Alexeï Grinbaum_What is responsible about responsible innovation?

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What is ‘responsible’ about responsible innovation? Alexei Grinbaum Philosophy of Science Lab (LARSIM), French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), Saclay

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Transcript of Alexeï Grinbaum_What is responsible about responsible innovation?

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What is ‘responsible’ about responsible innovation?

Alexei Grinbaum Philosophy of Science Lab (LARSIM), French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), Saclay

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Sophocles, Antigone, 397-409

Alexei Grinbaum, CEA-Saclay/SPEC/LARSIM

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10Yes and I know exactly

what it is

Yes but I do not know exactly what it is

No, never heard 54

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Question : Have you heard about nanosciences and nanotechnologies ?

Source: IPSOS « Les Français et les nanotechnologies », mars 2010. Sondage de 1013 personnes, constituant un échantillon national représentatif de la population française âgée de 15 ans et plus.

October 2006 December 2007 December 2008 November 2009 March 2010

42 46 48 63 59

Alexei Grinbaum, CEA-Saclay/SPEC/LARSIM

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Alexei Grinbaum, CEA-Saclay/SPEC/LARSIM

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European reports on ethical questions of nano

Alexei Grinbaum, CEA-Saclay/SPEC/LARSIM

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Deontological ethics

Commission Recommendation on a Code of Conduct for Responsible N&N research

– 7 general principles and 27 guidelines – Instrument for Member States,

companies, funders, research institutions, all researchers, and civil society organisations for initiatives and strategies on responsible nano research

Alexei Grinbaum, CEA-Saclay/SPEC/LARSIM

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European code of conduct

Alexei Grinbaum, CEA-Saclay/SPEC/LARSIM

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As seen by the European Commission

Table 1 - Process dimension: values, tools and methods for RRI (examples) R&I (voluntary) initiatives − Codes of conduct. − Standards, certification/accreditation

schemes, labels. − (Precautionary) risk management

systems − Corporate social responsibility. − Novel inclusive/participatory processes to

conduct R&I. − Ethics and safety by design.

R&I policies − Funding of novel research programs on

RRI (both social and natural science). − Regulation oversight. − Ethical reviews (e.g. biomedical field). − Technology assessment/foresight tools

including evaluation of ethical, societal impacts.

− Participatory processes, stakeholders and public (“upstream”) engagement for policy priority setting.

− Ethical, social, safety observatories. − Supporting ethical reflection in education. − Supporting of open access to scientific

information.

Alexei Grinbaum, CEA-Saclay/SPEC/LARSIM

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Consequentialism Consequentialism is an ethical doctrine based on the obligation to act in ways that produce the best consequences. Consider available options, predict which one will likely lead to the best outcome and then choose a preference. For this, specify weights (costs and benefits) of relevant consequences and use a utility function.

Precautionary Principle “The absence of certainties, given the current

state of scientific and technological knowledge, must not delay the adoption of effective and proportionate preventive measures aimed at forestalling a risk of grave and irreversible damage to the environment at an economically acceptable cost.” EU Maastricht Treaty

Alexei Grinbaum and Jean-Pierre Dupuy, “Living with Uncertainty: Toward the Ongoing Normative Assessment of Nanotechnology”, Techné 8, 4–25, 2004.

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Uncertainty and risk

Risk: we know both the probabilities of possible harmful events, and their associated kinds and levels of damage.

Uncertainty: we know the types and scales of possible harms, but not their probabilities.

Ambiguity: measurement, characterization aggregation or meanings of the different issues are themselves unclear.

Ignorance: we don’t have complete knowledge over all the possible forms of harm themselves. We ‘don’t know what we don’t know’ – facing the possibility of surprise.

Indeterminacy: the possibilities for different social ‘framings’ depend ‘reflexively’ on complex interactions and path dependencies in the co-evolution of social, technological and natural systems.

“Processes are started whose outcome is unpredictable, so that uncertainty rather than frailty becomes the decisive character of human affairs”

↳Moral luck Alexei Grinbaum, CEA-Saclay/SPEC/LARSIM

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Moral luck

Moral luck* is a special case of consequentialist ethics. It is a situation when a future unpredictable outcome will have ‘retroactive’ impact on moral judgment.

A man spends an evening at a cocktail party. Fully aware that he has drunk more than is wise, he nevertheless decides to drive his car home. It is raining and the road is wet. Traffic light turn red, the man slams on the brakes, but a little too late: the car comes to a halt just past a pedestrian crosswalk. Two scenarios are possible: either there was nobody in the crosswalk — and the man escaped with no more than a fright; or else the man ran over and killed a child. Our moral judgement on a past event depends on its future consequences.

* B. Williams, Moral Luck, Cambridge University Press, 1981.

Alexei Grinbaum, CEA-Saclay/SPEC/LARSIM

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From the fear of novelty to the creation of meaning

“And he [Tobias] went out to wash his feet, and behold a monstrous fish came up to devour him. And Tobias being afraid of him, cried out with a loud voice, saying: Sir, he cometh upon me. And the angel said to him: Take him by the gill, and draw him to thee. And when he had done so, he drew him out upon the land, and he began to pant before his feet. Then the angel said to him: Take out the entrails of the fish, and lay up his heart, and his gall, and his liver for thee: for these are necessary for useful medicines.” Tobit 6, 2-5

Filippino Lippi, National Gallery, Washington

www.nano-ecole.fr

Alexei Grinbaum, CEA-Saclay/SPEC/LARSIM

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No limits for knowledge and passion “... Nature rewards Perilous leaps. The prudent atom Simply insists upon its safety now, Security at all costs.”

W. H. Auden, The Age of Anxiety

“O Opportunity, thy guilt is great”

Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

Paolo Veronese, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Alexei Grinbaum, CEA-Saclay/SPEC/LARSIM

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Responsibility and vulnerability

The responsibilities of innovators derive from the vulnerability of future people to their actions.

“Even a sex-murderer is, in some cranny of his soul, full of inner hurt and hidden appeals; somehow the world is wronging him like a child, and he does not have the capacity to express this in any other way than the way he has found works for him. In the criminal there is both a vulnerability and a resistance against the world, and both are present in every person who has a powerful moral destiny.”

Robert Musil

Alexei Grinbaum, CEA-Saclay/SPEC/LARSIM

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Responsible innovation

A variety of concepts Individual vs collective

responsibility Liability (legal) vs

accountability (moral) ‘Role responsibility’ and

its limits ‘Responsible for being

responsible’ Taking responsibility vs

being held responsible

Our choice “Parental” individual

responsibility Political collective

responsibility Passion beyond prudence Teaching ethical complexity

through narratives

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The return of collective responsibility “O opportunity, thy guilt is great”

Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

Jaspers: collective guilt Arendt: collective responsibility

Collective responsibility is a political phenomenon.

1) A person is held responsible for something she has not done.

2) The reason for her responsibility is her membership in a group which no voluntary act of hers can dissolve.

Alexei Grinbaum, CEA-Saclay/SPEC/LARSIM

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Meaning “In the anxiety of guilt and condemnation

doubt has not yet undermined the certainty of an ultimate responsibility. We are threatened but not destroyed. If, however, doubt and meaninglessness prevail, one experiences an abyss in which […] the truth of ultimate responsibility disappears.”

P. Tillich, The Courage to Be

Alexei Grinbaum, CEA-Saclay/SPEC/LARSIM

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7 August 2012