Responsible Deliberation Between Conversation And Consideration

Communication is a crucial issue in our complex societies tinted by distrust. It is the core of democratic life and almost all human and social actions. Therefore it is essential for communication to be responsible. But responsible communication cannot only be conceived as a deontological issue, framed by ethical compliance requirements or good practices promotion. It should be considered with all the virtualities of communication, from conversation to consideration, going through narrative, interpretation and argumentation. Indeed each of these communicational capacities has its properties, assets, complementarities and limitations. They constitute different ways to be responsive. This book offers a contribution to the debate of Theory of Deliberative Theory (TDD), reexamined here within its different inspiration sources, notably the opposition between communicational turn and system, the fact of moral pluralism and the public reason.

Taking stock of the overall confused picture that research and innovation (R&I) literature and practices offer with regard to citizen and stakeholder participation, this book provides a methodical conceptual and an empirical analysis to determine the connection between ethics and participation. Strong theoretical pillars in the fields of ethics, politics and responsible research and innovation (RRI) form the backbone of this critical approach to participation, which considers new approaches to democratic participation. Taking into account a number of participatory processes, Responsive Ethics and Participation establishes a new methodology to differentiate, classify and understand the added value of the participation of citizens and stakeholders in R&I. Participation could be considered the epitome of innovation ethics. However, its multidimensionality, its ethical and theoretical grounds and the nature of the involvement and related outcomes must be clarified at the outset, in order to reach active forms of participation. Ethical participation is required for reliable developments in science and technology, which is what this book ultimately demonstrates.

In the space of a century, technologies have acquired unprecedented power. The result of these developments is a new form of the world. These transformations test our capacities and generate new crises with multiple issues at stake. Drawing on the lessons of a long history, Philosophies of Technologies examines the continuities and disruptions brought about by the power of contemporary technical systems, without reducing them to the digital age. It draws together 13 authors from different schools of thought and proposes tools that combine productive technology with sustainability, innovation and responsibility. This book wagers that, in the face of the sprawling and ever-changing deployment of technologies, philosophy is able to respond to the changes that offer so many opportunities to shape our future. Today, technologies need a philosophical moment.

In this book Michael McKenna advances a new theory of moral responsibility, one that builds upon the work of P. F. Strawson. As McKenna demonstrates, moral responsibility can be explained on analogy with a conversation. The relation between a morally responsible agent and those who hold her morally responsible is similar to the relation between a speaker and her audience. A responsible agent's actions are bearers of meaning--agent meaning--just as a speaker's utterances are bearers of speaker meaning. Agent meaning is a function of the moral quality of the will with which the agent acts. Those who hold an agent morally responsible for what she does do so by responding to her as if in a conversation. By responding with certain morally reactive attitudes, such as resentment or indignation, they thereby communicate their regard for the meaning taken to be revealed in that agent's actions. It is then open for the agent held responsible to respond to those holding her responsible by offering an apology, a justification, an excuse, or some other response, thereby extending the evolving conversational exchange. The conversational theory of moral responsibility that McKenna develops here accepts two features of Strawson's theory: that moral responsibility is essentially interpersonal--so that being responsible must be understood by reference to the nature of holding responsible--and that the moral emotions are central to holding responsible. While upholding these two aspects of Strawson's theory, McKenna's theory rejects a further Strawsonian thesis, which is that holding morally responsible is more fundamental or basic than being morally responsible. On the conversational theory, the conditions for holding responsible are dependent on the nature of the agent who is responsible. So holding responsible cannot be more basic than being responsible. Nevertheless, the nature of the agent who is morally responsible is to be understood in terms of sensitivity to those who would make moral demands of her, thereby holding her responsible. Being responsible is therefore also dependent on holding responsible. Thus, neither being nor holding morally responsible is more basic than the other. They are mutually dependent.

Across our differences, people everywhere wish to be heard, to be known, and to be understood. When these needs are met, individuals have the potential to flourish, and communities can work together in common cause. Yet, in the current argument culture, the power of communication to meet these needs remains largely untapped, and the ability to resolve shared problems is compromised. This book explores the roots of this communication crisis and offers a realistic means to reconnect, to build community, and to make just and wise decisions together.

What does professional responsibility entail in an increasingly insecure, unpredictable and de-regulated world? This is the core question addressed in this text. The point of departure for the various contributions is that professional responsibility is a way of being in the world that includes a particular mandate – to behave in a manner consistent with moral and societal obligations as a professional. Increasingly, however, there is a lack of consensus as to what such mandates imply, and even more dissensus as to what appropriate exercise of responsibility entails. One of the distinctive features of this book is the manner in which it combines normative and empirical dimensions. It moves beyond dualistic perspectives to create a more inclusive conversation on professional responsibility. In the face of increasing complexity of professional work, professional responsibility remains open to further development. The book signals direction for the development of professional responsibility, and while seeking to give direction to ongoing deliberations avoids the pitfalls of performativity. The chapters are grounded in a variety of disciplinary perspectives and traverse various professional boundaries in a self-reflexive manner to create more inclusive, transformative and generative narratives on professional responsibility. This is achieved by: Focusing on normative dimensions of professional work and combining these with a focus on empirical aspects of professional practice in a variety of setting, and Recognising the inevitable tensions between personal trust and responsibility, and largely depersonalised policies and strategies of quality control when normative and empirical aspects of professional responsibility are situated within their policy environments. The concluding narrative moves beyond deconstruction, complexity and critique of these considerations to a construction of new imagined horizons of professional responsibility from theoretical, conceptual and practical perspectives. This text sets out to transform professional responsibility through a re-configuration of its constituent elements in imaginative and creative ways and by indicating the ‘real world’ import of re-charting the field.

Is it ever possible for people to act freely and intentionally against their better judgement? Is it ever possible to act in opposition to one's strongest desire? If either of these questions are answered in the negative, the common-sense distinctions between recklessness, weakness of will and compulsion collapse. This would threaten our ordinary notion of self-control and undermine our practice of holding each other responsible for moral failure. So a clear and plausible account of how weakness of will and self-control are possible is of great practical significance. Taking the problem of weakness of will as her starting point, Jeanette Kennett builds an admirably comprehensive and integrated account of moral agency which gives a central place to the capacity for self-control. Her account of the exercise and limits of self-control vindicates the common-sense distinction between weakness of will and compulsion and so underwrites our ordinary allocations of moral responsibility. She addresses with clarity and insight a range of important topics in moral psychology, such as the nature of valuing and desiring, conceptions of virtue, moral conflict, and the varieties of recklessness (here characterised as culpable bad judgement) - and does so in terms which make their relations to each other and to the challenges of real life obvious. Agency and Responsibility concludes by testing the accounts developed of self-control, moral failure, and moral responsibility against the hard cases provided by acts of extreme evil.

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.