4.1.1. Broadening perspectives

There are several different definitions of care, and of that which is meant by “caring” practices [for example RUD 80, GIL 82, NOD 84a, NOD 84b, KIT 01]. We have chosen to use the version proposed by Joan Tronto and Berenice Fisher, who take a very open approach. Some authors consider this definition to be too general [HEL 06, ENG 07, GRO 14]. However, this very generality is useful in offering a broader perspective than those found in the context of specific care practices, widely studied in the ethics of care (medical care, education and childcare, elder care, care for disabled people, etc.). It provides a comprehensive foundation for considering responsible innovation. For Tronto and Fisher, care is:

“A species of activity that includes everything we do to maintain, contain and repair our ‘world’ so that we can live in it as well as possible. That world includes our bodies, ourselves and our environment, all of which we seek to interweave in a complex, life-sustaining web” [TRO 93, p. 103].

This definition is particularly relevant when considering responsibility in innovation, for several reasons. First, it covers a wide variety of human activities, considered to be responsible, not in terms of their content (healthcare, childcare etc.), but in terms of their purpose (sustaining life).

Engster [ENG 07], promoting an ethics of care focused on the satisfaction of the basic needs of all individuals, considers this definition to be too general. He feels that this understanding permits the inclusion of activities such as plumbing or construction, which are not, by their nature, “care” activities in the same way as those carried out by nurses or care workers. However, Engster’s aim is to formulate principles of political and economic justice based on the ethics of care. Refocusing attention on more elementary needs and capabilities (a term used and popularized by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum in the mid-1980s [SEN 85a, SEN 85b, NUS 93]) is justified by the need to define a minimal set of needs and capabilities that every society should be able to fulfill for its members. Engster thus defines care activities as:

“Everything we do directly to help individuals to meet their vital biological needs, develop or maintain their basic capabilities, and avoid or alleviate unnecessary or unwanted pain and suffering, so that they can survive, develop and function in society” [ENG 07, pp. 28–29].

Within this framework, according to Engster, plumbing or masonry work, for example, cannot generally be considered as care activities, unless they are explicitly determined by a caring aim, as in the case of renovating substandard social housing.

Moving away from the formulation of general principles of justice based on the idea of care to focus on the creation of governance principles for RI, Tronto and Fisher’s definition seems more appropriate than that offered by Engster, as it may be used to characterize a general approach to the world, with the aim of taking the necessary steps to “maintain, contain and repair [it] so that we can live in it as well as possible”. According to this definition, construction and plumbing (for example) should not be automatically excluded from the sphere of care; everything depends on the aims of the activity and on the motivations of the actors involved. This “attitude” or “propensity” to care may thus be extended to a wide variety of practices, in addition to personal care activities and activities taken to “avoid or alleviate unnecessary or unwanted pain and suffering”. Taking this broader view, the sphere of care practices may also cover activities related to innovation, providing a normative framework for the formulation and justification of governance principles for responsible innovation. To paraphrase Tronto, responsible innovation practices would thus concern a particular form of activity, the aim of which is to maintain and repair our world in order to live in it as well as possible.

This definition warrants a number of comments. First, the “world”, in Tronto’s ethics of care, is also defined in a broad manner, including us as humans and everything that makes up our environment. Care is born of an awareness of vulnerability that is not limited to human beings. Objects that attract care include family and friends, “traditionally” vulnerable individuals (the elderly, unemployed, sick, disabled and children), but also those affected by technology, and, as Christopher Groves adds [GRO 14], the environment, social structures, cultural objects, institutions, etc., which are cared for by individuals and which individuals may work to preserve and maintain.

Second, Tronto and Fisher’s definition is based on a normative horizon formulated as an inclination to maintain and repair our world. This focus on supporting life reflects a set of demands expressed in recent decades through a variety of means, including academic work, texts and norms established by international institutions and militant activities, and brought together under the banner of “sustainable development”; these demands specifically relate to the conservation of resources and the preservation of the earth. Taking the paradigmatic definition given in the Brundtland Report [BRU 87], published in 1987 by the UN World Commission on Environment and Development, for example, sustainable practices imply forms of economic development that “seek[s] to meet the needs and aspirations of the present without compromising the ability to meet those of the future”.

The common vocabulary of “needs”, along with the requirement for systemic durability, means that the propositions involved in the ethics of care, as defined by Tronto and Fisher, and those found in the context of sustainable development, may be situated within a similar framework. Both approaches condemn the destruction of non-renewable natural resources, along with that of institutions and social practices that provide a degree of cohesion and solidarity, in a context where unbridled individualist behaviors have led to an increase in exclusion, poverty and violence.

However, the idea that “care” must include an element of reparative action may be problematic within the context of innovation. Following the Schumpeterian understanding of innovation as “destructive creation” (see Chapter 3), the desire to maintain and preserve the world, certain objects or practices, may appear to be outdated, given that the imposition of technological, political or social progress often involves an element of rupture, which may be brutal. Innovation – and not only disruptive innovation – introduces new elements, and, as we have seen, results in the disappearance of certain practices and actors from the market, replacing them with others; the dynamics of this process cannot be understood solely in terms of what has been lost. In this case, attempting to maintain and repair existing elements could be seen as a form of nostalgia or inertia. This does not undermine the validity and necessity of the environmental concerns expressed by the sustainable development sector: the pressure exerted on our planet by industrial and agricultural activities is undeniable, as is the urgent need to rectify the situation. In the context of innovation, however, understanding responsibility solely in terms of maintaining or repairing existing elements is of limited relevance. This interpretation may lead to a view of innovation as incompatible with the notions of responsibility and ethics, as it destroys, replaces or disrupts existing elements at least as much as it repairs or maintains them (for example via social innovations).

Another objection to the inclusion of repair in definitions of care and responsibility lies in the fact that this idea is only meaningful once destruction has occurred. In other terms, the need for repair only emerges following destruction (for example through innovation or human activity as a whole). Following this logic, responsibility is seen from a retrospective standpoint, as it implies actions that must be taken after damage has been caused. As we saw in the previous chapters, however, the notion of responsible innovation cannot be limited to a retrospective interpretation of responsibility, and must include consideration of future objectives. Anticipation and the responsiveness of actors, economic and social systems are found at the heart of governance principles for RI in order to limit the irreparable damage that may be caused by – potentially useful – destructive dynamics. With this exception, Tronto and Fisher’s definition may be seen to be fundamentally prospective, as it advocates “support for life” and the idea of a world that permits the best possible quality of life.

As we have shown elsewhere [PEL 16b, PEL 17], alongside this definition, some of the conditions of care proposed by Tronto not only echo those put forward by authors in the context of RRI [notably OWE 12, OWE 13a, OWE 13b] but also, and especially, create connections between responsibility in innovation and care. Tronto identifies four essential virtues involved in determining “good” care practices: attention to the needs of others (in order to identify their needs), responsibility (to satisfy these needs or to help others to satisfy them), the competence of the carer and the responsiveness of the recipient of care. This includes an explicit reference to responsibility² and to responsiveness, as found in RRI, alongside implicit references to anticipation and reflexivity [PEL 16b, PEL 17]. Good practice in innovation may thus be organized around the general idea of care (for stakeholders, the environment, future generations, etc.), and more precisely around abilities: the ability to be attentive to demands resulting from a context, to anticipate these demands and the consequences of decisions, to be aware of the mental frameworks used in establishing judgments, and to modify these frameworks in line with contextual developments.

A final aspect of the ethics of care that may limit the application of this framework to responsible innovation lies in the attention to needs, to their satisfaction and to the vulnerabilities of those receiving care. The ethics of care was potentially developed in reaction to a perceived generalized ignorance of these vulnerabilities and the associated care practices in neo-Kantian theories of justice. In the context of innovation, however, satisfying the needs of vulnerable individuals cannot be taken as the sole normative aim of responsibility, for two reasons. First, the term “need” only partially covers the set of realities that should be taken into account within a context of responsible innovation. As we have seen, in the ethics of care, “caring” notably includes the satisfaction of needs that are considered to be elementary: for example adequate nutrition, accommodation and clothing, healthcare, and, more symbolically, the ability to “appear in public without shame”, to quote Amartya Sen [SEN 85]. In the case of social innovation, or when an innovation broadens the horizon of underprivileged or handicapped individuals, the technology used corresponds to this traditional vision of care. In many other cases, however, the concept of consumer or user “needs” expressed in management terminology covers very different requirements than those found in the ethics of care. The need of a wealthy consumer for a new consumer product cannot, in normative terms, be placed on a par with the need of the poorest consumers for basic necessities [PAV 14a]. In other terms, an individual’s need for a new computer, when he or she already possesses a functional device³, cannot be considered with the same urgency as a homeless person’s need for accommodation. An interpretation of responsibility in innovation as the satisfaction of a need thus comes up against two limits: first, in terms of interpretations drawn from the ethics of care, it only covers activities that involve caring for disadvantaged members of society, excluding whole areas of innovation practice [PEL 16b, PEL 17]; second, more economic understandings of the term “need” imply the inclusion of non-essential demands.

The term “vulnerability” may thus appear to be more appropriate. The aim of responsible innovation would thus be to respond to the vulnerabilities of social actors, weakened and isolated individuals, and, more generally, members of society threatened by certain damaging and poorly understood effects of innovation (endocrine disruptors, environmental damage resulting from the storage of nuclear waste or the disappearance of certain professions in connection with the automization of work, for example). However, this interpretation also comes up against a significant stumbling block, in the risk of paternalism that emerges if we consider that innovators should focus exclusively on attenuating vulnerabilities. Once again, actual practices of so-called “engaged” actors, motivated by a desire to improve the quality of life of disadvantaged individuals, alongside innovations that offer solutions to specific social problems (ecology, education etc.), show that this type of aim may form part of the specification for responsible innovation. However, it should not constitute, on its own, the full specification. Scientific and technological developments correspond to aims, such as increasing knowledge and the discovery of new possibilities, which do not relate exclusively to the consideration of specific vulnerabilities. Assigning the task of reducing vulnerabilities within a society to scientists and innovators would be overly reductive in light of the other factors that may motivate their actions.

4.1.2. Networks of interrelations as the basis for responsibility

The satisfaction of needs and the reduction of vulnerabilities form the basic normative foundation for the ethics of care, but this is not a sufficient basis for responsible innovation. Another interesting strategy may be found in other essential pillars of this branch of virtue ethics made up of the mutually dependent relationships that we develop with others and our capacity to connect with others (connectedness) [GRO 11, GRO 14, PEL 17].

Most authors writing on the ethics of care [GIL 82, NOD 84a, NOD 84b, MAC 99, KIT 01, HEL 06, ENG 07, TRO 93, TRO 13] unanimously reject the overly central role attributed to autonomous reasoning and individuality, to the detriment of relational and affective connections with others, in the majority of liberal political theories. Carol Gilligan’s seminal work In a Different Voice [GIL 82] takes a stance against the staged moral development model put forward by Kohlberg [KOH 63, KOH 69, KOH 90] and the idea that autonomous reason is the only determiner of moral reasoning. Empathy, attention and the prioritization of interpersonal relationships are essential elements that should also be taken into account when establishing a moral judgment. This change in perspectives within psychological theory has had knock-on effects on political views of justice. Running parallel to Gilligan’s theses, writers working on the ethics of care have condemned the fact that liberal political (and economic) theories emphasize individual rights and freedoms, undermining the essential network of relationships that binds us together and ensures our collective survival. As Christopher Groves notes:

“Modernity has enforced, under the cover of its discourses of universality, a new social contract of mutual indifference (…). While the rights of the other are publicly affirmed in modernity as a rational basis for morality and enshrined in law, they remain insufficient to safeguard the sacredness of the other against the projections of the Self or the designs of the modern State” [GRO 14, p. 111].

Opposing the “fiction” of perfect individual freedom and autonomy, MacIntyre [MAC 99] and Engster [ENG 07], for example, have highlighted the essential nature of relationships with others for our survival, identifying these connections as a more appropriate starting point for considering questions of justice. More specifically, we are dependent on the care provided by others. Daniel Engster states:

“We depend upon others for caring during childhood, sickness, disability, and old age. Most of us depend upon the care of others in our day-to-day lives and during times of particular hardship. We depend upon the care that others give to others to reproduce society, and most caregivers (whose work we depend upon) are dependent upon others to perform their care work. In short, we live in a web of dependency and caring. Even when we are not immediately dependent upon the personal care of some particular individual, we still depend on the care of many others for our survival and social functioning” [ENG 07, p. 43].

For Engster, this ontological and essential dependency forms the basis for a requirement to care for others. Since other people have cared for us, and since there is always a possibility of receiving this care, we must also provide care in our turn. This form of reciprocity does not stem from a principle of equity: the main recipients of our care are not necessarily those who have cared for us. It has its roots in a Kantian-style argument based on the universalization of a principle of duty: we may, one day, require care ourselves, so we must care for others when the opportunity arises [ENG 07, p. 45]. Without going into further detail regarding Engster’s arguments, note that our duty to care for others does not supersede the duty of self-care [TRO 93, TRO 13, ENG 07]. Nor are we required to devote all of our resources (financial or temporal) to satisfying the primary needs of underprivileged individuals; we have a legitimate right to use our resources to satisfy our own needs and those of our family and friends, while also pursuing goals inherent to our own conception of the good. From this perspective, the ethics of care does not require unbounded devotion to the vulnerabilities of others, but rather a voluntary gift of those resources that remain once our own elementary needs and capacities have been satisfied in order to fulfill the needs of those less fortunate (in this sense, “resources” should be understood in the broadest sense). A minima, according to Engster, this may take the form of supporting the idea of taxation and paying our own taxes, some of which are used to support the most vulnerable members of society.

These arguments are interesting in developing an understanding of responsible innovation, less in terms of the political principles that may be deduced from the ethics of care⁴ than in terms of the authors’ focus on demonstrating the crucial role of networks of mutual dependency within human societies.

This is also true for actors in the field of innovation, who do not operate in isolation, but in continual interaction with each other. Broadly speaking, the economic ecosystem is built on a network of interdependence. As individuals, the division of labor itself makes us highly dependent on a variety of structures to fulfill our basic needs (nutrition, accommodation, clothing, etc.). Businesses are also interdependent, operating within the same supply chain; on a more general level, the work of others generates positive externalities, such as the increase and circulation of knowledge and technologies, the reproduction of the labor force, education, training, etc. [PAV 14]. The type of reasoning used by Daniel Engster may thus be applied to this case. The recognition of these economic interdependences results in rights and responsibilities toward potential partners, and to other entities participating in the economic and social order as a whole. Actors involved in innovation are connected to each other and require knowledge produced by other actors, alongside the critical contributions made by their stakeholders; they therefore need to care for those on whom they are dependent. Davis [DAV 67] puts forward an additional argument, already discussed in Chapter 1: the capacity for action and the transformational power that a company holds over its environment confers a proportional level of responsibility.

This hypothesis of close interconnection between economic actors may be used as a foundation for the justification of responsibility in innovation based on the idea of care. However, this step has been rejected by a number of authors working in the care domain. Most condemn a liberal economic order focused on the accumulation of capital, on the basis that “profit first” logic does not promote caring practices [HEL 06, TRO 93, TRO 13, MAC 99, ENG 07]. This is seen to create an insurmountable opposition between economic objectives, intended to accumulate wealth, and the ethics of care, which concentrate on human flourishing.

While these two types of aim do not always coincide – to put it mildly – they are not mutually exclusive. In the history of economic ideas, actors such as Adam Smith and, more recently, Amartya Sen have paid particular attention to questions of wellbeing and justice, and to their articulation with the determiners of economic growth. Examples can also be found in economic history, such as paternalist forms of capitalism, as practiced by Ford in the first half of the 20th Century, which contributed to improving the living conditions of workers. More recently, many companies have been committed to demanding CSR approaches. Additionally, incorporation, as seen in France and the United States, was not permitted unless it offered a certain benefit to society, i.e. unless it contributed to the general interest [ROB 09, LAM 16]. The history of commercial activities features many attempts to integrate ethical principles.

In conclusion, while the field of business and innovation is not the main focus of authors working on the ethics of care, the latter provides a particularly full reflection of the network nature of responsibility in innovation by considering the interactions of social actors as a primary factor in ethical dispositions. It provides elements of a response to the question of motivation, referring to a form of duty that social actors have toward each other which does not necessarily need to be guaranteed by supranational legal means, as it is primarily based on actors recognizing their own position as part of a society and their need for other entities.

In the following section, we shall continue our quest for improved representation of the means of motivating actors to act responsibly by considering arguments developed within the fields of CSR and SHT, which draw on the ethics of virtue to create a basis and give substance to their notions of responsibility.

4.2.1. “Moral capitalism”

Before going into detail in terms of understandings of corporate responsibility based on the ethics of virtue, we shall return to the theses put forward by Freeman and Phillips [FRE 02]. This may seem surprising, since their approach is inspired by a libertarian interpretation of responsibility, based on individual freedom and autonomy. However, their thesis leads to a defense of a form of “moral capitalism”, offering interesting perspectives for understanding responsibility as a virtue. This approach also illustrates two of the essential aspects of responsibility as care discussed in the previous section, highlighting the interconnected relationships of economic actors, and giving a representation of their behaviors in which virtue plays a significant role.

Freeman and Phillips’ starting point is found in a libertarian vision of American capitalism based on the respect of individual liberties. Following the ideas expressed, notably, by Robert Nozick, the authors advocate low levels of state intervention – the state’s capacity to command and control is always perceived as a threat – and stress the role of voluntary engagement by stakeholders. In this case, the voluntary aspect of normative engagement by companies and stakeholders is essential, as the supreme end of libertarian philosophies lies in the respect of fundamental individual freedoms. Supporters of this approach maintain that individual economic freedoms are best guaranteed by unregulated markets and minimal state intervention [FRE 02, p. 335]. However, there is a counterpart to these fundamental individual freedoms, in that free individuals have the responsibility to, at the very least, refrain from “harm[ing] others and violat[ing] their right to freedom” [FRE 02, p. 337]. Hence, companies have an obligation to take account of the rights and interests of other stakeholders.

Alongside this liberal argument, Freeman and Phillips’ perspective includes a representation of capitalism that stresses the importance of relationships and the mutual responsibilities that exist between economic entities:

“Value creation and trade is not a zero-sum game. Capitalism works because entrepreneurs and managers put together and sustain deals or relationships among customers, suppliers, employees, financiers, and communities. The support of each group is vital to the success of the endeavor and the outcomes are synergistic. This is the cooperative common-sense part of business that every executive knows. It is deeply libertarian since it is rooted in the notion that voluntary action is the well-spring of capitalism. When stakeholders pool their resources to create something, no one has the right to prevent their actions, provided they do not impose substantial harms on innocent third parties” [FRE 02, p. 341].

The importance of interactions between economic actors as a basis for responsibility in innovation was demonstrated in the previous section. In the case of Freeman and Phillips, autonomy and individual freedom clearly play an essential role – one which is almost universally rejected by authors working on the ethics of care. However, the authors also defend a vision of capitalism marked by the language of virtue. Their description of the economic ecosystem, for example, runs counter to the idea that economic actors are only motivated by purely selfish concerns, and are blind to any considerations that do not relate to the pursuit of profit:

“Stakeholder Capitalism requires that freedom-loving human beings be at the center of any process of value creation and trade. It underscores the responsibility thesis that common decency and fairness are not to be set aside in the name of playing the game of business. It suggests that we should demand the best behavior of business, and that we should enact a story about business that celebrates its triumphs, admonishes its failures, and fully partakes of the moral discourse in society as a routine matter. Yet, Stakeholder Capitalism is no panacea. It simply allows the possibility that business becomes a fully human institution” [FRE 02, p. 345].

Companies must display morally adequate behaviors in this context, where capitalism is understood as “the voluntary associations of free, responsible, cooperating, consenting, and complex adults” [FRE 02, p. 343]. Reflecting a theme that is widely encountered in virtue ethics, the perspective from which we view business history is important. In many cases, little attention is paid to moral education, and to the celebration of a humanist form of capitalism, respecting fundamental rights and personal dignity. The authors aim to produce a discourse or a representation of the “real” different to that used in neoclassical economics, in which the principles of rationality exclude normative reflective. Without resorting to an idealized vision in which all economic actors are always virtuous, it is important to remember that human rationality in decision processes is also affected by moral values [SEN 77]; this allows us to take account of, and encourage, the propensity of individuals to act responsibly. In order to promote the emergence of responsible behaviors, we require a means of representing these behaviors in theoretical terms. As in the case of the 2007–2008 financial crisis (see Chapter 3), the debate also touches on a theoretical level.

Freeman and Phillips consider that certain economic actors are surely

“Self-interested, and, just as surely, some are other- regarding. Managers, entrepreneurs, and stakeholders must have as complex a psychology as ordinary human beings, for the simple fact that they are ordinary human beings”.

Any outright rejection of the possibility that economic actors may act virtuously is thus mistaken. These behaviors do exist, alongside other, purely selfish, modes of action: we must assume that certain individuals have a natural propensity to virtue, others less so. This is at the root of the idea of “humanizing” the world of business (“[stakeholder capitalism] simply allows the possibility that business becomes a fully human institution” [FRE 02, p. 345]), not through the application of standards to guarantee ideal moral behaviors, but by accepting the coexistence of multiple aims from a normative point of view.

These themes have already been discussed by Wijnberg [WIN 00] and Solomon [SOL 93, SOL 03], who have worked tirelessly over the past decades to promote virtuous practices in business. Taking an Aristotelian approach, Solomon and Wijnberg highlight the role of education in virtue as a factor that fosters the development of good management. However, the virtuous character of actors is not set in stone, and may be helped or hindered by a number of parameters.

First, individuals may decide whether or not to cultivate their own virtuous character, for which they are partly responsible [SOL 03]. When they are able to successfully exercise their moral capacities, economic actors such as entrepreneurs, managers and executives include ethical principles in their reasoning when making decisions, and will not refuse to participate in normative debate.

Furthermore, as we saw in Chapter 3, RI implies an extension of perspectives, including other actors involved in innovation rather than simply focusing on businesses. Users, consumer groups, non-profits and interest groups from civil society, public decision-makers, funding bodies, etc., may be characterized by differing sets of virtues. Interest groups and non-profits, for example, have a certain responsibility for the quality of the dialog they maintain with companies, the constructive nature of their criticism, the feasibility of their requests, their capacity to understand the constraints to which companies are subject, and their ability to formulate requirements in accordance with the company’s capacity for action, etc. The responsibility of public decision makers may also be expressed in the form of virtue, when they design and implement funding mechanisms, regulatory constraints and governance institutions in order to promote responsible practices in innovation. Clearly, these “lists” of virtues cannot be determined in advance. The types of virtue that actors may exhibit need to be identified via a collective and pluralistic process, taking account of the values, value systems and normative theories held by all parties. This point will be addressed further in the conclusion.

Whatever the definition of good (in terms of a list of virtues) that is finally adopted, moral education is essential in encouraging individuals to act virtuously. In the context of responsible innovation, the development of codes of practice within companies and research institutes, training in ethics and moral reason, and the creation of discussion spaces for normative debate constitute notable methods of increasing familiarity with normative reflection among innovators, strengthening their capacity to exercise the virtue of responsibility.

While the specific moral capacities of individuals are essential to this understanding of responsibility for both companies and innovators, this position does not exclude the possibility of institutional participation: most of the political proposals made in virtue ethics stress the importance of institutional design in stimulating and fostering individual virtue. In the case of corporate responsibility, Robert Solomon writes:

“If we are to combat intolerance, encourage mutual forgiveness and facilitate human flourishing in contexts plagued by ethnic hatred, for instance, there is no denying the need for mediating institutions that will create the circumstances in which the virtues can be cultivated. Closer to home, the cultivation of the virtues in much-touted moral education also requires the serious redesign of our educational institutions. And much of the crime and commercial dishonesty in the United States and in the world today is due, no doubt, to the absence of such designs and character-building contexts. (The market, said the late great ‘Buddhist’ economist E.F. Schumaker, ‘is the institutionalization of non-responsibility’⁵) We need less moralizing and more beneficent social engineering” [SOL 03, p. 58].

The organization of structures that promote innovation has a fundamental effect in encouraging or quashing the emergence of positive inclinations in action. Funding bodies, such as the European Commission, have considerable power to incite actors to act in ways which are considered to be morally desirable by providing or withholding finance. Currently, responsibility is generally assessed through ethical reviews, centering on the respect of applicable standards and laws that relate to different fields of ethics (biotechnologies, security, animal testing, human testing, etc.) [PEL 16a]. The pillars of responsible innovation, as discussed in Chapter 3, also have a role to play. In terms of future developments, however, we might envisage going further, for example requiring actors involved in research and innovation to exercise their capacity for reflexivity in a more transparent manner, i.e. participating in a critical evaluation of the worldviews and value systems associated with a technology from a normative standpoint.

The national and international structures involved in funding innovative startups also have a role to play by determining criteria of responsibility that must be met in order to obtain the necessary finance (for example by requiring stakeholder participation). At local level, organizations such as the Centre Francilien de l’Innovation, created by the Ile-de-France region (near Paris) in association with the French State and Oséo, a private company contracted to provide certain public services (renamed Bpifrance in 2013), support innovative companies in concretizing their projects and in developing strategies for responsible development. Institutions of this type foster the emergence of innovative projects, but also participate in shaping them according to criteria of responsibility.

In conclusion, virtue ethics adds a new element to the understanding of responsible innovation in the idea that individual practices involve a variable dimension of ethical engagement. Unlike deontological or consequentialist approaches, those which stress virtuous behaviors represent individuals in a way that includes their moral capacities. The use of appropriate funding strategies, training in ethical reflection, and a representation of economic activities with a focus on responsible and ethical practices permit the development of governance principles for responsibility in terms of virtue ethics. These principles can be used in addition to, and in combination with, those which draw on consequentialist and deontological approaches.

4.2.2. Determiners of moral reasoning

The final critical element of research carried out in the field of SHT to develop an understanding of responsibility based on individual responsibility concerns the determiners of moral reasoning. By considering the stages and conditions through which reasoning may be qualified as “moral” – both in the sense of judgment and in that it promotes a form of good or defines the evils to avoid – it becomes possible to formulate concrete recommendations for innovative companies who wish to commit to a course of responsible action. Authors working in this area have highlighted a number of determiners and conditions for moral reasoning.

A first approach to this question stresses aptitudes that are both cognitive and moral, for example attention. Attention refers to the identification and acknowledgment of the needs of others, and is widely recognized as a condition in business management and CSR literature; it may take the form of attention to consumer needs, user expectations, and, in terms of responsibility, to the interests and demands of stakeholders [FRE 84, DON 95, MIT 97, LEV 12]. Without referring explicitly to the ethics of care, this condition reflects some of the same concerns; the identification of the demands, expectations and needs of potential recipients is an essential prerequisite for quality care [TRO 93, NOD 84, NOD 02]⁶.

A second approach to the determiners of moral reasoning focuses less on the idea of care for stakeholders and more on the stages involved in “good”, i.e. virtuous, moral reasoning. Following this approach, Goodpaster’s reasoning [GOD 83] creates a form of moral praxis, with the notable aim of balancing and synthesizing conflicting interests. This approach, which combines philosophy and management science, proposes a fourfold dynamic for characterizing the virtues of good decision making. The language used draws directly on virtue ethics, and Goodpaster aims to provide the best possible definition of the qualities that must be demonstrated by a moral person (and, by analogy, a moral company) when making decisions.

The four steps of moral responsibility that, according to Goodpaster, are involved in the passage from movement to action are perception, reasoning, coordination and implementation.

Firstly, in perception, individuals gather the information they need to make a decision. For Goodpaster, a moral person “will gather and take seriously as much information as practically possible regarding the impact of his or her decisions, not only on his or her goals and plans (rationality), but also on the goals and plans of others (respect)” [GOD 83, p. 8]. Before acting, it is important to gather information that is relevant to the establishment of moral judgment from among the vast mass of data created by reality. This information relates both to rationality and to the respect of the interests of others.

Next comes reasoning, in which individuals draw conclusions from certain premises. In moral reasoning, the essential element, whatever the type of moral theory used (utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics, intuitionism, etc.), is that the reasoning used involves a logical connection between hypotheses and conclusions. This step involves explicit disclosure of the moral theories and types of arguments that are applied, factors that are necessary in promoting discussion and dialog.

Third, a moral person must include other non-moral elements in their decision-making process in order to develop an appropriate response. This is the coordination stage. These elements relate to the social, economic and political context. Goodpaster states that in order to develop a response to racism, for example, we must not only make use of moral theories, but also of certain contextual elements [op. cit.]. For a response to a problem to be appropriate, it cannot be based solely on the application of principles or prescriptions; it must also adapt to the circumstances in which the response is required, to the language used by the actors, their own history and experiences, etc. In other terms, the type of normative response proposed for specific situations may vary according to the context, even if the moral theory used as a basis for our judgment remains the same.

The final step is the implementation of conclusions, i.e. the concrete steps involved in our actions. As the saying would have it, “the road to Hell is paved with good intentions”. The implementation of an appropriate moral response requires forms of practical wisdom, and not only an intellectual talent for reasoning.

Corporate responsibility may also be envisaged in a similar way to individual moral decisions using the same four steps. There are obvious differences between companies and individuals, notably in the fact that the company has neither emotions nor the right to vote [GOO 83, p. 15]. However, reasoning by analogy, corporate social responsibility may be envisioned as a projection of individual responsibility.

Thus, a company needs to perceive its environment correctly, and any error in assessing this environment may result in difficulties; here, we are concerned with the moral dimension, rather than any possible loss of economic efficiency. For Goodpaster, perception is the starting point for responsibility. The elements that are recognized as a problem, requiring research and the development of a solution, or which, on the contrary, are considered to lie outside of the company’s “cognitive spectrum”, are essential in understanding the company’s responsibility. Companies may therefore be blamed for overly narrow visions and a lack of perceptiveness when they lead to damage that might otherwise have been avoided. Again, we see that information gathering forms an essential element of responsibility; this is also found in RI literature, in the condition of anticipation. A company that neglects certain safety aspects of a product due to a lack of research, resulting in accidents, may be held legally and morally liable. From a more prospective standpoint, this condition means that companies must make every effort to gather as much information as possible, budget and time permitting, in order to provide maximum support for their judgments.

Companies may then establish informal or formal reasoning processes, making implicit or explicit use – in the latter case – of moral premises. This involves activities such as the creation of codes of practice, managerial aims in terms of employee health or product safety, and/or the creation of dedicated ethics committees. When a company neglects employee safety in order to reduce costs, for example, this constitutes a form of moral arbitration between safety and profit [GOO 83, p. 12]. While economic decisions are often subject to discussions based on the idea of necessity, the normative nature of these choices should not be ignored. Explicit disclosure of normative choices, along with the type of moral reasoning involved, allows more in-depth discussion with stakeholders, which may lead companies to review some of their priorities.

This stage is followed by more practical phases of coordination (taking account of the context) and implementation (through decisions intended to improve product safety, for example); these are assessed on the basis of their results.

These different stages, which can also be applied to actors involved in innovation, guarantee the development of a moral reasoning process, which is intimately linked to a specific context. This approach does not provide a priori principles for action that should be respected by all companies, as in the case of the ISO 26000 standard, for example. The dynamics described by Goodpaster focus on the decision-making process within a firm – and, one might add, used by innovators – and may form the basis for evaluation and clarification of their normative content, which can be hard to identify. Compared to consequentialist and deontological approaches to responsibility, the greater emphasis on the construction of normative judgments in this case results in the implementation of conditions for RI, such as reflexivity and inclusion, which are often only considered in very general terms in RRI literature. Identification of the steps taken by individuals in formulating judgments and the communication of these steps to others promotes reflexivity, dialog and deliberation in association with other stakeholders.

Furthermore, for Goodpaster, as we saw in Chapter 2 (section 2.2.4), moral rationality and economic rationality are not diametrically opposed. Evidently, the two aims are frequently in conflict; however, these conflicts are far from being insurmountable, and simply require the use of specific management and “orchestration” tactics for articulation [GOO 83, p. 19]. The capacity to reconcile, or at least to articulate, differing demands is a virtue that is essential to good management:

“The modern challenge for the professional manager lies not with the growing number of tasks associated with the growing complexity of the role. Though formidable, the quantitative dimensions of the challenge can be met by more sophisticated approaches to control, production, and organizational structure. The most dramatic challenge lies in the qualitative domain – the domain in which management must exercise judgment and self-understanding. The competitive and strategic rationality that has for so long been the hallmark of managerial competence must be joined to a more ‘disinterested’, community centered rationality. Gamesmanship must be supplemented with moral leadership” [GOO 83, p. 19].