Philippe Goujon

Ethical Governance of Emerging Technologies Development

The more integrated technology becomes in our everyday lives and businesses, the more vital it grows that its applications are utilized in an ethical and appropriate way.Ethical Governance of Emerging Technologies Development combines multiple perspectives on ethical backgrounds, theories, and management approaches when implementing new technologies into an environment. Understanding the ethical implications associated with utilizing new advancements in technology is useful for professionals, researchers, and graduate students interested in this growing area of research.

Implementing Ethics in Information Systems, Presuppositions and Consequences in Ethics and Information Systems

This paper focuses on the relationship between information systems and ethics, and in particular, on the complexity of implementing ethics in information systems. Both fields are subject to various presuppositions that have consequences for how they manage the relationship of ethics implementation. Those presuppositions are related to the problem of “the construction of the norm” and the relationship – or absence of it in most governance theories – between norms and context. Ethicists seem to be reluctant to take into account the field of application of the norms created by the procedure it constructs. This is due mainly to a certain closure to elements other than rational argumentation in procedural ethics. Information systems’ professionals, as we have seen in a study undertaken for the IDEGOV project, also have a narrow vision of what is ethics. They often reduce ethics to a constraint that has to be fulfilled. They also have a very stereotypical vision of what are the issues present in the field of information systems – privacy, surveillance, and security – and how to answer these questions, mainly through more information. We will show that these presuppositions on both sides have a huge impact on the manner in which ethics is “done” in technical projects, and more importantly, we will give hints on how to improve the relationship. The term implementation is itself inappropriate, because it supposes that ethics is something external to information systems. This presupposition is shared to some extent by both fields i.e., ethics and information systems: it is the central point where we see the problem, but also the solution. Working on the framings of both ethical and technical communities is for us the way to overcome ethical problems in information system, and to reach appropriate ethical technology development.

Ethical Governance for Emerging ICT: Opening Cognitive Framing and Achieving Reflexivity

The impact of techno-scientific developments on societal evolution and lifestyles no longer needs to be demonstrated. The last half of the twentieth century has witnessed a considerable acceleration of the integration of technological elements, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) into the means of economic production in particular, and social life in general. This article aims to address the methods and practices by which we can effectively open the currently closed cognitive framing of those involved in making ethical governance decisions. This can be done by introducing a second-order reflexivity to allow for accountability and participation in a governance strategy that enables real effectiveness of ethical norm expression in technological projects. This paper draws on the Louvain school of theory of Lenoble and Maesschalk (cf. especially 2006) [10]. The paper’s two authors are both involved in the EGAIS and ETICA EU FP7 projects where they are further developing and testing out the approach outlined in order to establish an effective ethical governance approach for future European co-financed technology projects.

Panel - Responsible innovation in research : A reflexive governance to scientific development

The EU seeks to become a genuine Innovation Union in 2020 striving for excellent science, a competitive industry and a better society without compromising on sustainability goals as well as ethically acceptable and socially desirable conditions. Europe strongly needs to develop a normative and comprehensive governance framework for Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). We will both look for the current state of RRI and suggest some further development of the approach.

Origins, Developments and Future of the Concept of Innovation: Opening the Economic Framing of Innovation to Social, Ethical, Political Parameters to Achieve Responsibility: Strengths and Limits

The concept of innovation is making a successful comeback in philosophy, particularly with the qualifier “responsible” attached. This attachment of the qualification “responsible” reflects the idea that the concept of innovation has to be opened to new considerations, namely social, political and ethical concerns. Since the 18th century, innovation has been the object of economics and science of business and growth. This paper aims at testing the legitimacy of these attempts to open the concept and redefine it in terms other than those of economics. We start with a contextualization of the use of the term innovation, to see why it has been so strongly associated with the market, growth and business then we see what is at stake in opening it up to other considerations. We consider the limits of this opening and look at possible ways to attach other meanings to the concept, without losing significance by too much inclusion. The solution proposed is that instead of imposing new parameters and trying to shift the concept, we could keep the economic bias of the term, but challenge it with concerns expressed by people coming from the field of economics who are trying to propose an alternative framework for economics that would take into account other concerns, and in which responsible innovation could find a place.

Ethical issue determination, normativity and contextual blindness: Epistemological studies of the limits of formalism in ethics and their consequences for the theory of governance

The impact of techno-scientific developments on societal evolution and lifestyles no longer needs to be demonstrated. In particular, the last half of the twentieth century has witnessed a considerable acceleration of the integration of technological elements into the means of economic production and social life in general. The profound transformations that have taken place in the last few decades equally involve energy, transportation, construction, telecommunications, administration, medicine, pharmacy and agricultural sectors. These transformations are closely linked to techno-scientific developments and particularly to stunning developments in information and communications technologies (ICTs). The information society emerging in the contemporary period, however, can no longer simply be considered as a result of technical mutations. Up to now, this ongoing global phenomenon that is technological, economic, political and cultural, is in search of social and political projects, references and reaffirmed values. We are faced with the task of building networks that are based on a cultural model incorporating clear collective choices, so that the principles of democracy are transferred on line — hopefully without loss — in the future. The knowledge society is the embodiment of a change in civilisation whereby science and technology have become omnipresent and are developing at a disconcerting rate.

Ethics and ICT Governance

Human Choice and Computing is a longstanding series of conferences organised by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP)’s Technical Committee 9. This conference is the federation’s ninth. One of its tracks concentrates on ethics and information and communication technologies (ICT) governance. A background explains why investigations of ethics and ICT governance are coming to the fore, and it shows how this has been tackled by IFIP’s special interest group (SIG) 9.2.2 on a Framework for Ethics of Computing. On offer is an explanation of the purposes of the track – how to govern ICT ethically, a synthesis of its seven papers, and an overview of the results that the track is anticipated to achieve. It is hoped that, in an ever more global society, such a track and associated panel will enable a much more dynamic dialogue and exchange to take place among a wider diversity of cultures and countries, whether this is among academics, business executives, or policy-makers.