Louisa Estadieu

One major challenge of the 21st century is the increasingly rapid development of new technologies and their evaluation. In this article we argue for an interdisciplinary approach to meet this demand for evaluating new and specifically bioinspired technologies. We combine the consideration of normative principles in the field of ethics with psychological-empirical research on attitudes. In doing so, the paper has a twofold concern: first, we discuss how such an interdisciplinary collaboration can be implemented by using the method of Cognitive-Affective Mapping. Cognitive-Affective Maps (CAMs) enable a graphical representation of attitudes, including cognitive and affective aspects. Second, we argue that CAMs can be helpful to remedy the deficits of traditional ethical approaches. We applied CAMs in the context of an ethics seminar in which students were instructed to create CAMs based on bioinspired technologies twice – prior to the seminar to assess their evaluation on bioinspired technologies per se (pre-assessment) and after the seminar to assess how their evaluation might have changed and especially which normative ethical principles might have been additionally considered (post-assessment). As could be shown, CAMs can visualize the students’ attitudes, including the valence of ethical principles. Further, comparing pre- and post-CAMs indicated students’ attitude change.

This study revisits the long-going discourse concerning the distinction between living and non-living matter, specifically focusing on living and non-living synthetic materials and engineering creations. As the distinctions between these two categories become increasingly blurry, it becomes imperative to investigate the emerging field of “quasi-living” materials, structures, devices, and systems. The central objective here is to systematically compile and assess these contemporary quasi-living entities by mapping their life-like properties, as described in recent influential studies. To this end, this study first examines and compares the commonly accepted properties of life, culminating in an operative list of salient features from an engineering perspective. The quasi-living materials, structures, devices, and systems are methodically classified, elucidating their properties of life, considering both current state-of-the-art achievements and foreseeable advancements in short and medium terms. This assessment leads to a final discussion about the current frontiers between abiotic and living matter and their anticipated evolution, while addressing the ethical, legal, and societal actions, essential for the safe, beneficial, and sustainable research in these areas. The comprehensive study yields three main outcomes: a classification for identifying and addressing societal and ethical challenges, a preliminary legislative roadmap highlighting exemplary practices, and a set of urgent research directions demanding immediate attention from the research community.