The RRI Challenge

Conclusion

The underlying conflict between “the imperative for responsible innovation” and the normative profile of contemporary market societies is a major consideration for reflecting on the feasibility of the quest for responsibilization of the science and technology realm. This book has voiced a warm-hearted concern about the enormous obstacles to fulfilling the promise of RRI. It proposed some critical reflections on its actual prospects in view of the current politico-economic context. It explored the merits of the recently promoted notion of RRI and its potential as social critique when it comes to the role of ethics, responsibility and innovation in shaping the future; it nonetheless focused on the inevitable impediments to the meaningful implementation of the idea vis-à-vis the normative structure of contemporary market societies.

What are the properties of the latter that have made S&T a grave concern instead of a hope for the future? The first problem is the normative fragmentation of contemporary societies and turning the political realm into a terrain of bargaining between the legitimate interests of different sectors: defence, healthcare, employment, economic stimulus, education, and so on. How can this plurality of perspectives provide normative orientation to the research and innovation realm without a grand societal project to which it can be referred? The problem is not in value pluralism itself but in the assumption that it is exhaustive of the normative ...