Broadening Discourse on Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)
Nanoethics
Broadening Discourse on Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)
Christopher Coenen
0 Institute of Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) , POB 3640, 76021 Karlsruhe , Germany
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In recent years, notions of Bresponsible innovation^ –
and, particularly in Europe, Bresponsible research and
innovation^ (RRI) – have become very widespread in
academic and political discourse on science and
technology. Overarching goals have been defined for RRI at
the level of the European Union (EU), including a better
alignment of science (policies) with societal needs and
the consideration of ethical aspects, the stimulation or
implementation of inclusive and deliberative processes
(stakeholder involvement and public engagement), and
the sharing of responsibility for innovation processes
among a wide range of stakeholders by means of early
engagement and mutual learning (for example, by
means of what are known as Bmobilisation and mutual
learning action plans^, MMLAPs). The conceptual
work on RRI is still ongoing and may be deemed a
process innovation, for example as far as the following
five aspects are concerned: societal engagement, gender
equality and gender in research and innovation content,
open access, science education and ethics.
Using tools such as MMLAPs, research policy aims to
stimulate discourse on science and technology issues in a
highly inclusive fashion in terms of both the target groups
it addresses (the general public and the great diversity of
actual and potential stakeholders in science and
technology issues) and the thematic scope of the discussions and
other activities. One example is the MMLAP
NeuroEnhancement: Responsible Research and Innovation
(NERRI) [http://www.nerri.eu], which sought to foster
productive dialogue between potential users, potential
Bdesigners^ (researchers, engineers and developers) and
legislators who will potentially play a part in setting the
legal framework for neuro-enhancement technologies
before products start to hit the marketplace. Under the
MMLAP Synthetic Biology – Engaging with New and
Emerging Science and Technology in Responsible
Governance of the Science and Society Relationship
(SYNENERGENE) [http://www.synenergene.eu], we
have not only involved stakeholders from science,
industry and policymaking, but also from a wide
variety of civil society organisations with very different
political agendas, as well as educators and, to an
unusually large extent, artists and art institutions. The
project has incorporated artistic activities on the basis of
an understanding of art as a cultural domain with its “own
logic” different from, for example, instrumentalist logic.
From this perspective, art is not a means to an end in
the context of RRI (deployed, for example, to generate
public attention or involve citizens, although Bformats^
from art, such as drama, can be exploited for these
purposes), but contributes, in a Habermasian sense, to
normative communicative action. Much in line with
Habermasian thinking, RRI activities and discussions
about them at EU level often focus on the rational
evaluation of, and public accountability in, science and
technology matters [
1
]. Jürgen Habermas distinguishes
between the domains of the instrumental, the
moralpractical and the aesthetic, which correspond to three
validity claims: cognitive truth, normative rightness and
subjective expressiveness. In his view, communicative
action based on normative reason is crucial for
democratic social interaction, and aesthetic works cannot
coordinate action in this way [
2
]. Aesthetic experience,
however, can, as he argued, permeate our cognitive
significations and normative expectations, change the manner in
which they refer to one another, and renew the
interpretation of our needs that informs how we perceive the
world. Accordingly, art is a domain for itself but, through
its public reception, can significantly contribute to
normative communicative action on science and technology
– and thus to the social shaping of such fields.
In her article in the present issue of NanoEthics:
Studies of New and Emerging Technologies, Nora Vaage
discusses the ethics of bioart and how the latter
can impact on ethical discourse. She argues that living
artworks created with biotechnology raise a range of
ethical questions, some of which are unprecedented,
others well known from other contexts. Vaage points
out that discussions of ethical issues in bioart do not
refer to existing discourses on art and morality familiar
from the field of aesthetics. She also proposes an
integrated approach which may permit a more profound
understanding of ethical issues in bioart, inspire new
ways of thinking about ethics in relation to art in
general, and impart novel stimuli to bioethics and technology
assessment. While this journal welcomes submissions
on all kinds of studies dealing with art and technology,
and takes it for granted that the analysis of (...truncated)