Responsible Innovation in the Light of Moral Responsibility

Responsible innovation (RI) has become a powerful tenet of the European Commission discourse on science and society. And yet, the concept has remained surprisingly under-theoretically developed by RI advocates, who appear to be more interested in investigating the ‘ingredients’ or ‘pillars’ of responsibility than the normative dimension of it. In order to fill this gap, the paper below will consider ‘moral responsibility’ in the context of supply chains and innovation networks. It will firstly scrutinize the conception of responsibility developed in corporate social responsibility (CSR) approaches and what impact this conception might have on RI. Somewhat paradoxically, CSR approaches have been neglected by most RI theorists. It will then propose a conceptual mapping of the ten different meanings of responsibility that have emerged in moral philosophy, drawing on a distinction between negative and positive conceptions. Finally, it will scrutinize possible implementation of these various meanings of responsibility in supply chains and innovation networks.