A Lay Ethics Quest for Technological Futures: About Tradition, Narrative and Decision-Making

Abstract

Making better choices about future technologies that are being researched or developed is an important motivator behind lay ethics interventions. However, in practice, they do not always succeed to serve that goal. Especially authors who have noted that lay ethicists sometimes take recourse to well-known themes which stem from old, even ‘archetypical’ stories, have been criticized for making too little room for agency and decision-making in their approach. This paper aims to contribute to a reflection on how lay ethics can acquire more practical relevance. It will use resources in narrative ethics to suggest that in order to be relevant for action, facilitators of lay ethics interventions need to invite participants to engage in a narrative quest. As part of a quest, lay ethicists should be asked to (1) reflect on a specific question or choice, (2) use diverse (imaginative) input which is informative about the heterogeneity of viewpoints that are defended in society and (3) argue for their standpoints.

IMAGINE RRI. A card-based method for reflecting on responsibility in life science research

“…The use of the narrative infrastructure approach (Felt 2017) also allows participants to appreciate the breadth of the discussions behind the notion of responsibility even if they personally choose only one particular argumentative position towards this issue. Our method is thus an addition to the repertoire of interventions utilizing narrative approaches (Felt et al 2014;van der Burg 2016).…”

Giving Voice to Patients: Developing a Discussion Method to Involve Patients in Translational Research

“…However, the drawback of such early involvement is that stakeholders are invited to reflect on an innovative technology that does not exist yet, making the topic of discussion rather vague. To facilitate meaningful reflection and discussion, then, the imagination of the patients involved has to be triggered: imagining what the technology actually will be able to do, how it will be used, and which broader impacts it may have [33–35]. Here, patients’ experiential knowledge could have added value, supplementing and enriching researchers’ visions of the future with imaginaries of what it would be like to use and live with new biomedical technologies.…”

Assembling Upstream Engagement: the Case of the Portuguese Deliberative Forum on Nanotechnologies

“…Given the existing information asymmetries and investment imbalances (…) it is highly questionable whether the presupposed symmetry between moral agents and moral addressees is legitimized. ( [4], p. 31) Despite these asymmetries, the perspectives of lay ethicists are preferred for two main reasons: lay reflections offer stronger and more detailed remarks on how specific technologies can influence everyday life; the inclusion of lay ethicists can increase public trust in science and technology, becoming a strong political reason for their participation [42].…”

“…It has been recognized that exercises of public engagement with NESTs and nanotechnologies in particular often repeat the same stories, archetypal narratives, moral dilemmas, visions, and concerns [13,41,42]. This can raise some questions not only regarding the "novelty" of nanoethics but also concerning the agency of participants, as their ethical standpoints are determined by past structures/narratives.…”

“…This can raise some questions not only regarding the "novelty" of nanoethics but also concerning the agency of participants, as their ethical standpoints are determined by past structures/narratives. According to van der Burg, these narratives can inform decision making in more robust ways if lay ethicists reflect on specific questions, use diverse imaginative input, and argue for their standpoints [42].…”