Much in Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is part of a participatory turn within the Technology Assessment (TA) and Science and Technology Studies (STS) community. This has an influence also on the evaluation of Climate Engineering (CE) options, as it will be shown by reference to the SPICE project. The SPICE example and the call for democratisation of science and innovation raise some interesting concerns for the normative evaluation of CE options that will be addressed in the paper. It is (...) by far not clear, or so it will be argued, how much of the innovation process of CE technologies should be put in the hands of social actors and the wider public. This is due not only to special features about CE technologies but also to some more principle concerns against some features of participatory RRI approaches. Still, this does by no way mean that ethical and societal issues in the context of CE technologies should be ignored. Rather, the paper will argue that one can take a step back to expert TA linked to the evolution of approaches of ethical impact analysis in this area. This does not only lead to reconsider the emphasis on participation and democratisation of research and innovation, but also opens up for an alternative evaluative framework for CE technologies developed in the last part of the paper. (shrink)

When it comes to assessing the deontic status of acts and policies in the context of risk and uncertainty, moral theories are often at a loss. In this paper we hope to show that employing a multi-dimensional consequentialist framework provides ethical guidance for decision-making in complex situations. The paper starts by briefly rehearsing consequentialist responses to the issue of risk, as well as their shortcomings. We then go on to present our own proposal based on three dimensions: wellbeing, fairness and (...) probability. In the last section we apply our approach to a comparison of different climate policy options, including stratospheric solar-radiation management. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik Jahrgang: 21 Heft: 1 Seiten: 147-170.

Even though social engineering has gained a bad reputation, due to new possibilities in the information age, it may be time to reconsider Karl Popper’s conception of “piecemeal social engineering.” Piecemeal social engineering is not only an element within Popper’s open society. It also connects his political philosophy to his philosophy of science and his evolutionary epistemology. Furthermore, it seems to fit well into the search for implementation strategies for policies and social actions in the context of nonideal theory. Nevertheless, (...) this does not necessarily undermine the need for political ideals and first-order principles, which are inhabitants of “World 3.”. (shrink)

Dieses Buch beleuchtet die Aktualitat der Philosophie Karl Poppers, des Kritischen Rationalismus, aus dem Gesichtspunkt verschiedener Disziplinen. Den Schwerpunkt bilden Weiterentwicklungen von Fragestellungen der Wissenschafts- und Erkenntnistheorie und der politischen und Sozialphilosophie, denen sich Popper vorwiegend widmete. Daruber hinaus nimmt auch die Ethik einen wichtigen Platz ein, weil Poppers Denken normativ gepragt und von starken moralischen Impulsen geleitet war. Anwendungen beinhalten unter anderem Uberlegungen zur Entscheidungstheorie, zur Religionskritik und zu den Grundlagen einer offenen Gesellschaft als politisches Gegenkonzept zu Totalitarismus und (...) Fundamentalismus.". (shrink)

This paper is based on the assumption that critical rationalism represents a middle position between absolutist and relativistic positions because it rejects all attempts of ultimate justification as well as basic relativistic claims. Even though the critical-rationalist problem-solving-approach based on the method of trial and error leads to an acknowledgment of the plurality of theories and moral standards, it must not be confused with relativism. The relativistic claims of the incommensurability of cultures and the equality of all views of the (...) world and all moral systems can be challenged by two basic critical‐rationalist arguments:(1) Popper’s critique of ‚the myth of the framework’; (2) the criticalrationalist conception of different levels of rationality (Albert, Agassi and Jarvie). In ethics moral standards and norms can be interpreted from a critical‐rationalist perspective as undogmatic suggestions for the regulation of social behaviour and as attempts to answer different problems, resulting from social life. This allows for the comparison of different moral standards, norms, practices and institutions with reference to the underlying problem situation and the search for culturally overlapping moral standards. (shrink)

In _Eine Kritik der kommunitaristischen Moralphilosophie_ analysiert und kritisiert Harald Stelzer die grundlegenden Aspekte der normativen Theorien von kommunitaristischen Autoren wie MacIntryre, Sandel, Taylor und Walzer und er entwickelt ein alternatives Verständnis von Moral als Problemlösungsprozess. In _A Critique of the Moral Philosophy of Communitarianism_ Harald Stelzer analyses and criticizes the main aspects of communitarian moral thought by authors like MacIntryre, Sandel, Taylor, and Walzer, and develops an alternative account of a problem solving ethics.