Governing climate risks in the face of normative uncertainties

Governing risks is not only a technical matter, but also a matter of ethical and societal considerations. In this article, we argue that in addition to scientific and technical uncertainties, we need to also address normative uncertainties of risk decisions. We define normative uncertainties as situations where there are different partially...

Bridging the Gap between Social Acceptance and Ethical Acceptability

New technology brings great benefits, but it can also create new and significant risks. When evaluating those risks in policymaking, there is a tendency to focus on social acceptance. By solely focusing on social acceptance, we could, however, overlook important ethical aspects of technological risk, particularly when we evaluate technologies...

Moral responsibility in R&D networks: A procedural approach to distributing responsibilities

The introduction of new technologies can be accompanied by risks and unforeseen side-effects, often with high impact. If no-one is responsible for addressing these risks and side-effects, the implementation of technologies might result in harmful consequences for society. It is therefore desirable that the prevention of these negative aspects of...

A Rawlsian Approach to Distribute Responsibilities in Networks

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...

Applying Rawlsian Approaches to Resolve Ethical Issues: Inventory and Setting of a Research Agenda

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....