Reciprocal influences between the ethics of research and responsible innovation

Rather than revisiting the benefits of this process, which are too numerous and already presented in the conclusions of each chapter, we suggest reorganizing them in the form of reciprocal influences between ERs and RRI. Putting ERs and RRI up for discussion has had effects in both directions.

RRI would introduce a wider participation of participants in ERs, going beyond ethical experts alone. By inviting stakeholders, certain citizens and affected groups, RRI is more inclusive. Furthermore, it looks at ethics in a broader sense, both prior to research and later on, for its use. It steps away from research projects in order to ask questions that could relate to scientific policies or the frameworks that will need to be provided for their use. Third, RRI poses the problem of governance, which must therefore be negotiated and to which answers must be suggested. This problem probably appears more acutely if participation includes larger and more heterogeneous groups.

In contrast, the coming closer of ERs and RRI serves as a reminder that ethics cannot be dissolved beneath an accumulation of other pillars. Relying on ethics to guide or qualify governance (the fifth pillar), with the promises in terms of freedom presented by Gianni [GIA 16], should not make us forget that ethics not only turns toward cooperation, as is the case in a good number of models in political theory, but also toward objects, the environment or beings affected by research. While ethics can play a role in social and political interactions, it is also ad rem. Ten types of issue listed in the EC’s Ethical Questionnaire are one example of this.

ERs limited to a research and innovation project also have the advantage of questioning the foreseeable limits of RRI, whose potential mission can go very far/is very large. Yet to expand the limits of consideration means running the risk of irresponsibility in the time, space and complexity of sociotechnical interactions, moving in the direction of what the philosopher Hans Jonas called “rampant apocalypse” [JON 84]. It could be said that the collection of informed consent from those involved in research, which is dear to the Ethical Questionnaire, could ultimately be the motivation to legitimize RRI. Indeed, for certain innovative technologies, or for the decisions to promote one research project rather than another, the affected groups concerned should be able to assert some form of consent. We can quickly see the problems that arise from this sort of meta-consent, which largely combines the most diverse and sometimes opposed groups. The desire to hold ERs and RRI together would end up demanding movement toward a reflexive form of governance, particularly at the level of ethical deliberations.

It is precisely this form of deliberation on which we concluded Chapter 1. Indeed, while it is important to determine, recognize and take charge of certain problems listed by the Ethical Questionnaire, be it that of the EC or that of the many countries capable of financing public research, it is necessary to go beyond legal assessment. Even if a sort of soft law can be recognized here, perhaps one of deontological ethics influenced by the principles of bioethics, we are not yet there in the “open sea of ethics”.

Therefore, the first chapter, which went through the detail of the procedures and questions in ERs to show them in all their richness, invites us to go further. It sketches out the resources offered by the distinction between applied ethics and meta-ethics, and the existence in between the two of an ethical pluralism of moral theories. These theories are conceptual tools for forging arguments and ethical justifications that participate in ethical deliberation, whether that of an individual or of several individuals or institutions.

Assessing participation by its quality

While the concept of RRI is still surprising for a good number of participants in research, we must recognize that it has not appeared out of the blue. Other neighboring understandings can come close to it. This is the case for corporate social responsibility [PEL 16b], sustainable development, the precautionary principle [REB 16a] and also for participatory technological assessment. Yet for the latter, criteria capable of assessing participation have been produced. Their functions differ from the tasks of institutional design for setting out procedures and rules of participation with heterogeneous groups consisting of hybrid forums, which we presented in Chapter 5. Furthermore, if this can be surprising, these lists of criteria show no awareness of the different roles that can be expected of PTA, and which we presented in the same chapter. Indeed, is not one of the standard directions of assessment to find out the extent to which an objective or goal has or has not been met?

Having considered the goals of participation, the forms of institutional design, going from rather simple tools and procedures of governance toward more sophisticated forms, it is then necessary to imagine the criteria capable of producing good quality participation (ex ante) and evaluating it secondarily (ex post). We would have been able to expect to find these criteria, though of course reconfigured, in the expert report suggesting lists of indicators for RRI [EXP 13]. Yet, this is not the case. However, there are some works concerning participation in the field of PTA that are applicable to RRI. Here, we refer to a long discussion [REB 05a] of the work of Klüver [KLU 00], Callon et al. [CAL 01], Rowe and Frewer [ROW 00], and Joss and Brownlea [JOS 99]. By way of example, here is a list of these criteria – that of Lars Klüver from the Danish Board of Technology – which can be found but for minor details in the work of the other researchers, even if, surprisingly, three of these focus on different theoretical frameworks, or proceed without referring to a theory, as in the case of Frewer and Rowe:

1. 1) equality, which tries to give equal power to each participant;
2. 2) the clarity linked to appropriate information;
3. 3) loyalty in interpersonal relationships;
4. 4) openness, which allows at least the restrictions of the field of viewpoints to be maintained in order to allow participants to put together their own agenda themselves;
5. 5) authenticity based upon explicit communicational processes in order to minimize the need for interpretation;
6. 6) transparency so that the formal and informal rules of communication can be known and accepted by participants;
7. 7) legitimacy founded on the fact that all parties affected by the problem being discussed should be invited into the discussion.

Here, we shall settle for a few remarks relating to the quality of participation, which is a new concept in the comparison between ERs and RRI.

1. 1) The four attempts being kept are very hasty in joining a demanding type of participation to decisions, to go as far as speaking of technical democracy. Beyond the legal, demographic and political problems attached to the representation of hybrid panels, the main difficulty lies in the methodological weakness that allows assessment to be clarified and developed, particularly in its ethical part. This is not an insignificant point, since one of the main reasons for PTA and even more for RRI is to be able to expand “to norms and values” [KLU 00], to “judgments of values”, and to the “clarification of reasons” [JOS 99] of the various groups involved.
2. 2) These four attempts, while invaluable, do not assess the same aspects of PTA. Callon et al. and Rowe and Frewer look at the different types of participation devices, the latter two being the only ones to systematically go back over the rapid assessment of the types of devices that have been retained.

   Joss and Brownlea, in a more abstract way, concentrate on the fairness effect without directly targeting the capacities of the various procedures. From his interpretation of the Habermasian discourse ethics, manipulated so it can be used strategically, Klüver extracts a series of criteria that should allow the conduct of PTA experiments to be assessed.

3. 3) These authors mainly focus on decisions. They, therefore, do not imagine that participation could serve other purposes, as shown by the list of roles reserved for PTA. They focus their attention on the various elements that relate to decisions. Frewer and Rowe concentrate on the acceptance of these decisions by the public, which depends upon the quality of the process. Klüver estimates that the quality of decisions is part of the “ethical” conduct of communicational processes. For Joss and Brownlea, the legitimacy of decisions is ensured by impartiality. As for Callon et al., their concern lies in the continuity of the “decisional dynamic”, which should allow reversibility in accordance with any new information that needs to be taken into account.
4. 4) We are struck by the fact that the vast majority of the criteria considered do not specifically concern science and technology, even though certain authors claim to discuss the sociology of science and technology. The majority of their criteria could very well be applied to any social or political question. The challenge is therefore to guarantee the best condition for participation for those affected by the technologies being discussed, along with other, very varied representatives. The “sociopolitical” techniques in question are more concerned with the method of participation than the technical objects, causae or rei publicae, to use the intuitions of Michel Serres, which Bruno Latour makes use of [LAT 91, REB 11a, SER 87].

   The criteria from the pluralisms should therefore be added to the expert assessment, the one specific to science (inter- and intradisciplinary) and the other specific to ethics. Indeed, how can the criteria relating to the scientific practices in the production of evidence, and capable of assessing certain ethical aspects to be taken into account, not be integrated into the criteria formulated up to this point for PTA? In order to stick to ethical pluralism, the four secondary assessments combine the criteria of pluralism that must be guaranteed with the pressure from the affected group. However, this concern for the greatest possible level of openness only serves to normatively intensify the problem of plurality that marks our societies and the problems of consideration of heterogeneous and sometimes contradictory requests, in particular those surrounding technological projects. One consequence of this absence of aid in moral assessment or practical ethical judgment within a context of plurality will be the fact that we do not leave aside the problem of the recognition of plurality (of interests, affiliations and viewpoints), which must apparently be guaranteed through pluralist representation. Then, we are not told how to proceed in order to bring the procedure to a close while honoring the demands of this obligation. We confuse plurality and pluralism in the same way as those who think that participation is all that is needed, without giving conditions to ensure that it is of good quality.

   Two types of solutions can be considered that will allow us to leave this dead end of intensifying a problem through a criterion. One consists of returning to a more demanding theoretical framework addressing a question such as that of pluralism by defining its different levels according to whether they concern society, political theories, or ethics. Here, we place ourselves at the heart of a productive research approach in political philosophy. In Chapter 1, we gave the main foundations that allow the expected ethical justifications to be constructed. In contrast, the other route turns toward a descriptive investment concerning moral sociology or anthropology, detailing the empirical results in order to see how the various participants carry out this in situ assessment task [REB 11a]. Indeed, on second thought, the concern for taking into account the affected groups is above all an ethical concern. Furthermore, it is much more for their moral intuitions that ordinary citizens are asked to attend. They are exposed to the perspective of the development of technologies that present themselves according to temporalities that are more or less close together. Ordinary citizens have to work much more on the normative (ethical) level of assessment than on the scientific level.

   The choice to take the ethical aspects seriously is also imposed by the fact that more and more problems declared as ethical ones are arising. This is the case with the General Assembly for Bioethics [REB 10a, REB 10b] in France. We can therefore speak of an ethical turn in PTA that serves to reinforce the framework of RRI. This is even truer with the perspective that is made possible by its relationship with ERs.

5. 5) The criteria of the four secondary assessments of participation considered here are easily compatible with the six pillars of responsibility. This is of course the case with participation, which is common since the EC sometimes speaks of stakeholders and sometimes speaks of citizens, but it is also the case with scientific education and the openness of science. Gender equality is easily if not already integrated into participant recruitment, even going beyond by adding other sociodemographic criteria in order to have pluralistic panels.
6. 6) In the light of the 10 understandings of responsibility identified and documented in this book, we note that the list of criteria suggested by Klüver for the quality of participation focuses above all on responsiveness, and indeed on the large portion of authority bestowed upon the citizens invited to attend. The problem is that this temporary authority then clashes with other, more robust authorities that can assert stronger forms of legitimacy inscribed in the law. Furthermore, the citizens ask experts for some form of accountability. Yet the understandings of responsibility are more numerous than this. These three interpretations (responsiveness, authority, and accountability) should also be able to be combined with other possible understandings, such as roles, capacities or even excellence (virtue), different combinations of which are detailed in the end of Chapter 4.

Institute interinstitutional participation?

To conclude this book and to meet one of its concerns – that of giving practical examples combined with philosophical reflection – we shall mention a law that focuses directly on the potential changes caused by the relationships between various evaluative institutions. This law therefore aims, without explicitly stating, for interinstitutional participation or indeed deliberation. It arose as a sort of collateral effect of the General Assembly for Bioethics (EGB), which is introduced at the end of Chapter 5 and which certain organizers declared a success without assessing it properly. The law was suggested by Jean Leonetti, a doctor, who already presided over the EGB pilot committee. He was then delegated minister of European Affairs: the Application and Assessment of the Law Relative to Bioethics Law. It stipulates in its 46th article (Public Health Code):

“Art. L. 1412-1-1.– Any reform project concerning the ethical problems and questions from society that arise from the developments in knowledge in the fields of biology, medicine and health must be preceded by a public debate in the form of a general assembly. These are organized by the initiative of the National Consultative Ethics Committee for life sciences and health (CCNE), after consultation with permanent, competent parliamentary commissions and the Parliamentary Office for the Assessment of Scientific and Technological Choices.”

Following public debate, the committee establishes a report that it then presents to the Parliamentary Agency for the Assessment of Scientific and Technological Choices, which proceeds to assess it.

In the absence of a reform project, the committee is required to organize a general assembly of bioethics at least once every 5 years.”

Next comes article 1412-3-1, which is written as follows:

“Art. L. 01/03/1412.– The general assembly mentioned in article L. 1412-1-1 brings together conferences of citizens selected in a way that represents the diversity of society. After receiving preliminary training, these citizens debate and write a recommendation as well as advice, which are then made public. The experts participating in citizen training and in the general assembly are chosen according to criteria of independence, pluralism and interdisciplinarity.”

Surrealistic for many countries, this law disrupts the institutional balance of the various bodies, starting with those mentioned in the aforementioned articles. The former president of the CCNE was indeed surprised by the new responsibilities that would fall upon the CCNE. Indeed, the committee does not have this know-how, which is more like that of the PTA.

Without going into a detailed critique, we can see the necessity to find the correct distribution of responsibilities appearing here by envisaging deliberation that no longer takes place between individual participants, but one that is interinstitutional and more appropriate than this law that does not think it useful to assess the EGB, yet claims its success. The understanding of the theory of deliberative democracy and a deliberative system is also usable [MAN 99, PAR 12]. Of course, this law may be welcome, but the distribution of responsibilities according to the capacities of each institution should be reviewed.

The conceptual richness of responsibility allows certain optimism, but it should be subjected to the challenges of societies that are marked by the social division of work. It can allow sophisticated ethical innovation, at the same level as technological innovations and their consequences. Although it is only one part of ethics, it allows us to engage with and adjust to different and changing contexts, and can be executed beyond normative expression and justification.