-
27Creating ‘Local Publics’: Responsibility and Involvement in Decision-Making on Technologies with Local ImpactsScience and Engineering Ethics 26 (4): 2215-2234. 2020.This paper makes a conceptual inquiry into the notion of ‘publics’, and forwards an understanding of this notion that allows more responsible forms of decision-making with regards to technologies that have localized impacts, such as wind parks, hydrogen stations or flood barriers. The outcome of this inquiry is that the acceptability of a decision is to be assessed by a plurality of ‘publics’, including that of a local community. Even though a plurality of ‘publics’ might create competing normat…Read more
-
27Contestable AI by Design: Towards a FrameworkMinds and Machines 33 (4): 613-639. 2023.As the use of AI systems continues to increase, so do concerns over their lack of fairness, legitimacy and accountability. Such harmful automated decision-making can be guarded against by ensuring AI systems are contestable by design: responsive to human intervention throughout the system lifecycle. Contestable AI by design is a small but growing field of research. However, most available knowledge requires a significant amount of translation to be applicable in practice. A proven way of conveyi…Read more
-
26Conceptualization or Assessment: One at a Time or Both?Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 18 (2): 153-155. 2011.I am very grateful to Toby Williamson and Ajit Shah for their insightful commentaries on my paper on mental competence. By linking their commentaries to the Mental Capacity Act of 2005, they both reflect a strong embeddedness in clinical practice, which I very much appreciate. Both authors seem, more or less, to agree on the need for an anthropological conceptualization of mental competence beyond a rather “mechanistic decision-making ability.” However, they do disagree on the pace (Williamson) …Read more
-
24Should Probabilistic Design Replace Safety Factors?Philosophy and Technology 24 (2): 151-168. 2011.Safety is a concern in almost all branches of engineering. Whereas safety was traditionally introduced by applying safety factors or margins to the calculated maximum load, this approach is increasingly replaced with probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) as a tool for dimensioning safety measures. In this paper, the two approaches are compared in terms of what they aim at and what they can, in fact, achieve. The outcome of this comparison suggests that the two approaches should be seen as compleme…Read more
-
23Editorial: Introducing the New Editorial TeamTechné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 18 (1/2): 1-2. 2014.This article is currently available as a free download on ingentaconnect
-
23Sabine Roeser, Rafaela Hillerbrand, Per Sandin, Martin Peterson (eds): Handbook of Risk Theory: Epistemology, Decision Theory, Ethics, and Social Implications of Risk: Springer, 2012, XIX, 1187 pp, 85 illus., 40 in color; 2 volumes (review)Science and Engineering Ethics 19 (3): 1409-1411. 2013.
-
19Responsible Innovation and De Jure Standardisation: An In-Depth Exploration of Moral Motives, Barriers, and FacilitatorsScience and Engineering Ethics 28 (6): 1-26. 2022.Standardisation is increasingly seen as a means to insert ethics in innovation processes. We examine the institutionalisation of responsible innovation in de jure standardisation as this is an important but unexplored research area. In de jure standardisation, stakeholders collaborate in committees to develop standards. We adopt the anticipation, inclusion, reflexivity, and responsiveness responsible innovation framework as our theoretical lens. Our study suggests that responsible standardisatio…Read more
-
19Embedding Justice Considerations in Climate ResilienceEthics, Policy and Environment (1): 63-88. 2023.This article contributes to recent work on justice in resilience-based projects for climate adaptation. At present, the model commonly used for guiding normative reflection in this domain is the tripartite model of justice, whereby justice is seen as comprising distributive, procedural and recognitional aspects. After discussing some conceptual problems and practical shortcomings of this model, we propose an alternative model with six forms of justice or kinds of justice demands: distributive, p…Read more
-
18Water and Justice: Towards an Ethics of Water GovernancePublic Reason 5 (1). 2013.Water is recognized to pose some very urgent questions in the near future. A significant number of people are deprived of clean drinking water and sanitation services, with an accordingly high percentage of people dying from water borne diseases. At the same time, an increasing percentage of the global population lives in areas that are at risk of flooding, partly exacerbated by climate change. Although it is increasingly recognized that adequate governance of water requires that issues of “equi…Read more
-
17Water Ethics: An IntroductionRowman & Littlefield International. 2019.A comprehensive introduction to water ethics, this book explores the common thread between debates in the allocation of water resources, the human right to water and the commodification and privatisation of water services, and fills the gap for alternatives to the predominantly consequentialist approach to dealing with these issues.
-
17Rawls’s Wide Reflective Equilibrium as a Method for Engaged Interdisciplinary Collaboration: Potentials and Limitations for the Context of Technological RisksScience, Technology, and Human Values 43 (3): 487-517. 2018.The introduction of new technologies in society is sometimes met with public resistance. Supported by public policy calls for “upstream engagement” and “responsible innovation,” recent years have seen a notable rise in attempts to attune research and innovation processes to societal needs, so that stakeholders’ concerns are taken into account in the design phase of technology. Both within the social sciences and in the ethics of technology, we see many interdisciplinary collaborations being init…Read more
-
15Tensions in transparent urban AI: designing a smart electric vehicle charge pointAI and Society 38 (3): 1049-1065. 2023.The increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) by public actors has led to a push for more transparency. Previous research has conceptualized AI transparency as knowledge that empowers citizens and experts to make informed choices about the use and governance of AI. Conversely, in this paper, we critically examine if transparency-as-knowledge is an appropriate concept for a public realm where private interests intersect with democratic concerns. We conduct a practice-based design research st…Read more
-
15Distributing Risks: Allocation Principles for Distributing Reversible and Irreversible LossesEthics, Policy and Environment 21 (1): 96-109. 2018.This paper aims to develop a framework for distributing risks. Based on a distinction between risks with reversible losses and risks with irreversible losses, I defend the following composite allocation principle: first, irreversible risks should be allocated on the basis of needs and only after some threshold level has been achieved can the remaining risks distributed in such a way that the total disvalue of these losses is minimized. An important advantage of this allocation framework is that …Read more
-
14Responsibility in Engineering: Toward a New Role for Engineering EthicistsBulletin of Science, Technology and Society 30 (3): 222-230. 2010.Traditionally, the management of technology has focused on the stages before or after development of technology. In this approach the technology itself is conceived as the result of a deterministic enterprise; a result that is to be either rejected or embraced. However, recent insights from Science and Technology Studies (STS) have shown that there is ample room to modulate technology during development. This requires technology managers and engineering ethicists to become more involved in the t…Read more
-
11Responsible Innovation 1: Innovative Solutions for Global Issues (edited book)Imprint: Springer. 2014.This book addresses the methodological issues involved in responsible innovation and provides an overview of recent applications of multidisciplinary research. Responsible innovation involves research into the ethical and societal aspects of new technologies (e.g. ICT, nanotechnology, biotechnology and brain sciences) and of changes in technological systems (e.g. energy, transport, agriculture and water). This research is highly multidisciplinary. It involves close collaboration between research…Read more
-
11Introduction to the Symposium on Sabine Roeser’s Risk, Technology, and Moral EmotionsScience and Engineering Ethics 26 (4): 1887-1890. 2020.
-
7Exploring Responsibility Rationales in Research and DevelopmentScience, Technology, and Human Values 37 (3): 180-209. 2012.The present article explores the rationales of scientists and engineers for distributing moral responsibilities related technology development. On the basis of a qualitative case study, it was investigated how the actors within a research network distribute responsibilities for these issues. Rawls’ Wide Reflective Equilibrium model was used as a descriptive framework. This study indicates that there is a correlation between the actors’ ethics position and their responsibility rationale. When dis…Read more
-
6Public Forgiveness in Post-Conflict Contexts (edited book)Intersentia. 2012.There seems to be a pervasive trend towards public apologies, forms of national introspection, and appeals to grant forgiveness. Does 'forgiveness' enable a public or political use of the term? Is it possible to forgive on behalf of others, and if so, under what conditions? These conceptual questions are related to reflections on the cultural and religious contexts of expressing forgiveness. Do forgiving words promote a willingness to look ahead and prevent a relapse into conflicting views on th…Read more
-
5Responsible innovation and societal challenges: The multi-scalarity dilemmaJournal of Responsible Technology 16 (C): 100072. 2023.
-
2ÜberlegungsgleichgewichtIn Armin Grunwald (ed.), Handbuch Technikethik, Metzler. pp. 181-185. 2013.Technologische Forschung und Entwicklung findet zunehmend innerhalb von Netzwerken statt, in denen unterschiedliche Akteure zusammenarbeiten. Diese Akteure haben unter Umständen unterschiedliche Auffassungen von dem, was ein gutes Leben ausmacht und welche Rolle Technologien in unserer Gesellschaft dabei spielen. In der Politik geht man davon aus, dass diese unterschiedlichen Ansichten unterschiedliche moralische Referenzsysteme repräsentieren, die sich nicht auf eine einzige übergreifende Sicht…Read more
-
Moral Dimensions. Permissibility, Meaning, Blame (review)Ethical Perspectives 16 (2): 263-264. 2009.
-
Reasoning About Uncertainty in Flood Risk GovernanceIn Gertrude Hirsch Hadorn & Sven Hansson (eds.), The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis: Reasoning About Uncertainty, Springer Verlag. 2016.
-
Distributing responsibilities for climate adaptation: Examples from the water domainSustainability 13 (13, 3676): 16. 2021.It is often assumed that climate adaptation policy asks for new responsibility arrangements between central government and citizens, with citizens getting a more prominent role. This prompts the question under which conditions these new responsibility arrangements can be justified as they may raise serious ethical concerns. Without paying due attention to these ethical concerns, climate adaptation policy may be unsuccessful and even be considered illegitimate. This paper aims to address this top…Read more