Creating Inquiry Between Technology Developers and Civil Society Actors: Learning from Experiences Around Nanotechnology

Engaging civil society actors as knowledgeable dialogue partners in the development and governance of emerging technologies is a new challenge. The starting point of this paper is the observation that the design and orchestration of current organized interaction events shows limitations, particularl...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inScience and engineering ethics Vol. 22; no. 3; pp. 907 - 922
Main Author Krabbenborg, Lotte
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.06.2016
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Bioethics
Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering
Design engineering
Developers
Education
Engineering
Ethics
Inventions - ethics
Learning
Medicine/Public Health
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology - ethics
Nanotechnology - legislation & jurisprudence
Original Paper
Philosophy
Philosophy of Science
Public Policy
Scientists
Civil society actors
Reflective inquiry
Upstream public engagement
Emerging technologies
Dewey
Dialogical governance
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Summary:Engaging civil society actors as knowledgeable dialogue partners in the development and governance of emerging technologies is a new challenge. The starting point of this paper is the observation that the design and orchestration of current organized interaction events shows limitations, particularly in the articulation of issues and in learning how to address the indeterminacies that go with emerging technologies. This paper uses Dewey’s notion of ‘publics’ and ‘reflective inquiry’ to outline ways of doing better and to develop requirements for a more productive involvement of civil society actors. By studying four novel spaces for interaction in the domain of nanotechnology, this paper examines whether and how elements of Dewey’s thought are visible and under what conditions. One of the main findings is that, in our society, special efforts are needed in order for technology developers and civil society actors to engage in a joint inquiry on emerging nanotechnology. Third persons, like social scientists and philosophers, play a role in this respect in addition to external input such as empirically informed scenarios and somewhat protected spaces.
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ISSN:1353-3452
1471-5546
DOI:10.1007/s11948-015-9660-2