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5Luck, Epigenetics and the Worth of Collective AgentsIn Emma Moormann, Anna Smajdor & Daniela Cutas (eds.), Epigenetics and Responsibility: Ethical Perspectives, Bristol University Press. pp. 57-77. 2024.
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AI in Medical PracticeIn Ezio Di Nucci, Ji-Young Lee & Isaac A. Wagner (eds.), The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Bioethics, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2022.
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299Serendipity Science (edited book)Springer. 2023.Serendipity is fundamental to science. This quirky and intriguing phenomenon permeates across scientific disciplines, including the medical sciences, psychological sciences, management and organizational sciences, innovation science, philosophy and library and information sciences. Why is it so ubiquitous? Because of what it facilitates and catalyzes: scientific discoveries from velcro to Viagra, innovation of all forms, unexpected encounters of useful information, novel and important ideas, and…Read more
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15Serendipity Science: An Emerging Field and its Methods (edited book)Springer Verlag. 2023.This volume brings together for the first time the diverse threads within the growing field of serendipity research, to reflect both on the origins of this emerging field within different disciplines as well as its increasing influence as its own field with foundational texts and emerging practices. The phenomenon of serendipity has been described in many ways since Horace Walpole initially coined the term in 1754 to categorize those discoveries that happen by “both accidents and sagacity”. This…Read more
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9Introduction—A Science of Serendipity?In Samantha Copeland, Wendy Ross & Martin Sand (eds.), Serendipity Science: An Emerging Field and its Methods, Springer Verlag. pp. 2147483647-2147483647. 2023.In this volume, we bring together for the first time the diverse threads within the field of serendipity research, to reflect both the origins of this emerging field within different disciplines as well as its growing influence as its own field with foundational texts and emerging practices. Many have been drawn to the mystery of serendipity, the wonder of the ‘aha’ moments humans experience when they encounter it. In the present volume we present, in contrast to the storytelling approach that d…Read more
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2Über Begriff und Wert digitaler UtopienIn Kevin Liggieri & Marco Tamborini (eds.), Homo technologicus: Menschenbilder in den Technikwissenschaften des 21. Jahrhunderts, Springer Berlin Heidelberg. pp. 33-54. 2023.
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6Serendipity, Luck and Collective Responsibility in Medical Innovation—The History of VaccinationIn Samantha Copeland, Wendy Ross & Martin Sand (eds.), Serendipity Science: An Emerging Field and its Methods, Springer Verlag. pp. 2147483647-2147483647. 2023.Martin Sand and Luca Chiapperino find in the concept of serendipity a versatile umbrella term to reassess their previous work on moral luckLuck (also, Epistemic Luck, Moral Luck) and collectiveCollectiveresponsibilityResponsibility. Moral luck supposedly occurs when someone receives praise or blame for things beyond control. Given the ubiquity of luckLuck (also, Epistemic Luck, Moral Luck), this seems to be a seriously disquieting aspect of ordinary morality. The rewards and recognition for sere…Read more
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31Technology Assessment of Socio-Technical Futures—A Discussion PaperIn Andreas Lösch, Armin Grunwald, Martin Meister & Ingo Schulz-Schaeffer (eds.), Socio-Technical Futures Shaping the Present: Empirical Examples and Analytical Challenges, Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden. pp. 285-308. 2019.Problem: Visions of technology, future scenarios, guiding visions represent imaginations of future states of affairs that play a functional role in processes of technological research, development and innovation—e.g. as a means to create attention, communication, coordination, or for the strategic exertion of influence. Since a couple of years there is a growing attention for such imaginations of futures in politics, the economy, research and the civil society. This trend concerns technology ass…Read more
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167Techno-fixing non-compliance - Geoengineering, ideal theory and residual responsibilityTechnology in Society 73. 2023.
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36The ethics and epistemology of explanatory AI in medicine and healthcareEthics and Information Technology 24 (4): 1-4. 2022.
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30Agree to disagree: the symmetry of burden of proof in human–AI collaborationJournal of Medical Ethics 48 (4): 230-231. 2022.In their paper ‘Responsibility, second opinions and peer-disagreement: ethical and epistemological challenges of using AI in clinical diagnostic contexts’, Kempt and Nagel discuss the use of medical AI systems and the resulting need for second opinions by human physicians, when physicians and AI disagree, which they call the rule of disagreement.1 The authors defend RoD based on three premises: First, they argue that in cases of disagreement in medical practice, there is an increased burden of p…Read more
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408Moral Luck and Unfair BlameJournal of Value Inquiry 1-17. 2021.Moral luck occurs when factors beyond an agent’s control affect her blameworthiness. Several scholars deny the existence of moral luck by distinguishing judging blameworthy from blame-related practices. Luck does not affect an agent’s blameworthiness because morality is conceptually fair, but it can affect the appropriate degree of blame for that agent. While separatism resolves the paradox of moral luck, we aim to show it that it needs amendment, because it is unfair to treat two equally blamew…Read more
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37Responsibility beyond design: Physicians’ requirements for ethical medical AIBioethics 36 (2): 162-169. 2021.Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 2, Page 162-169, February 2022.
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31The Precipice – Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity. Toby Ord, 2020 London, Bloomsbury Publishing. 480 pp, £22.50 (review)Journal of Applied Philosophy 38 (4): 722-724. 2021.Journal of Applied Philosophy, EarlyView.
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28Virtue Ethics for Responsible InnovationBusiness and Professional Ethics Journal 40 (2): 243-268. 2021.Governments and companies are increasingly promoting and organizing Responsible Innovation. It is, however, unclear how the seemingly incompatible demands for responsibility, which is associated with care and caution, can be harmonized with demands for innovation, which is associated with risk-taking and speed. We turn to the tradition of virtue ethics and argue that it can be a strong accomplice to Responsible Innovation by focussing on the agential side of innovation. Virtue ethics offers an a…Read more
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Scientists’ Views on (Moral) LuckJournal of Responsible Innovation 1-22. forthcoming.Scientific discoveries are often to some degree influenced by luck. Whether luck’s influence is at odds with common-sense intuitions about responsibility, is the central concern of the philosophical debate about moral luck. Do scientists acknowledge that luck plays a role in their work and – if so – do they consider it morally problematic? The present article discusses the results of four focus groups with scientists, who were asked about their views on luck in their fields and its moral implica…Read more
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274Prometheus' Legacy: Responsibility and TechnologyIn Birgit Recki (ed.), Welche Technik?, Text & Dialog. pp. 23-40. 2020.A prominent view in contemporary philosophy of technology suggests that more technology implies more possibilities and, therefore, more responsibilities. Consequently, the question ‘What technology?’ is discussed primarily on the backdrop of assessing, assigning, and avoiding technology-borne culpability. The view is reminiscent of the Olympian gods’ vengeful and harsh reaction to Prometheus’ play with fire. However, the Olympian view leaves unexplained how technologies increase possibilities. A…Read more
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36A Defence of the Control PrinciplePhilosophia 49 (2): 765-775. 2020.The nexus of the moral luck debate is the control principle, which says that people are responsible only for things within their control. In this paper, I will first argue that the control principle should be restrained to blameworthiness, because responsibility is too wide a concept to square with control. Many deniers of moral luck appeal to the intuitiveness of the control principle. Defenders of moral luck do not share this intuition and demand a stronger defence of the control principle. I …Read more
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34Sven Nyholm: Humans and Robots: Ethics, Agency, and Anthropomorphism (review)Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 23 (2): 487-489. 2020.
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6At the end or just at the beginning?: Review of “Planning Later Life-Bioethics and Public Health in Ageing Societies”: edited by Mark Schweda, Larissa Pfaller, Kai Brauer, Frank Adloff, and Silke Schicktanz (review)Monash Bioethics Review 36 (1-4): 96-99. 2018.
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11Futures, Visions, and Responsibility: An Ethics of InnovationSpringer Fachmedien Wiesbaden. 2018.Martin Sand explores the problems of responsibility at the early, visionary stages of technological development. He discusses the increasingly dominant concept of innovation and outlines how narratives about the future are currently used to facilitate technological change, to foster networks, and to raise public awareness for innovations. This set of activities is under increasing scrutiny as a form of “visioneering”. The author discusses intentionality and freedom as important, albeit fuzzy, pr…Read more
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8Did Alexander Fleming Deserve the Nobel Prize?Science and Engineering Ethics 26 (2): 899-919. 2020.Penicillin is a serendipitous discovery par excellence. But, what does this say about Alexander Fleming’s praiseworthiness? Clearly, Fleming would not have received the Nobel Prize, had not a mould accidently entered his laboratory. This seems paradoxical, since it was beyond his control. The present article will first discuss Fleming’s discovery of Penicillin as an example of moral luck in science and technology and critically assess some common responses to this problem. Second, the Control Pr…Read more
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14Did Alexander Fleming Deserve the Nobel Prize?Science and Engineering Ethics 26 (2): 899-919. 2020.Penicillin is a serendipitous discovery par excellence. But, what does this say about Alexander Fleming’s praiseworthiness? Clearly, Fleming would not have received the Nobel Prize, had not a mould accidently entered his laboratory. This seems paradoxical, since it was beyond his control. The present article will first discuss Fleming’s discovery of Penicillin as an example of moral luck in science and technology and critically assess some common responses to this problem. Second, the Control Pr…Read more
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16Did Alexander Fleming Deserve the Nobel Prize?Science and Engineering Ethics 26 (2): 899-919. 2020.Penicillin is a serendipitous discovery par excellence. But, what does this say about Alexander Fleming’s praiseworthiness? Clearly, Fleming would not have received the Nobel Prize, had not a mould accidently entered his laboratory. This seems paradoxical, since it was beyond his control. The present article will first discuss Fleming’s discovery of Penicillin as an example of moral luck in science and technology and critically assess some common responses to this problem. Second, the Control Pr…Read more
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66Varieties of responsibility: two problems of responsible innovationSynthese 198 (Suppl 19): 4769-4787. 2018.The notion of responsible innovation suggests that innovators carry additional responsibilities beyond those commonly suggested. In this paper, we will discuss the meaning of these novel responsibilities focusing on two philosophical problems of attributing such responsibilities to innovators. The first is the allocation of responsibilities to innovators. Innovation is a process that involves a multiplicity of agents and unpredictable, far-reaching causal chains from innovation to social impacts…Read more
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16How the Future Has a Grip on UsTechné: Research in Philosophy and Technology. 2018.Being faced with bold statements about the technological future, the wickedness of technological systems and our frequent cluelessness when aiming at predicting the course of such systems, scholars from philosophy of technology and Technology Assessment have given up believing that any method can enhance our knowledge about the future. Hence, hermeneutic TA, forensics of wishing and other approaches shift their focus on the present of such futures. While these approaches are meaningful in their …Read more
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19Visioneering Socio-Technical Innovations — a Missing Piece of the PuzzleNanoEthics 11 (1): 19-29. 2017.
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22Why Neural Determinism is Not Real Determinism and Why Mental States Cannot ActAmerican Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 7 (4): 205-207. 2016.
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Biomedical Ethics |
Business Ethics |
Technology Ethics |
Professional Ethics |
Virtues and Vices |
Virtue Ethics, Misc |