This dissertation examines how values change in the context of climate change and energy transitions. It departs from the observation that energy transitions are not only technological or economic transformations, but also moral and political processes in which values are continuously interplay. While values are frequently invoked in debates on sustainability, they are often treated as fixed or external to socio-technical change. This dissertation instead approaches value change as a dynamic, relational phenomenon that emerges through interactions between people, technologies, institutions, and the environment. The central aim is to develop a philosophically grounded account of value change that captures its multilevel and context-dependent character, while also demonstrating how such change can be studied philosophically, empirically, and computationally. To do so, the dissertation combines philosophical analysis with insights from social science and computational modelling across a set of interconnected studies.

Part I investigates the role of values in energy transitions, focusing on community energy initiatives. Drawing on community energy scholarship and empirical materials, it shows that value change can take multiple forms: as a bottom-up process emerging from resistance to incumbent systems, as a policy objective embedded in governance frameworks, and as an outcome of socio-technical and ecological interactions. A key insight is that values are plural and relational, meaning that ethical dilemmas arise not only between competing values but also within them, shaped by specific institutional, technological, and local contexts.

Part II develops a philosophical account of value change in dialogue with climate ethics and the philosophy of technology. Engaging with philosophical perspectives on value conflict, it challenges the view that value change necessarily leads to irresolvable tensions. Instead, it proposes an interpretive account in which values are continuously redefined in response to new moral challenges. Within this framework, moral expansion is introduced as one mechanism of value change, understood as the extension of moral concern to new domains, including future generations, non-human entities, and the environment. This process is neither linear nor inevitable, but contingent, uneven, and shaped by technological, environmental, material, and institutional conditions.

Part III turns to methodology, exploring how value change can be studied using computational social science, in particular, agent-based modelling. Here, models are treated as exploratory instruments that make assumptions about values explicit and allow the implications of different value configurations to be examined across multiple levels of analysis. Through an explorative model of moral expansion, the dissertation demonstrates how computational approaches can complement philosophical inquiry by enabling systematic reflection on dynamic moral processes.

The dissertation makes three main contributions. First, it conceptualises value change as a relational and multilevel process embedded in socio-technical and environmental systems. Second, it develops an interpretive account of value change that moves beyond views of value conflict as inherently irreconcilable. Drawing on and critically engaging with pluralist and interpretivist traditions, in particular the work of Ronald Dworkin and Isaiah Berlin, it shows how values are not only in tension but also subject to reinterpretation over time. This account provides an approach to understanding ethical dilemmas in energy transitions as evolving, situated processes shaped by institutional, technological, environmental, and material conditions, rather than as fixed or intractable conflicts. Third, it advances a methodological approach for studying value change by integrating philosophical analysis with computational social science. In particular, it introduces moral expansion as a mechanism for understanding how values evolve in response to new challenges and demonstrates how agent-based models can serve as exploratory tools to make value assumptions explicit and examine their implications across levels of analysis, thereby enabling systematic reflection on dynamic moral processes. ... Read more

Global Reflections is an extension to the Value Sensitive Design Envisioning Cards that introduces an additional envisioning criterion for examining global justice, epistemic plurality, colonial legacies, positionality, power, and relational responsibility in technological decision-making. Developed through research, participatory engagement, transdisciplinary collaboration, and artistic interpretation, the extension responds to questions that are not fully captured by the existing Envisioning Cards criteria, including whose knowledge counts, who defines problems, how unequal power relations shape technological futures, and how colonial histories continue to influence technology design, assessment, and governance. The extension comprises ten concepts: Power and Privilege, Epistemic Diversity, Positionality, Universalism, Colonial Legacies, Nature–Human Dichotomy, Relational Responsibility, Common Futures, Complicity and Benefit, and Discomfort and Transformation. Each card combines a concept and reflection prompts with an original photographic interpretation developed through collaboration with the SolipsisArt Photographic Collective. The cards can be used in workshops, classrooms, policy dialogues, research and design projects, and community settings, either independently or alongside the original Envisioning Cards. The Global Reflections Extension Set was developed through the Delft Design for Values Seed Project “Design for Values and Critical Raw Materials: Decolonial Justice Perspectives” and under licence from the University of Washington Value Sensitive Design Lab. ... Read more

We propose technological pluralism as a governance framework for navigating value conflicts arising from technological change within the energy system. The transition to clean hydrogen serves as a case in point as it gives rise to multiple (and complex) value conflicts. Typically, governance frameworks and other strategic approaches are led by the assumption that value conflicts, to the extent that they arise, can and should be solved. We contest this fundamental assumption by drawing on insights from moral and political philosophy. By specifying the descriptive, normative, and prescriptive tenets of a technological pluralist governance process, we set out a framework for driving transitions while taking value conflicts seriously. With clean hydrogen production as a case in point, we illustrate (a) the analysis of socio-technical change through pluralist lenses and (b) the design of pluralist governance strategies for clean hydrogen. We conclude with the suggestion that technological pluralism might be suited not only for the governance of the hydrogen transition but also for taking value conflicts seriously in the current context of decentralization and inclusion promoted by recent EU energy policy frameworks. ... Read more

In this report, we present a framework for mapping the ethical dilemmas that arise in the development of offshore wind parks in the North Sea. The development of new technologies, such as offshore wind parks, gives rise to ethical dilemmas. These dilemmas can be characterised in terms of conflicts between relevant values, which we identified through a review of the literature on the ethics of technology and through consultation with stakeholders. With the input of stakeholders, these values have then been systematically categorised so they can be interpreted in terms of ethical dilemmas. Our analysis of the input from the stakeholder workshop reveals a deep concern for balancing the Dutch energy transition with the ecological preservation of the North Sea and its ecosystems. When identifying values, stakeholders noted that it is important that the energy transition is not considered in isolation from other pressures on the North Sea. This includes other significant energy-related developments, such as gas exploration and deep-sea mining in the North Sea. Stakeholders observed that the current EU regulations are not adequately addressing these cumulative pressures caused by wind farms, other activities in the North Sea, and the impact of climate change. Therefore, stakeholders believe that EU-level and Dutch-level regulations should reflect these complexities in a more ethically informed manner. Our reflections also highlight the need for adaptive policies and institutions that would better reflect the complexities of cumulative pressures on the North Sea in a more ethically informed manner, accounting for evolving knowledge and values; the moral responsibilities not only of the Netherlands but also of other countries impacting the North Sea; and the long-term sustainability of energy infrastructure development. At its core, the output of the stakeholder workshop is not limited to the exploration of offshore wind energy but expands to questioning how to ensure that the Dutch energy transition contributes to climate goals without disproportionately harming the North Sea or creating new, unforeseen environmental and societal challenges. In other words, based on our analysis of the insights from the workshop, we can confirm that the question is broader than environmental concerns regarding, for instance, bird mortality. The executed study shows the necessity of understanding the relations between spatial, temporal, and environmental challenges. From this perspective, ethical issues exceed an isolated focus on the ecological impacts of offshore wind energy to signify the importance of ethical scrutiny of cumulative and interrelated effects of Dutch energy transition development on the North Sea. Our recommendations expand on a proposed integrated values-oriented research agenda for the Dutch energy transition. ... Read more

Driven by decarbonisation and pro-environmental movements, the rise of renewable energy sources and decentralised systems poses significant challenges to fossil fuel energy systems. In this evolving landscape, individual energy consumers are transforming into ’prosumers’; they spearhead community energy projects and become agents of sociotechnical system change. Social simulations are designed to comprehend the intricacies of such sociotechnical transformations. Typically, these models underscore the importance of culture, identity, norms, and values in shaping agent behaviour. Nonetheless, they overlook moral responsibility as an important driver of pro-environmental behaviour, a factor supported by empirical evidence. This contribution addresses this oversight by depicting moral responsibility as an individual character trait that develops over time, shaping agents’ actions and guiding agents’ behaviour. Based on the exploration of the abstract agent-based model of community energy, we concluded that while dealing with the control mechanisms of moral responsibility, individual agents start to integrate relevant concerns within their value system and subsequently advance their capacities to act in a morally responsible manner. In conclusion, our contribution outlines a research agenda for further operationalisation and validation of empirical analysis of moral responsibility within social simulation models, highlighting its potential to enhance our understanding of the transitions to community energy. ... Read more

Social disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic challenged existing institutional arrangements that govern the society. During that time, nation-states had to prevent the collapse of society and rapidly establish new institutions and adapt existing ones to address public health, job security, and freedom-of-movement concerns. At the same time, institutional developments are explicitly or implicitly related to the cultural and moral values relevant to societal well-being. Values hold a significant role in governing society during crises, guiding states' institutional response to unforeseen challenges. However, values themselves are not static: research has shown that values may change rapidly during crises. This paper studies the relationship between value change and institutional change in times of crisis using agent-based modelling and machine learning techniques. In our model, we represent countries as agents who define institutional strategies to control disease spread and subsequently protect the well-being of their citizens. Institutional change and value change are modelled as two independent processes. Yet, the model confirms the seemingly trivial inverse correlation between them: when the value of openness-to-change increases in a society, the institutional strategies also become less strict. Conversely, when conservatism increases, the strategies become stricter on average. However, there is no direct causal relationship between the two changes: being open to change does not necessarily make a government select more relaxed rules, but this correlation is rather an emergent consequence of being more flexible in changing rules, whether the new ones are stricter or more relaxed. ... Read more

This white paper aims to provide an introduction to the topic of Design for Justice for a wide audience. It demonstrates ongoing research on this topic by the TU Delft community and contributes to the exchange of relevant knowledge and expertise, as one of the outcomes of the activities organised for the Delft Design for Values Institute’s annual theme ‘Design for Justice’. This document includes recommendations on how to foster Design for Justice, which are not just relevant for designers, engineers, and academic researchers, but also for educators and policy makers. ... Read more

This editorial paper for the special section on “Modelling Values in Socio/Technical/Ecological Systems” introduces interdisciplinary perspectives on values and reflects on growing appeals for modelling values. In public and academic discourses, values typically relate to matters of importance (e.g., beliefs, priorities) and principles about what is considered to be good (e.g., moral values) and are often seen as shaping individual and collective behaviour. As shown by eight contributions to this special section, it is relevant for social simulation modelling to dive deeper into embedding values in models in order to explore behavioural change on different levels and across contexts. Our goal with this special section is to stimulate interest in developing various approaches that study and operationalise values in agent-based models to investigate the complex problems raised in social, socio-technical and socio-ecological systems. We conclude with a call for future research to be explicit in their modelling assumptions, thus fostering a vigorous foundation for scientific discourse. ... Read more

This paper is the introduction to a topical collection on “Changing Values and Energy Systems” that consists of six contributions that examine instances of value change regarding the design, use and operation of energy systems. This introduction discusses the need to consider values in the energy transition. It examines conceptions of value and value change and how values can be addressed in the design of energy systems. Value change in the context of energy and energy systems is a topic that has recently gained traction. Current, and past, energy transitions often focus on a limited range of values, such as sustainability, while leaving other salient values, such as energy democracy, or energy justice, out of the picture. Furthermore, these values become entrenched in the design of these systems: it is hard for stakeholders to address new concerns and values in the use and operation of these systems, leading to further costly transitions and systems’ overhaul. To remedy this issue, value change in the context of energy systems needs to be better understood. We also need to think about further requirements for the governance, institutional and engineering design of energy systems to accommodate future value change. Openness, transparency, adaptiveness, flexibility and modularity emerge as new requirements within the current energy transition that need further exploration and scrutiny. ... Read more

In the European Union, energy democracy (ED) is considered a socially desirable policy goal. One way to achieve ED is through empowering local communities to become agents of value change who can pursue more sustainable and equitable energy provision with community energy initiatives (CEI). However, such people-driven value change is complex in nature. CEIs are multifaceted sociotechnical systems that bring together sets of values and are composed of agents (i.e., people), technologies (e.g., solar panels), and institutions (e.g., renewable energy policies). Yet not much research is conducted into how values relate and overlap within this complex nexus of people - technology - institutions on a pathway to democratizing the energy sector through civic participation. In this paper, we spotlight value relationality to capture the diversity in the value landscape of people-driven energy transitions. We claim that each sociotechnical system has “climate” of its own, or value dynamics, induced by interrelating values. We propose an account that captures value dynamics, explores value sets brought together by the different sociotechnical components of CEIs and investigates various ways in which these value sets interrelate. To elucidate value dynamics in the context of CEIs, we have conducted a literature review, a content analysis of regional, national (i.e., Dutch), and EU policies, and expert interviews in two illustrative case studies. We finalize the paper with recommendations for further research on value dynamics in CEIs across various sociotechnical contexts. ... Read more

Changing values may give rise to intergenerational conflicts, like in the ongoing climate change and energy transition debate. This essay focuses on the interpretative question of how this value change can best be understood. To elucidate the interpretation of value change, two philosophical perspectives on value are introduced: Berlin’s value pluralism and Dworkin’s interpretivism. While both authors do not explicitly discuss value change, I argue that their perspectives can be used for interpreting value change in the case of climate change and the energy transition. I claim that Berlin’s pluralistic account of value would understand the value change as an intergenerational conflict and therefore provide a too narrow and static ground for understanding ongoing value change. Instead, by exploring Dworkin’s standpoint in moral epistemology, this essay distills a more encompassing perspective on how values may relate, converge, overlap, and change, fulfilling their functions in the course of climate change and energy transition. This perspective is further detailed by taking inspiration from Shue’s work on the (re)interpretation of equity in the climate change debate. I argue that the resulting perspective allows us to see value change as a gradual process rather than as a clash between generations and their values. ... Read more

This chapter claims that the global North’s vision of sustainable energy transition (SET), which informs policies and infrastructure developments, holds a partial account of diverse energy-related practices and associated values that are endemic to local communities. Referring to the EU directive, this chapter points towards the implicit bias about the role of advanced technologies in SET. The vision of SET expressed in the EU directive has the interlocked relation with market designs, economic growth and underlying rational values that might result in a mismatch with needs, values and practices of local communities. This chapter presents empirical observations from an ethnographic field-research on community-managed solar mini-grids in rural India to hint at alternative possibilities and contribute to a more inclusive vision of SET. In particular, it demonstrates that practices of improvisation, redistribution of energy and adaptation of mini-grid informed by the villagers’ social, cultural and economic needs are entangled with local knowledge and values. By learning from the local practices, knowledge, values and narratives with energy technologies, this chapter proposes to take a step towards a “big picture” of the sustainable transition to decentralised energy. ... Read more