Ethical Assessments of Emerging Technologies

PART 1. - Chapter 1: Democratic appraisals of future technologies: integrating ethics in Technology assessment. - 1. 1 Appraising emerging technologies. - 1. 2 From the myth to the history: the evolving social mandate of Technology Assessment. - 1. 3 Institutional ethics of technology. - 1. 3. 1 Ethical bodies and the regulation of biomedical research. - 1. 3. 2 Normative evaluation of emerging technologies and advise to policy-makers. - 1. 3. 3 Outsourcing ethical reflection. - 1. 4 Limitations in traditions assessing technologies. - 1. 4. 1 The normative deficit in TA. - 1. 4. 2 The technological and sociological deficit in institutional ethics. - 1. 5 The need for integrating ethical inquiry in TA. - 1. 6 Between grounding and exploring: the contribution of this study. - Chapter 2: Promises, expectations and visions: on appraising the plausibility of socio-technical futures. - 2. 1 Expecting future science and technologies. - 2. 2 The social construction of the future. - 2. 3 The guiding normativity in technological visions. - 2. 4 Beyond an instrumentalist view: technology and morality. - 2. 5 Analyzing expectations plausibility: a proposal. - 2. 5. 1 Desirability vs Plausibility. - 2. 5. 2 Breaking down the plausibility question. - 2. 5. 3 In search of plausibility. - 2. 5. 4 Three strategies to appraise plausible visions. - PART 2. - Chapter 3: The mechanism in the pill. From abstract images to detailed descriptions. - 3. 1 Visions of promising technologies: the Nanopil. - 3. 2 Promises of emerging artifacts. - 3. 3 Rhetoric and black-boxes. - 3. 4 A note on methods. - 3. 5 The Nanopil: tales of an emerging object. - 3. 5. 1 From an idea to a project. - 3. 5. 2 An idealized system and its building-blocks. - 3. 5. 3 The functional components and their material conditions. - 3. 6 From the lab details back to the big picture. - Appendix. - Chapter 4: The doctor in the pill. From technical details to social practices. - 4. 1 Expectations of artifacts in use. - 4. 2 (Fictive) scripts and actor-worlds. - 4. 3 Research design. - 4. 4 TheNanopill: tales of an emerging practice. - 4. 4. 1 Nanopil designers-world. - 4. 4. 2 Comparing actors worlds: current screening practice and future trends. - 4. 4. 3 Users preference and resistance. - 4. 5 Conclusions. - Chapter 5: The good in the pill. Assessing the plausibility of visions of desirable worlds. - 5. 1 Visions of desirable worlds. - 5. 2 Different expected artifacts and different values. - 5. 3 Plurality of values among actors. - 5. 4 Impacts of technologies and the moral landscape. - 5. 4. 1 Mediation. - 5. 4. 2 The co-production of technology and morality. - 5. 5 Conclusion. - PART 3. - Chapter 6: Expecting diagnostics, diagnosing expectations. The plausibility framework in use. - 6. 1 Immunosignatures and the healthcare revolution. - 6. 2 Research design. - 6. 3 Immunosignatures: a simple concept. - 6. 3. 1 Reconstructing the history of the concept. - 6. 3. 2 Concepts and components in research practice. - 6. 3. 3 Some conditions for ImSg to work. - 6. 4 The expected context of use. - 6. 4. 1 The many applications of ImSg. - 6. 4. 2 Assessing and enriching fictive scripts from situated perspectives. - 6. 5 Immunosignatures and a desirable world. - 6. 5. 1 Articulating moral connotations in different technological platforms. - 6. 5. 2 Stakeholders and normative divergence. - 6. 5. 3 The interactions between ImSg and morality. - 6. 6 Discussion. - Appendix. - Chapter 7: Scenarios as grounded explorations . - Designing tools for discussing the desirability of emerging technologies. - 7. 1 In search of a normative framework. - 7. 1. 2 Democratic deliberation as a normative ideal: a pragmatist approach. - 7. 1. 2 Triggering moral imagination. - 7. 2 Scenarios as tools to foster moral imagination. - 7. 3 Plausible scenarios for grounded explorations . - 7. 4 Techno-moral vignettes and scenarios in action. - 7. 4. 1 Immunosignatures Workshop. - 7. 4. 2 Workshop on the Nanopil. - 7. 5 Discussion. - References. - Appendix: Techno-ethical scenarios and techno-moral vignettes. - 1. Techno-ethical scenarios on Immunosignatures. - 2. Techno-moral vignettes on Nanopil. - Chapter 8: Building-blocks for ethical assessments of emerging technologies. - 8. 1 Between grounding and exploring . - 8. 2 Towards Ethical Assessments of Emerging Technologies. - 8. 3 Ethical expertise? Interpreting and intervening. - 8. 4 Open questions. - References.