Abstract
Praised as a panacea for resolving all societal issues, and self-evidently presupposed as technological innovation, the concept of innovation has become the emblem of our age. This is especially reflected in the context of the European Union, where it is considered to play a central role in both strengthening the economy and confronting the current environmental crisis. The pressing question is how technological innovation can be steered into the right direction. To this end, recent frameworks of Responsible Innovation (RI) focus on how to enable outcomes of innovation processes to become societally desirable and ethically acceptable. However, questions with regard to the technological nature of these innovation processes are rarely raised. For this reason, this paper raises the following research question: To what extent is RI possible in the current age, where the concept of innovation is predominantly presupposed as technological innovation? On the one hand, we depart from a post-phenomenological perspective to evaluate the possibility of RI in relation to the particular technological innovations discussed in the RI literature. On the other hand, we emphasize the central role innovation plays in the current age, and suggest that the presupposed concept of innovation projects a techno-economic paradigm. In doing so, we ultimately argue that in the attempt to steer innovation, frameworks of RI are in fact steered by the techno-economic paradigm inherent in the presupposed concept of innovation. Finally, we account for what implications this has for the societal purpose of RI.
Highlights
Dating back to Ancient Greek views on techne, and travelling through the works of philosophers such as Francis Bacon and Martin Heidegger, the history of Western philosophy unmistakably denotes a rich variety of reflections relating to technology
Praised as a panacea for resolving all societal issues, and self- understood as technological innovation, the concept has become “the emblem of the modern society” (Godin 2008; Nowotny 2008). This is especially reflected in the context of the European Union, where it is considered to play a central role in both strengthening the economy and confronting the current environmental crisis (European Commission 2015)
The departure point of this paper lies in the observation that while the current age is marked by the concept of innovation, little thought goes to what innovation means conceptually
Summary
Dating back to Ancient Greek views on techne, and travelling through the works of philosophers such as Francis Bacon and Martin Heidegger, the history of Western philosophy unmistakably denotes a rich variety of reflections relating to technology. Praised as a panacea for resolving all societal issues, and self- understood as technological innovation, the concept has become “the emblem of the modern society” (Godin 2008; Nowotny 2008) This is especially reflected in the context of the European Union, where it is considered to play a central role in both strengthening the economy and confronting the current environmental crisis (European Commission 2015). A commonly used framework of RI features the importance of four dimensions: anticipation, reflexivity, inclusion, and responsiveness In this view, innovators and institutions should anticipate the possible outcomes of emerging technologies, reflect on what their moral responsibilities are, and engage with all types of stakeholders including the general public, and all of these in response to the values and changing circumstances of society. We account for what implications this has for the societal purpose of RI (Section 3)
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