“When values are in dispute”: Ethics dialogues to go beyond ethics frameworks?

Abstract

This article explores the concept of “ethics dialogues”, which was the methodological response the authors gave to existing expert-led ethics frameworks that examine technology in political institutions. The basic question that we wanted to tackle by opening up the discussion on ethical values embedded by technology and other everyday artefacts, was whether there is a need to extend values assessment to an “extended peer community”. Through 3 participatory cases studies that we conducted in the field of health (wearable sensors), mobility (connected and automated vehicles) and AI (insights obtained through a foresight study on the Future of Government 2030+) in the past 10 years, we realised that the invitation to dialogue has prompted critical thinking towards the values they embed in all cases. These ethics dialogues were implemented in different ways, but the core of the approach aims at imparting structured conversations about the technologies’ intended and actual uses (including dual), the promised usefulness implicit in the narratives that introduce those technologies and exploration of the values that the particular modes of life those technologies co-produce. For each case study, we will first describe implicit ethical values on the technologies’ narratives. We will then describe and report how these have been discussed by citizens to explore how and which values are portrayed by participants’ in the conversations. Finally, we reflect on the implications of implementation of ethics dialogues for participatory governance of future and emerging technologies and the possibilities of their inclusion in European policymaking as a way to negotiate decisions in a complex and uncertain world where values are recurrently in dispute.