Burgess, James Peter, Reniers, Genserik, Ponnet, Koen, Hardyns, Wim, Smit, Wim, Burgess, James Peter, Reniers, Genserik, Ponnet, Koen, Hardyns, Wim, Smit, Wim, Metajuridica, and Law Science Technology and Society
Stahl has pointed out, responsible innovation is not only a question of the implication and impact of those directly present in an immediate or concrete innovation; it can also be raised as a question of the orientation of society as such - its ‘grand challenges’ such as employment, well-being, growth, societal coherence, development and democracy (Stahl, 2013, p. 2). In this sense the responsibility of responsible innovation can refer to the core well-being of members of society, to the reinforcing or re-casting of the core principles and practices of society and of democracy itself. It can be applied as a tactical approach to counteracting the negative effects of the ‘fragmentation of moral authority’ due to other evolving tendencies that are perceived as threats to society (Appleyard and Stahl, 1995; Davies, Glerup and Horst, 2014). It can also provide a regulatory measure for the governance of private sector actors, to their vulnerabilities to the changing relationship between the market and society (Sholten and van der Duin, 2015). This perspective on responsible innovation links it with the logic of economic growth and the complex link between technological development and the economics of inflation and stagnation (De Saille and Medvecky, 2016, pp. 7-10). Certain segments of the discourse of responsible innovation reformulate the challenges as linked to personal values of individuals in society. Pelle and Reber, for example, take pains to show the relationship between intersubjective value positions and the technological changes that structure society as a whole. They regard responsible innovation as a question of personal responsibility and moral agency. Corporate-level responsibility is in this sense linked to individual responsibility. The concept of responsibility, according to this perspective, can be clarified through the methods of moral philosophy, ‘which defines responsibility as role, task, capacity, authority, virtue, responsiveness, obligation, accountability, blameworthiness, liability’, since the moral sphere of responsibility ‘begins before and goes beyond legal frontiers, ethical concerns frequently arise before new laws have been discussed or enacted’ (2015, p. 113). These processes become socially - but also politically, culturally, morally - more complex when it is security that lies at the heart of the innovation. As several contributors point out, the call for security - securitization - is among the most powerful forces for innovation that we know. It has left a significant mark on the way that innovation is considered, justified and put into practice. Surveillance of society is of course not simply one security measure among many, but rather among the most powerful and consequential of them all. Surveillance innovation is consequentially more contentious than most, often even regarded as being at odds with democratic principles (De Jong, Kupper and Broerse, 2016, p. 27). As becomes clear through the contributions to this volume, for example in chapters by Burgess and van Lieshout and Friedewald, the European Commission regards responsible innovation as key support for an overall agenda of free trade, growth and industrial innovation that aligns with the principles of the European liberal project, which is couched in principles of fairness and rights. Through the channel of the European liberal project, the concept of responsible innovation has found its way into European Commission research and development and the Framework research programmes.