluation, etc.). It contributes to the pledges of RRI, which largely remains theoretically undetermined even though it reorganizes the relationships between science, innovation and society.
English
Sophie Pellé is a doctor in economic epistemology. Since 2010, while working on French and European research projects (Nano2e, GREAT), she has focused specifically on the ethics and governance of science and technology.
Bernard Reber is a philosopher and doctor in political research at Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris, France, a CNRS research director and a member of the Centre de recherches politiques de Sciences Po (Cevipof).
English
Foreword ix
Introduction xiii
Chapter 1. Research Ethics Expertise 1
1.1. Introduction 1
1.2. Several possible areas to identify ethical issues 2
1.3. ERs in European projects 6
1.3.1. Review procedure 6
1.3.2. The work of evaluators in ethics 10
1.3.3. Research ethics in 10 issues 14
1.4. Limits of what is termed “ethics” investigation 20
1.4.1. Inflation of background legal texts for ethical principles lists 21
1.4.2. Closer to law than ethics 25
1.4.3. Fictitious separation between “technical” and ethical assessment 27
1.5. Moving to ethics 29
1.5.1. Morals and ethics, an issue of level of analysis 30
1.5.2. Pluralism of ethical theories 31
Chapter 2. Responsible Research and Innovation: a Composite and Ambitious Notion 35
2.1. Introduction 35
2.2. RRI According to the EC: variable geometry space 37
2.2.1. Participation of stakeholders 39
2.2.2. Gender equality 42
2.2.3. Open science 44
2.2.4. Scientific literacy 46
2.2.5. Governance and ethics 47
2.3. What are the relationships between RRI pillars? 48
2.4. RRI conceptions in research 50
2.4.1. RRI conditions 51
2.4.2. A RRI research program 55
2.5. Ethical reviews and responsible innovation 64
2.5.1. Tension between ERs and RRI 64
2.5.2. Are ER so far from RRI? 66
2.5.3. RRI an opportunity for ER? 66
2.6. Conclusion 68
Chapter 3. Responsibility: A Polysemous Concept 69
3.1. Negative understandings 72
3.1.1. Responsibility as blameworthiness (2) 73
3.1.2. Responsibility as liability (3) 74
3.1.3. Responsibility as accountability: the passive form (4a) 75
3.2. Responsibility: between excessive pressure and dilution 76
3.2.1. The lack of normative commitment 77
3.2.2. Dilution of responsibility 80
3.2.3. Understandings of responsibility with no agent 82
3.3. The example of scientists' responsibility 84
3.3.1. The atom bomb: responsibility as blame and management ex post facto 84
3.3.2. Responsibility: the individual and the collective 89
3.3.3. The Aquila earthquake and the responsibility of scientists in helping to reach a decision 91
3.4. Conclusion 95
Chapter 4. Responsibility in Innovation and Research: The Need for Moral Innovation 97
4.1. Descriptive understandings of responsibility 99
4.1.1. Responsibility as task (or role) (5) and as authority (6) 99
4.1.2. Responsibility as capacity (7) 100
4.2. The normative understandings 101
4.2.1. Responsibility as moral obligation (8) 102
4.2.2. Responsibility as responsiveness (9) 103
4.2.3. Responsibility as virtue 105
4.3. Conclusion 112
Chapter 5. Governance Devices and RRI Put to the Test 117
5.1. Introduction 117
5.2. RRI premises in certain scientific projects 118
5.2.1. Case 1: when ethical is confused with legal 119
5.2.2. Case 2 participation as consultation 123
5.2.3. Case 3 in-depth but powerless ethical reflection 127
5.2.4. Case 4: When deliberation is not co-construction 130
5.2.5. Conclusive remarks for project analysis 134
5.3. Institutional design options for participation 135
5.3.1. The title of procedures 137
5.3.2. Social ontology 137
5.3.3. Margins and types of participation 138
5.3.4. Capacities, roles and virtues of participants 139
5.4. Hybrid and interinstitutional deliberations 141
5.4.1. The General Assembly for Bioethics (Etats généraux de la bioéthique) (France) 141
5.4.2. European “Meeting of Minds” for the consideration of research on the brain 146
5.5. Participation, but what for? 151
5.5.1. Assessment of consequences and technical options 151
5.5.2. Extension of perspective for research and development policies 151
5.5.3. Agenda setting 152
5.5.4. Cartography of public scientific controversies 152
5.5.5. More interactive surveys 152
5.5.6. “Covering all arguments” 153
5.5.7. Reframing of the debate 153
5.5.8. Mediation 153
5.5.9. Recommendations for policies dedicated to new technological domains 154
5.5.10. New forms of governance 155
Conclusion 159
Bibliography 169
Index 183
