Neelke Doorn

Moral responsibility is one of the core concepts in engineering ethics and consequently in most engineering ethics education. Yet, despite a growing awareness that engineers should be trained to become more sensitive to cultural differences, most engineering ethics education is still based on Western approaches. In this article, we discuss the notion of responsibility in Confucianism and explore what a Confucian perspective could add to the existing engineering ethics literature. To do so, we analyse the Citicorp case, a widely discussed case in the existing engineering ethics literature, from a Confucian perspective. Our comparison suggests the following. When compared to virtue ethics based on Aristotle, Confucianism focuses primarily on ethical virtues; there is no explicit reference to intellectual virtues. An important difference between Confucianism and most western approaches is that Confucianism does not define clear boundaries of where a person’s responsibility end. It also suggests that the gap between Western and at least one Eastern approach, namely Confucianism, can be bridged. Although there are differences, the Confucian view and a virtue-based Western view on moral responsibility have much in common, which allows for a promising base for culturally inclusive ethics education for engineers.

The number and impact of catastrophic floods have increased significantly in the last decade, endangering both human lives and the environment. Although there is a broad consensus that the probability and potential impacts of flooding are increasing in many areas of the world, the conditions under which flooding occurs are still uncertain in several ways. In this chapter, I explore how argumentative strategies for framing, timing, goal setting, and dealing with value uncertainty are being employed or can be employed in flood risk governance to deal with these uncertainties. On the basis of a discussion of the different strategies, I sketch a tentative outlook for flood risk governance in the twenty-first century, for which I derive some important lessons concerning the distribution of responsibilities, the political dimension of flood risk governance, and the use of participatory approaches.

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 “equity” or “social justice” are taken into account, political philosophers or applied ethicists have so far not or only barely been involved in the debate on water governance. In this paper, it is argued that political philosophers or applied ethicists should become more involved in the debate on water governance. Their role can be twofold: clarifying the debate; and help analyzing some urgent distributive questions related to water governance. The paper is concluded with an outline for an ethics of water governance.

In this paper, we discuss the use of role plays in ethics education for engineering students. After presenting a rough taxonomy of different objectives, we illustrate how role plays can be used to broaden students’ perspectives. We do this on the basis of our experiences with a newly developed role play about a Dutch political controversy concerning pig transport. The role play is special in that the discussion is about setting up an institutional framework for responsible action that goes beyond individual action. In that sense, the role play serves a double purpose. It not only aims at teaching students to become aware of the different dimensions in decision making, it also encourages students to think about what such an institutional framework for responsible action might possibly look like.

In recent years, informed consent has been suggested as a way to deal with risks posed by engineered nanomaterials. We argue that while we can learn from experiences with informed consent in treatment and research contexts, we should be aware that informed consent traditionally pertains to certain features of the relationships between doctors and patients and researchers and research participants, rather than those between producers and consumers and employers and employees, which are more prominent in the case of engineered nanomaterials. To better understand these differences, we identify three major relational factors that influence whether valid informed consent is obtainable, namely dependency, personal proximity, and existence of shared interests. We show that each type of relationship offers different opportunities for reflection and therefore poses distinct challenges for obtaining valid informed consent. Our analysis offers a systematic understanding of the possibilities for attaining informed consent in the context of nanomaterial risks and makes clear that measures or regulations to improve the obtainment of informed consent should be attuned to the specific interpersonal relations to which it is supposed to apply.

In recent years, informed consent has been suggested as a way to deal with risks posed by engineered nanomaterials. We argue that while we can learn from experiences with informed consent in treatment and research contexts, we should be aware that informed consent traditionally pertains to certain features of the relationships between doctors and patients and researchers and research participants, rather than those between producers and consumers and employers and employees, which are more prominent in the case of engineered nanomaterials. To better understand these differences, we identify three major relational factors that influence whether valid informed consent is obtainable, namely dependency, personal proximity, and existence of shared interests. We show that each type of relationship offers different opportunities for reflection and therefore poses distinct challenges for obtaining valid informed consent. Our analysis offers a systematic understanding of the possibilities for attaining informed consent in the context of nanomaterial risks and makes clear that measures or regulations to improve the obtainment of informed consent should be attuned to the specific interpersonal relations to which it is supposed to apply.

Soft regulatory measures are often promoted as an alternative for existing regulatory regimes for nanotechnologies. The call for new regulatory approaches stems from several challenges that traditional approaches have difficulties dealing with. These challenges relate to general problems of governability, tensions between public interests, but also (and maybe particularly) to almost complete lack of certainty about the implications of nanotechnologies. At the same time, the field of nanotechnology can be characterized by a high level of diversity. In this paper, we discuss and compare two models for framing public policy in relation to technology regulation: the first is a deliberative model based on foresight knowledge and the second the wide reflective equilibrium model, developed by political philosopher John Rawls. In both models, the aim is to find consensus on (a framework for) policy measures and regulation. On the basis of a critical discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of both models, some tentative conclusions are drawn for effective policy making and implementation based on soft law.

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) and direction (Shah) of my approach. I, therefore, use this opportunity to clarify some issues that were raised by my approach to mental competence, rather than discussing again the need for an anthropological approach...

Insights from social science are increasingly used in the field of applied ethics. However, recent insights have shown that the empirical branch of business ethics lacks thorough theoretical grounding. This article discusses the use of the Rawlsian methods of wide reflective equilibrium and overlapping consensus in the field of applied ethics. Instead of focussing on one single comprehensive ethical doctrine to provide adequate guidance for resolving moral dilemmas, these Rawlsian methods seek to find a balance between considered judgments and intuitions concerning particular cases on the one hand and general principles and theories on the other. In business ethics this approach is promissing because it enables decision-making in a pluralist context with different stakeholders who often endorse different or even conflicting cultural and moral frameworks without giving priority to any of them. Moreover, the method is well founded in political theory. A taxonomy of different kinds of applications is developed, and classified according to the purpose, the content, and the type of justification. On the basis of this taxonomy an inventory of 12 recent applications is made. In terms of the purpose and content of the method the applications are rather diverse. Two conceptual obstacles for applying Rawlsian methods are identified, viz. inclusiveness and the communitarian objection that people have to become detached from their personal life. It is found that methodological questions, such as the question how to retrieve the relevant empirical data, are scarcely addressed in the literature. To advance the use of empirical approaches in general, and that of Rawlsian approaches in particular, it is important not only to use empirical data but to use methodological insights from social sciences in order to further advance the field of empirical ethics. It is recommended that stakeholders be given a more active role in the assessment and justification of these methods.

Editors’ Overview: Moral Responsibility in Technology and Engineering Content Type Journal Article Category Original Paper Pages 1-11 DOI 10.1007/s11948-011-9285-z Authors Neelke Doorn, Department of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, P.O. Box 5015, 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands Ibo van de Poel, Department of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, P.O. Box 5015, 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands Journal Science and Engineering Ethics Online ISSN 1471-5546 Print ISSN 1353-3452 Journal Volume Volume 18 Journal Issue Volume 18, Number 1.

The management of water is a topic of great concern. Inadequate management may lead to water scarcity and ecological destruction, but also to an increase of catastrophic floods. With climate change, both water scarcity and the risk of flooding are likely to increase even further in the coming decades. This makes water management currently a highly dynamic field, in which experiments are made with new forms of policy making. In the current paper, a case study is presented in which different interest groups were invited for developing new water policy. The case was innovative in that stakeholders were invited to identify and frame the most urgent water issues, rather than asking them to reflect on possible solutions developed by the water authority itself. The case suggests that stakeholders can participate more effectively if their contribution is focused on underlying competing values rather than conflicting interests.

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 it does not require the aggregation of incommensurable values into one measure.

The use of coercive measures in mental health care is an issue of ongoing concern (Cf. Fisher 1994; Janssen et al. 2008; Paterson and Duxbury 2007; Prinsen and Van Delden 2009; Widdershoven and Berghmans 2007; Wynn 2006). On the one hand, coercive interventions seem to infringe the patient’s right to self-determination (principle of autonomy). However, professionals are also committed to providing the care they deem necessary (principle of beneficence). In other words, professionals in mental health care are often caught between the two (opposing) ideals of beneficence and autonomy. In medical practice, the right of self-determination is operationalized in the principle of informed consent. A medical physician is..

In professional settings, people often have diverse and competing conceptions of responsibility and of when it is fair to hold someone responsible. This may lead to undesirable gaps in the distribution of responsibilities. In this paper, a procedural model is developed for alleviating the tension between diverging responsibility conceptions. The model is based on the Rawlsian approach of wide reflective equilibrium and overlapping consensus. The model is applied to a technological project, which concerned the development of an in-house monitoring system based on ambient technology. The development of this innovative technology raised questions among the technological researchers about its social acceptance and the way issues related to privacy and security should be addressed. The case is analyzed in terms of two procedural norms (reflective learning and inclusiveness), which are based on literature on policy and innovation networks. Analysis of the case shows that, in a pluralist setting, a procedural approach can be useful for encouraging discussion on the legitimacy of different responsibility conceptions and the question what a fair responsibility distribution amounts to.

In the last decades, the notions of forgiveness and reconciliation have been applied more and more in the public sphere. This paper claims that forgiveness in transitional justice practices is often difficult if not impossible to achieve, and that it could generate counterproductive processes. It is unclear what ‘collective forgiveness’ is, if it is a realistic concept at all. The expectation of forgiveness seems to generate much resistance, even when former oppressors take up responsibility or show regret. Often past-sensibilities are too strong, and in many victim-groups self-respect is lacking. Moreover, the role of emotions in public settings remains obscure. These complexities raise the question of whether forgiveness is an appropriate ideal to aim at in transitional justice practices, especially when participants are involved in attempts at reconciliation in more or less coercive ways. To give up the ideal of forgiveness, however, does not imply that reconciliation is unattainable. Alternative accounts of reconciliation are presented which do not start from forgiveness. These alternative accounts show that reconciliation is possible, but it seems important for former victims to regain some sense of self-worth and recognition by others first. Only then people can enter into the long process of rebuilding relationships of trust with former wrongdoers.

In the last decades increasing attention is paid to the topic of responsibility in technology development and engineering. The discussion of this topic is often guided by questions related to liability and blameworthiness. Recent discussions in engineering ethics call for a reconsideration of the traditional quest for responsibility. Rather than on alleged wrongdoing and blaming, the focus should shift to more socially responsible engineering, some authors argue. The present paper aims at exploring the different approaches to responsibility in order to see which one is most appropriate to apply to engineering and technology development. Using the example of the development of a new sewage water treatment technology, the paper shows how different approaches for ascribing responsibilities have different implications for engineering practice in general, and R&D or technological design in particular. It was found that there was a tension between the demands that follow from these different approaches, most notably between efficacy and fairness. Although the consequentialist approach with its efficacy criterion turned out to be most powerful, it was also shown that the fairness of responsibility ascriptions should somehow be taken into account. It is proposed to look for alternative, more procedural ways to approach the fairness of responsibility ascriptions.

Due to their non-hierarchical structure, socio-technical networks are prone to the occurrence of the problem of many hands. In the present paper an approach is introduced in which people’s opinions on responsibility are empirically traced. The approach is based on the Rawlsian concept of Wide Reflective Equilibrium (WRE) in which people’s considered judgments on a case are reflectively weighed against moral principles and background theories, ideally leading to a state of equilibrium. Application of the method to a hypothetical case with an artificially constructed network showed that it is possible to uncover the relevant data to assess a consensus amongst people in terms of their individual WRE. It appeared that the moral background theories people endorse are not predictive for their actual distribution of responsibilities but that they indicate ways of reasoning and justifying outcomes. Two ways of ascribing responsibilities were discerned, corresponding to two requirements of a desirable responsibility distribution: fairness and completeness. Applying the method triggered learning effects, both with regard to conceptual clarification and moral considerations, and in the sense that it led to some convergence of opinions. It is recommended to apply the method to a real engineering case in order to see whether this approach leads to an overlapping consensus on a responsibility distribution which is justifiable to all and in which no responsibilities are left unfulfilled, therewith trying to contribute to the solution of the problem of many hands.