Responsible Research and Innovation and the Concept of Moral Responsibility

Abstract

The impacts of technological innovations are (not only economical but also) social or environmental. The impacts’ value, whether Economic or social, are (not always positive, and) sometimes negative. The new emerged concept (or framework or approach) which is known as "Responsible Research and Innovation”, by keeping economically positive impacts in technological development, seeks to reduce negative and increase positive social, environmental and ethical impacts of innovations. The paper by analyzing the concept of normative responsibility, try to show that how the most known definitions of "responsible research and innovation" are different expressions of a unique and consistent concept. To this end, we will first provide a description of the idea of technological determinism and its opposite view known as social constructivism (i.e. two conflicting ideas about the possibility of social shaping of innovation process). This will continue by discussing the limitations of the received view about the control of negative social impacts of technological innovations, and finally, by providing an analysis of the concept of normative responsibility, a more comprehensive description of the concept of responsible innovation will be proposed

Keywords

• innovation
• responsible research and innovation
• technological impacts
• ethics of technology
• forward looking and backward looking responsibility