This book discusses issues regarding conceptualization, governance and implementation of responsible innovation. It treats different approaches to making responsible innovation a reality and it contains new case studies that illustrate challenges and solutions. Research on Responsible Innovation is by its nature highly multidisciplinary, and also pro-active, design-oriented and policy-relevant. Until a few years back, the concept of Responsible Innovation was hardly used - nowadays it is increasingly receiving attention from both researchers and policy makers. This is indispensable reading for anyone (...) interested in or working on innovation. (shrink)

This paper aims to provide an overview of surveillance theories and concepts that can help to understand and debate surveillance in its many forms. As scholars from an increasingly wide range of disciplines are discussing surveillance, this literature review can offer much-needed common ground for the debate. We structure surveillance theory in three roughly chronological/thematic phases. The first two conceptualise surveillance through comprehensive theoretical frameworks which are elaborated in the third phase. The first phase, featuring Bentham and Foucault, offers architectural (...) theories of surveillance, where surveillance is often physical and spatial, involving centralised mechanisms of watching over subjects. Panoptic structures function as architectures of power, not only directly but also through disciplining of the watched subjects. The second phase offers infrastructural theories of surveillance, where surveillance is networked and relies primarily on digital rather than physical technologies. It involves distributed forms of watching over people, with increasing distance to the watched and often dealing with data doubles rather than physical persons. Deleuze, Haggerty and Ericson, and Zuboff develop different theoretical frameworks than panopticism to conceptualise the power play involved in networked surveillance. The third phase of scholarship refines, combines or extends the main conceptual frameworks developed earlier. Surveillance theory branches out to conceptualise surveillance through concepts such as dataveillance, access control, social sorting, peer-to-peer surveillance and resistance. With the datafication of society, surveillance combines the physical with the digital, government with corporate surveillance and top-down with self-surveillance. (shrink)

Robots are slowly, but certainly, entering people's professional and private lives. They require the attention of regulators due to the challenges they present to existing legal frameworks and the new legal and ethical questions they raise. This paper discusses four major regulatory dilemmas in the field of robotics: how to keep up with technological advances; how to strike a balance between stimulating innovation and the protection of fundamental rights and values; whether to affirm prevalent social norms or nudge social norms (...) in a different direction; and, how to balance effectiveness versus legitimacy in techno-regulation. The four dilemmas are each treated in the context of a particular modality of regulation: law, market, social norms, and technology as a regulatory tool; and for each, we focus on particular topics? such as liability, privacy, and autonomy? that often feature as the major issues requiring regulatory attention. The paper then highlights the role and potential of the European framework of rights and values, responsible research and innovation, smart regulation and soft law as means of dealing with the dilemmas. (shrink)

Societies evolve practices that reflect social norms of appropriateness in social interaction, for example when and to what extent one should respect the boundaries of another person’s private sphere. One such practice is what the sociologist Erving Goffman called civil inattention—the social norm of showing a proper amount of indifference to others—which functions as an almost unnoticed yet highly potent privacy-preserving mechanism. These practices can be disrupted by technologies that afford new forms of intrusions. In this paper, we show how (...) new networked technologies, such as facial recognition, challenge our ability to practice civil inattention. We argue for the need to revitalise, in academic and policy debates, the role of civil inattention and related practices in regulating behaviour in public space. Our analysis highlights the relational nature of privacy and the importance of social norms in accomplishing and preserving it. While our analysis goes some way in supporting current calls to ban FR technology, we also suggest that, pending a ban and in light of the power of norms to limit what is otherwise technically possible, cultivating new practices of civil inattention may help address the challenges raised by FR and other forms of digital surveillance in public. (shrink)

This book addresses the methodological issues involved in responsible innovation and provides an overview of recent applications of multidisciplinary research. Responsible innovation involves research into the ethical and societal aspects of new technologies (e.g. ICT, nanotechnology, biotechnology and brain sciences) and of changes in technological systems (e.g. energy, transport, agriculture and water). This research is highly multidisciplinary. It involves close collaboration between researchers in such diverse fields as ethics, social science, law, economics, applied science, engineering - as well as innovative, (...) design-oriented and policy-relevant. Although there is a trend to engage ethicists and social scientists early in technology development, most literature in the field of Technology Assessment or Ethics of Technology is still aimed at one discipline whereas this book incorporates different approaches and to discuss experiences, lessons and more general theoretical issues. (shrink)

IntroductionIDIS is a multidisciplinary journal with a focus on identity in the information society. The information society is usually associated with information and communication technologies, such as computers, mobile phones and the Internet, and with information in the form of computer- or human-readable data. In this special issue on genetics, information and identity, however, we focus on a different type of information, namely genetic information. The DNA of the human genome is often called a ‘blueprint’ of human life, containing information (...) that regulates—in various and very complex ways—most of the processes in human life. In this sense, genetics may well be considered an information technology in its own right.Genetic information is becoming ever more important in society, although current knowledge of the human genome and how the genome relates to human life is still limited. Nevertheless, what knowledge we have about the genetic make-up of people—whether in terms of congen .. (shrink)

Alfred Sohn-Rethel did not just elaborate a materialist theory of knowledge, he also introduced the term ‘real abstraction’ into Marxist debate. However, he locates the origin of commodity abstraction solely in the sphere of circulation, conceiving of production itself as a mere metabolism with nature. This conception, in which the critique of capitalism aims exclusively at distribution, and which rejects the Marxian concept of ‘abstract labour’, remains widespread. It is our express intention here to undertake a critique of such a (...) conception for the benefit of a critique of the very mode of capitalist production. (shrink)

How do Dutch people let each other know that they disagree? What do they say when they want to resolve their difference of opinion by way of an argumentative discussion? In what way do they convey that they are convinced by each other’s argumentation? How do they criticize each other’s argumentative moves? Which words and expressions do they use in these endeavors? By answering these questions this short essay provides a brief inventory of the language of argumentation in Dutch.

The study of argumentation is prospering. After its brilliant start in Antiquity, highlighted in the classical works of Aristotle, after an alternation of ups and downs during the following millennia, in the post-Renaissance period its gradual decline set in. Revitalization took place only after Toulmin and Perelman published in the same year their landmark works The Uses of Argument and La nouvelle rhétorique. The model of argumentation presented by Toulmin and Perelman’s inventory of argumentation techniques inspired a great many scholars (...) in various ways to take up the study of argumentation in a serious manner. Nowadays there are well-established logical approaches to argumentation, but also social and socio-psychological, linguistic, juridical and other approaches. In most of these approaches traces can be found of the influence of the classical and neo-classical argumentation theories just mentioned. (shrink)

Today, mechanisms and mechanistic explanation are very popular in philosophy of science and are deemed a welcome alternative to laws of nature and deductive‐nomological explanation. Starting from Mitchell's pragmatic notion of laws, I cast doubt on their status as a genuine alternative. I argue that (1) all complex‐systems mechanisms ontologically must rely on stable regularities, while (2) the reverse need not hold. Analogously, (3) models of mechanisms must incorporate pragmatic laws, while (4) such laws themselves need not always refer to (...) underlying mechanisms. Finally, I show that Mitchell's account is more encompassing than the mechanistic account *Received August 2008; revised January 2010. †To contact the author, please write to: Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science, Ghent University, Blandijnberg 2, B‐9000 Belgium; e‐mail: Bert[email protected]. (shrink)

We analyze ethical policies of firms in industrialized countries and try to find out whether culture is a factor that plays a significant role in explaining country differences. We look into the firm’s human rights policy, its governance of bribery and corruption, and the comprehensiveness, implementation and communication of its codes of ethics. We use a dataset on ethical policies of almost 2,700 firms in 24 countries. We find that there are significant differences among ethical policies of firms headquartered in (...) different countries. When we associate these ethical policies with Hofstede’s cultural indicators, we find that individualism and uncertainty avoidance are positively associated with a firm’s ethical policies, whereas masculinity and power distance are negatively related to these policies. (shrink)

In spite of the remarkable progress made in the burgeoning field of social neuroscience, the neural mechanisms that underlie social encounters are only beginning to be studied and could —paradoxically— be seen as representing the ‘dark matter’ of social neuroscience. Recent conceptual and empirical developments consistently indicate the need for investigations, which allow the study of real-time social encounters in a truly interactive manner. This suggestion is based on the premise that social cognition is fundamentally different when we are in (...) interaction with others rather than merely observing them. In this article, we outline the theoretical conception of a second-person approach to other minds and review evidence from neuroimaging, psychophysiological studies and related fields to argue for the development of a second-person neuroscience, which will help neuroscience to really go social; this may also be relevant for our understanding of psychiatric disorders construed as disorders of social cognition. (shrink)

In the 1940s and 1950s, Dutch scientists became increasingly critical of the practices of commercial dairy cattle breeders. Milk yields had hardly increased for decades, and the scientists believed this to be due to the fact that breeders still judged the hereditary potential of their animals on the basis of outward characteristics. An objective verdict on the qualities of breeding stock could only be obtained by progeny testing, the scientists contended: the best animals were those that produced the most productive (...) offspring. Some scientists had been making this claim since the beginning of the twentieth century. Why was it that their advice was apparently not heeded by breeders for so long? And what were the methods and beliefs that guided their practices? In this paper I intend to answer these questions by analysing the practical realities of dairy farming and stock breeding in The Netherlands between 1900 and 1950. Breeders continued to employ traditional breeding methods that had proven their effectiveness since the late eighteenth century. Their methods consisted in inbreeding - breeding in 'bloodlines,' as they called it - and selection on the basis of pedigree, conformation and milk recording data. Their aims were 'purity' and 'uniformity' of type. Progeny testing was not practiced due to practical difficulties. Before World War II, scientists acknowledged that genetic theory was of little practical use to breeders of livestock. Still, hereditary theory was considered to be helpful to assess the value of the breeders' methods. For instance, striving for purity was deemed to be consistent with Mendelian theory. Yet the term purity had different connotations for scientists and practical workers. For the former, it referred to homozygosity; for the latter, it rather buttressed the constancy of a distinct commercial ' brand.' Until the 1940s, practical breeders and most scientists were agreed that selecting animals purely for production was ill-advised. Cows of the extreme dairy type were believed to be prone to bovine tuberculosis. This conviction was at the basis of the development of 'the modern Friesian,' a rather robust type of dairy cow that was also valued for its aesthetically pleasing conformation and that became a commercial success. Contrary to the scientists' claims, it was not only for commercial reasons that breeders were reluctant to give up their modern Friesians after World War II, when the introduction of artificial insemination opened up the possibility of breeding more productive types by means of progeny testing. The political economy of breeding did indeed require breeders to protect their breed as a recognisable brand. Yet the moral economy of breeding must also be taken into account: the modern Friesian was also a product of widely shared normative standards of good and responsible farming. (shrink)

The right not to know is underappreciated in policy-making. Despite its articulation in medical law and ethics, policy-makers too easily let other concerns override the right not to know. This observation is triggered by a recent decision of the Dutch government on embryo selection for Huntington’s disease. This is a monogenetic debilitating disease without cure, leading to death in early middle age, and thus is a likely candidate for preimplantation genetic diagnosis. People possibly affected with the Huntington gene do not (...) always want to know their genetic status themselves, which is very burdensome knowledge. For prospective parents, this creates a difficulty in having unaffected children through embryo selection without knowing their own genetic status. A solution is provided by the exclusion test: it allows embryo selection while honouring the parents’ right not to know. The Dutch government however disallowed the exclusion test and chose to allow PGD on Huntington only for parents who test themselves first. To avoid “unnecessary” in-vitro fertilisation procedures for unaffected parents, prospective parents are “forced to know” before they can conceive through embryo selection. This article analyses the scope of the right not to know in the context of embryo selection against Huntington’s disease. It concludes that the right not to know implies that PGD against Huntington should be allowed by means of the exclusion test. (shrink)

Finance is grease to the economy. Therefore, we assume that it may affect corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the sustainability of economic development too. This paper discusses the transmission mechanisms between finance and sustainability. We find that there is no simple one-to-one relationship between financial development and sustainable development but there are various – often indirect – linkages. It appears that most of the literature concentrates on the role of public shareholders when it comes to changing corporate policy and performance (...) in a more sustainable direction. However, this focus neglects the potential impact of the credit channel and private equity on a firm’s non-financial policies and performance. These very powerful mechanisms can govern business policies and practices. Therefore, there appears to be much more scope for finance to promote socially and environmentally desirable activities and to discourage detrimental activities than has been acknowledged in the academic literature so far. (shrink)

Nanotechnology is a swiftly developing field of technology that is believed to have the potential of great upsides and excessive downsides. In the ethical debate there has been a strong tendency to strongly focus on either the first or the latter. As a consequence ethical assessments of nanotechnology tend to radically diverge. Optimistic visionaries predict truly utopian states of affairs. Pessimistic thinkers present all manner of apocalyptic visions. Whereas the utopian views follow from one-sidedly focusing on the potential benefits of (...) nanotechnology, the apocalyptic perspectives result from giving exclusive attention to possible worst-case scenarios. These radically opposing evaluations hold the risk of conflicts and unwanted backlashes. Furthermore, many of these drastic views are based on simplified and outdated visions of a nanotechnology dominated by self-replicating assemblers and nanomachines. Hence, the present state of the ethical debate on nanotechnology calls for the development of more balanced and better-informed assessments. As a first step in this direction this contribution presents a new method of framing the ethical debate on nanotechnology. Thus, the focus of this paper is on methodology, not on normative analysis. (shrink)

This article offers a general discussion of the concept of false hope. Its ultimate aim is to clarify the meaning and the relevance of that concept for medicine and medical research. In the first part, the concept of hope is discussed. I argue that hope is more than a combination of a desire and a belief about the probability that the desire will be fulfilled. Imagination and anticipation are as well components of hope. I also discuss if hope implies orientation (...) to action. In the second part, I examine the concept of false hope. I show that hope is false if it cannot be justified epistemically. There is, I argue, an intimate relation between false hope and ignorance. Hope is justified—“realistic”—when the hoping person knows and accepts experts’ judgement about the probability of hope fulfillment. I then argue that what matters for evaluating a person’s hope is not only whether it is realistic, but also whether it is reasonable in the light of the aim and goals that a person strives for in his life. Part three goes into the question of what is morally wrong about having or causing false hope. In the fourth part, the relevance is shown of the insights from the previous parts for the debate on false hope in medicine and clinical research. (shrink)

In this article, I present two conceptual problems for Craver's mutual manipulability account of constitutive relevance in mechanisms. First, constitutive relevance threatens to imply causal relevance despite Craver (and Bechtel)'s claim that they are strictly distinct. Second, if (as is intuitively appealing) parthood is defined in terms of spatio-temporal inclusion, then the mutual manipulability account is prone to counterexamples, as I show by a case of endosymbiosis. I also present a methodological problem (a case of experimental underdetermination) and formulate two (...) partial, but fallible solutions based on the notions of parthood and synchronicity. (shrink)

This article aims at providing a framework to assess corporate social responsibility with international banks. Currently, it is mainly rating institutions like EIRIS and KLD that provide information about firms’ social conduct and performance. However, this is costly information and it is not clear how the rating institutions arrive at their conclusion. We develop a framework to assess the social responsibility of internationally operating banks. We apply this framework to more than 30 institutions and find significant differences among individual banks, (...) countries, and regions. Furthermore, it appears that social responsibility of these banks has significantly improved between 2000 and 2005. (shrink)

In clinical moral decision making, emotions often play an important role. However, many clinical ethicists are ignorant, suspicious or even critical of the role of emotions in making moral decisions and in reflecting on them. This raises practical and theoretical questions about the understanding and use of emotions in clinical ethics support services. This paper presents an Aristotelian view on emotions and describes its application in the practice of moral case deliberation.According to Aristotle, emotions are an original and integral part (...) of (virtue) ethics. Emotions are an inherent part of our moral reasoning and being, and therefore they should be an inherent part of any moral deliberation. Based on Aristotle's view, we examine five specific aspects of emotions: the description of emotions, the attitude towards emotions, the thoughts present in emotions, the reliability of emotions, and the reasonable principle that guides an emotion. We then discuss three ways of dealing with emotions in the process of moral case deliberation. Finally, we present an Aristotelian conversation method, and present practical experiences using this method. (shrink)

Ethicists differ considerably in their reasons for using empirical data. This paper presents a brief overview of four traditional approaches to the use of empirical data: “the prescriptive applied ethicists,” “the theorists,” “the critical applied ethicists,” and “the particularists.” The main aim of this paper is to introduce a fifth approach of more recent date (i.e. “integrated empirical ethics”) and to offer some methodological directives for research in integrated empirical ethics. All five approaches are presented in a table for heuristic (...) purposes. The table consists of eight columns: “view on distinction descriptive-prescriptive sciences,” “location of moral authority,” “central goal(s),” “types of normativity,” “use of empirical data,” “method,” “interaction empirical data and moral theory,” and “cooperation with descriptive sciences.” Ethicists can use the table in order to identify their own approach. Reflection on these issues prior to starting research in empirical ethics should lead to harmonization of the different scientific disciplines and effective planning of the final research design. Integrated empirical ethics (IEE) refers to studies in which ethicists and descriptive scientists cooperate together continuously and intensively. Both disciplines try to integrate moral theory and empirical data in order to reach a normative conclusion with respect to a specific social practice. IEE is not wholly prescriptive or wholly descriptive since IEE assumes an interdepence between facts and values and between the empirical and the normative. The paper ends with three suggestions for consideration on some of the future challenges of integrated empirical ethics. (shrink)

We investigate how conventional asset managers account for environmental, social, and governance factors in their investment process. We do so on the basis of an international survey among fund managers. We find that many conventional managers integrate responsible investing in their investment process. Furthermore, we find that ESG information in particular is being used for red flagging and to manage risk. We find that many conventional fund managers have already adopted features of responsible investing in the investment process. Furthermore, we (...) argue and show that ESG investing is highly similar to fundamental investing. We also reveal that there is a substantial difference in the ways in which U.S. and European asset managers view ESG. (shrink)

Social and ecological research and theory are used to elaborate and enrich two important sets of accounts of language origins. One is the interdependence and shared intentionality hypothesis (e.g.,Tomasello, 2014a) of the ways in which humans became cooperative and conforming in ways that other apes did not, eventually leading to language. A second set of accounts addresses the emergence of bipedalism and its connections to language and to many other anatomical, cognitive, and social features that are distinctive in humans. Particular (...) attention is given to the carrying and caretaking of infants. Research and theory challenging common assumptions about the role of conformity in cooperation and conversation are reviewed and integrated into these accounts. Together these varying perspectives point toward a more dialogical, dynamic, and distributed understanding of social interactions and the values that motivate and constrain humans’ social and linguistic skills. (shrink)

Emotions play an important part in moral life. Within clinical ethics support (CES), one should take into account the crucial role of emotions in moral cases in clinical practice. In this paper, we present an Aristotelian approach to emotions. We argue that CES can help participants deal with emotions by fostering a joint process of investigation of the role of emotions in a case. This investigation goes beyond empathy with and moral judgment of the emotions of the case presenter. In (...) a moral case deliberation, the participants are invited to place themselves in the position of the case presenter and to investigate their own emotions in the situation. It is about critically assessing the facts in the case that cause the emotion and the related (moral) thoughts that accompany the emotion. It is also about finding the right emotion in a given situation and finding the right balance in dealing with that emotion. These steps in the moral inquiry give rise to group learning. It is a process of becoming open towards the perspectives of others, leading to new insights into what is an appropriate emotion in the specific situation. We show how this approach works in moral case deliberation. A physician presents a situation in which he is faced with a pregnant woman who is about to deliver multiple extremely premature infants at the threshold of viability. The moral deliberation of the case and the emotions therein leads to the participants’ conclusion that “compassion” is a more adequate emotion than “sadness”. The emotion “sadness” is pointed towards the tragedy that is happening to the woman. The emotion “compassion” is pointed towards the woman; it combines consideration and professional responsibility. Through the shift towards compassion, participants experienced more creativity and freedom to deal with the sad situation and to support the woman. The paper ends with an analysis and reflection on the deliberation process. In the conclusion we argue for more attention to emotions in clinical ethics support and offer some directions for doing this in the right way. (shrink)

Background Seven wards from three Norwegian mental health care institutions participated in a study in which regular ethics reflection groups focusing on coercion had been implemented and evaluated. This article presents a thematic overview of the ethical challenges identified based on a systematic qualitative analyses of 161 ethics reflection groups and some general observations on these ethical challenges. Results The ethical challenges are divided into four main thematic categories: formal coercion, informal coercion, uncertainty related to the Norwegian legislation on coercion (...) and professional role and identity. Some ethical challenges did not fit into these categories. Only 36% of the ethical challenges were related to the use of formal coercion or the interpretation of the health law. Conclusion Even within coercion regulated by law, weighing different moral values remains important to reflect upon the appropriateness of the possible use of coercion. (shrink)

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) is an organization which seeks to identify the causes of human cancer. Per agent, such as betel quid or Human Papillomaviruses, they review the available evidence deriving from epidemiological studies, animal experiments and information about mechanisms (and other data). The evidence of the different groups is combined such that an overall assessment of the carcinogenicity of the agent in question is obtained. In this paper, we critically review the IARC’s carcinogenicity evaluations. First (...) we show that serious objections can be raised against their criteria and procedures – more specifically regarding the role of mechanistic knowledge in establishing causal claims. Our arguments are based on the problem of confounders, of the assessment of the temporal stability of carcinogenic relations, and of the extrapolation from animal experiments. Then we address a very important question, viz. how we should treat the carcinogenicity evaluations that were based on the current procedures. After showing that this question is important, we argue that an overall dismissal of the current evaluations would be too radical. Instead, we argue in favour of a stepwise re-evaluation of the current findings. (shrink)

Some common explanations of issue polarization and echo chambers rely on social or cognitive mechanisms of exclusion. Accordingly, suggested interventions like “be more open-minded” target these mechanisms: avoid epistemic bubbles and don’t discount contrary information. Contrary to such explanations, we show how a much weaker mechanism—the preference for belief—can produce issue polarization in epistemic communities with little to no mechanisms of exclusion. We present a network model that demonstrates how a dynamic interaction between the preference for belief and common structures (...) of epistemic communities can turn very small unequal distributions of initial beliefs into full-blown polarization. This points to a different class of explanations, one that emphasizes the importance of the initial spread of information. We also show how our model complements extant explanations by including a version of biased assimilation and motivated reasoning—cognitive mechanisms of exclusion. We find that mechanisms of exclusion can exacerbate issue polarization, but may not be the ultimate root of it. Hence, the recommended interventions suggested by extant literature is expected to be limited and the problem of issue polarization to be even more intractable. (shrink)

The double subjectivity of conscience and the need to test conscientious objections -/- Abstract In spite of the collapse of the traditional objective concept of conscience and the subsequent subjectivation of conscience, conscientious objections are still often considered as a valid ground for exemption from legal and professional obligations. Conscientious objections are seen as more serious than ordinary moral objections. It is not evident why this is so. I argue, with Niklas Luhmann, that the function of conscience is to protect (...) the moral core of a person’s identity. Overruling conscientious objections threatens this core. Claims of conscience are usually founded on the right of freedom of conscience. This right is not absolute. I discuss the view of Richard Arneson who rejects the right of freedom of conscience and defends the right against conscience. I agree with Arneson that, at the one hand, conscientious objectors may constitute a threat to the social and legal order when their objections are not recognised and, at the other hand, too easy giving in to conscientious objections may also threaten the viability of social and legal order. That is why it is needed to determine when conscientious objections cannot be taken at face value, but should be subjected to a series of tests. The aim of these tests is to contain the number of objectors. I discuss 6 criteria for determining whether conscientious objections ground an exemption to legal and professional obligations. At the end of the article I discuss the conscientious objections of medical doctors. (shrink)