Ethics in the Innovation Process: Some Unaddressed Issues for Pragmatists

There are now dozens of proposals for integrating ethics into the early planning , assessment of technological innovation. This paper tracks some of Larry Hickman's contributions to these trends. While Hickman's suggestions could be incorporated into virtually many of the new proposals for integrating ethics into technological research, development and dissemination, barriers remain. In this paper, I will explores some reasons why the field remains fragmented, emphasizing weaknesses in the pragmatist approach. First, I acknowledge the significance of obvious explanations: the technical community's unfamiliarity with ethical inquiry and the lack of both administrative and financial commitment to ethics-oriented research. There is, in short, an epistemic gap between the message that innovators are prepared to hear and the sophisticated response that Hickman's pragmatism offers. This gap may be a practical limitation to philosophical pragmatism in many of its manifestations.

Automated summary

This paper explores Larry Hickman's contributions to integrating ethics into technological innovation and identifies barriers, particularly in the pragmatist approach. The technical community's unfamiliarity with ethical inquiry and lack of administrative and financial commitment to ethics-oriented research hinder the implementation of Hickman's suggestions.