In order to adequately evaluate the possibility of achieving RI, in this section we engage with the philosophy of technology to reflect on the concept of technological innovation in two ways. First, we depart from a post-phenomenological perspective to account for the particular technological innovations RI focuses on, and reflect to what extent they enable desirable and responsible outcomes. Second, we emphasize the central role innovation plays in the current age, and show how the specific techno-economic mode in which the concept of innovation is self-evidently presupposed at the same time projects a techno-economic paradigm, which in turn limits the possibility of RI.
RI and the Focus on Particular Technological Innovations
Throughout the last two centuries, when the philosophy of technology gradually emerged as a distinct discipline, technology was largely considered as a singular overarching process, and philosophically discussed in terms of its relation to, for instance, morality (Jonas 1984), politics (Winner 1980, 1983), and truth (Heidegger 1977). Because these theories do not account for how particular technologies differ from one another in numerous ways, a recent branch of the philosophy of technology asserts that instead of analyzing its relations to philosophical issues other than technology, the philosophy of technology “must make technology a foreground phenomenon and be able to reflectively analyze it in such a way as to illuminate features of the phenomenon of technology itself” (Ihde 1993, p. 38; original emphasis). In light of this view, contemporary philosophers of technology aim to empirically analyze particular artifacts, especially with regard to their concrete usage and the context in which they are used (Verbeek 2005). The popularity of this view is reflected in the theme of the latest Society for Philosophy and Technology conference, which was specifically dedicated to the way in which concrete artifacts work. By narrowing the scope to concrete artifacts, this contemporary view of technology is also characterized as an ontic account of technology (Zwier et al. 2016). Despite what critics say (Cf. Feenberg 2009; Kaplan 2009; Scharff 2012; Smith 2015; Zwier et al. 2016), an ontic account of technology does not mean to disregard the effects technology has on other domains, as long as these effects are studied strictly in relation to the particular technology that causes them, and not attributed to technology as such. In Moralizing Technology: Understanding and Designing the Morality of Things, Peter-Paul Verbeek provides some compelling examples that illustrate this latter point:
Speed bumps, to use a favorite example of Bruno Latour, help us make the moral decision not to drive too fast near a school. Ultrasound scans help us to ask and answer moral questions about the lives of unborn children. Energy-saving lightbulbs take over part of our environmental conscience. Coin locks on supermarket pushcarts remind us to return each cart neatly to its place. Turnstiles tell us to buy a ticket before boarding a train. Current developments in information technology show this moral significance more explicitly. With the development of ambient intelligence and persuasive technology, technologies start to interfere openly with our behavior, interacting with people in sophisticated ways and subtly persuading them to change their behavior […]. (Verbeek 2011, pp. 1–2)
In mediating the human–world relation, concrete technologies thus give shape to the moral decisions we daily take. For this reason, Verbeek calls for an ethical framework that conceptualizes the moral significance of such technologies.
Similarly, the RI discourse aims to incorporate an ethical framework into the process of particular innovations. That is to say, as we have seen in the previous section, RI typically focuses on concrete innovations within the field of, for instance, synthetic biology, nanotechnology, and ICT. To be sure, the emergence of RI suggests that these innovations are not always that responsible. Due to the potential harmful impact they have on society and the environment, the idea of RI is to ensure that innovation is ultimately steered democratically into a responsible and desirable direction. Even though RI may face some complications with regard to anticipating future outcomes (Grunwald 2014; Nordmann 2014), the technological innovations it focuses on do show to play a significant role in, for example, the conservation of nature. In the face of an accelerating pace of environmental damage, they can for instance provide new ways for wetlands, forests, and diverse species to be in harmony with a wide range of modern, human settings (Kareiva et al. 2011). Similarly, the introduction of green nanotechnology is shown to enhance environmental sustainability in at least two respects. First, it enables clean technologies that “minimize potential environmental and human health risks associated with the manufacture and use of nanotechnology products” (Shah et al. 2014, p. 157); and second, it inspires the “replacement of existing products with new nano-products that are more environmentally friendly throughout their lifecycle” (Shah et al. 2014, p. 157). Another example of a particular innovation which promises responsible and desirable outcomes includes the electrolysis of water, which is shown to be vital in generating hydrogen, a transport fuel which is likely to overcome the concerns related to greenhouse gas and other polluting emissions (Badwal et al. 2014). The optimism illustrated here indicates that, at least at the ontic level, the concept of technological innovation enables the desirable future that frameworks of RI call for.
RI in the Age of Innovation
The question is whether we should limit our understanding of technological innovation to an ontic approach. Although the concept certainly refers to its representing innovations, it is also described as the very “emblem of the modern society” (Godin 2008, p. 5), and therefore suggests to be an underlying determinant of the current age. Praised as a panacea for resolving all types of challenges (Godin 2008), it has become an integral part of the way we think and do things today (Este 2013). This is confirmed by the numerous books that emerge in all types of fields, all of which explicitly refer to our age as the age of innovation (cf. Janszen 2000; Araya and Peters 2010; Ingham 2015; Tarkenton 2015; Katsoni and Stratigea 2016; Ben-Haim 2018; Goldberg 2018). Today, innovation is all-pervasive, where innovators like Elon Musk and Steve Jobs are heralded the same way scientists and artists were in previous times. In this respect, the development of innovative products and services is often seen as a major concern at the firm level: not to innovate is to die (Freeman 1982). This is also the case for institutions such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and the European Union, both of which consider it self-evident that “most current social, economic and environmental challenges require creative solutions based on innovation” (OECD 2010; cf. European Commission 2010). Noticeably, the European Union launched the Innovation Union, which emphasizes the significance of innovation in increasing European prosperity in terms of stimulating both economic growth and environmental sustainability. For reasons as these, innovation is thus said not only to determine new emerging artifacts and services at an ontic level, but to define our very epoch (Nowotny 2006, 2008; Blok 2019).
If we take this idea into serious consideration, it means that the human–world relation is not only mediated by particular innovations, but also by the specific techno-economic mode in which we self-evidently presuppose innovation in this age of innovation. On the one hand, particular technological innovations certainly differ from one another in numerous ways, and they thus mediate the human–world relation each in their own way. For example, while a drone changes the way we conduct war, the smartphone changes the way we communicate. On the other hand, the technological innovations that are most prevailing in the literature all tend to share a techno-economic paradigm, i.e., they are techno-economically oriented (Von Schomberg and Blok 2018). While there are of course other forms of innovation, such as social innovation and attitudinal innovation, these are generally less considered in the innovation discourse. This is analogous to a distinction Gilbert Simondon (2017) makes between minor and major technologies. Major technologies are those we mostly discuss, while minor technologies are those we tend to overlook. The point we illustrate here is that the techno-economic nature of the innovations that are dominant in both the innovation discourse and RI discourse can be related to the current age of innovation, in which the human–world relation is ultimately techno-economically mediated.
The techno-economic mediation at stake can also be explained in light of what Heidegger calls Enframing (Heidegger 1977). To be sure, in The Question Concerning Technology, Heidegger claims that technology as Enframing is not itself something technological, but entails rather a mode of understanding the world around us and of our relation to it. This mode is to be understood in terms of a calculative ordering according to which we represent, arrange, transform, organize, manipulate, and mobilize reality. Under the sway of technology, all things become fungible, disposable, and changeable energy that stands in reserve for whatever purpose we decide upon. For example, the river Rhine comes to be perceived as a source of energy or a tourist attraction, and forests in terms of cubic meters of timber.
Enframing is the gathering together that belongs to that setting-upon which set upon man and puts him in position to reveal the real, in the mode of ordering, as standing-reserve. (Heidegger 1977, p. 24)
Heidegger further explains that because Enframing presents this mode of calculative ordering as self-evident, it has fatally absorbed and disabled all other possible modes of existence. In other words, due to Enframing calculative ordering is the only mode in which reality is to be experienced, overshadowing the possibility of any other mode.
In similar vein, we argue that while the concept of innovation in its all-pervasive sense is precisely a way of enabling new possibilities, the dominant mode of calculative ordering constrains us to the self-evidence of technological innovation.Footnote 3 Even though innovation is about creating change in the broadest sense possible, and RI is about exceeding the market, the concept of innovation remains presupposed as technological innovation and commercial innovation. As a result, the scope of innovation is limited to the field of commercial or at least commercializable technologies, and tied to an intrinsic relation between technology and the market. This explains why a range of other forms of innovation, such as social innovation (e.g., fair trade) and attitudinal innovation (e.g., lifestyle interventions), are often excluded from the RI discourse. That is to say, these forms of innovation are dominated by their technological and commercial alternative. For example, debates concerning meat overconsumption are often restricted to the potential benefits and implications of in vitro meat, instead of also considering innovative ways of empowering non-meat protein sources.
The ambiguous relation between the ideal of RI (i.e., exceeding the market in order to serve society) and its practice (i.e., implicitly adhering to a techno-economic view on innovation) brings the possibility of RI into question. Even though particular technological innovations are shown to enhance responsible and desirable outcomes, the techno-economic paradigm in which these innovations are embedded is arguably incompatible with the ideal of overcoming today’s societal and environmental issues. The imperative of maximizing economic growth is claimed to be the main cause of today’s increasingly unequal distribution of wealth (cf. Rolston III 2012; Naudé and Nagler 2016), and as “the root cause of many environmental problems” it stands “in direct conflict with sustainability” (Huesemann and Huesemann 2011, p. 256). This is confirmed by the relatively recent increases in waste disposal, pollution, water shortage, deforestation, global warming, loss of biodiversity, natural resource depletion, and public health issues; increases that can be seen as an effect of the techno-economic paradigm of innovation (Huesemann and Huesemann 2011; Purdy 2015).
One way in which the techno-economic paradigm of innovation affects the possibility of RI is reflected in the power imbalances that take place during the innovation process. That is to say, while RI to a certain extent presupposes an agreement with regard to today’s global issues, such as global warming and world poverty, in practice the numerous stakeholders included in the innovation processes often have different definitions of these issues, and different ways of solving them (cf. Kroesen et al. 2015). These differences are chiefly because of contrasting motives and agendas of, for instance, for-profit and non-profit organizations (Yaziji and Doh 2009). Due to power imbalances—the engineers who create the technology and the companies that finance it tend to have more power than, for example, the wider public—the disparities among stakeholders are not often collectively solved and usually result in conflict (Bryson et al. 2006). As a result, in reality, innovation processes adhere much more to the dominant ideals of technological and economic progress than they do to the common ground from which the RI literature departs.
The techno-economic paradigm of innovation also has implications for achieving the transparency among stakeholders RI calls for. To be sure, this call for transparency is compromised by the competitive advantage a new technology requires in order to flourish on the market (Blok and Lemmens 2015; Brand and Blok 2019). To accomplish this competitive advantage, companies depend on information asymmetries, meaning that they seek for additional knowledge about certain opportunities that other companies are unaware of. In the context of RI, companies search for such information with regard to solving both existing and anticipated global issues. However, transparency among the included stakeholders naturally implies a reduction of these information asymmetries, thus taking away the very foundation of competitive advantage. Therefore, in so far the concept of innovation adheres to a techno-economic paradigm, the idea of enabling transparent collaboration among all stakeholders included in the innovation process is simply naïve (Blok and Lemmens 2015).
Moreover, while the techno-economic paradigm of innovation somewhat takes for granted that outcomes of innovation processes can be calculated and foreseen, in practice they are often shown to be unpredictable. Even though unexpected societal and environmental consequences may be reduced when the different dimensions of RI are incorporated in the innovation process, this is not guaranteed (Rammert 1997). For example, during the process of developing biofuel, the included stakeholders concluded that since this type of fuel is locally produced, inherently renewable, and less polluting, its introduction is both responsible and desirable. Nevertheless, as a consequence of the increased demand for biofuels, farmers were forced to cultivate more crops for biofuel production, which in turn led to an increase in the price of food. This increase in the price of food was unexpected and now brings into question if the introduction of biofuels was in fact responsible and desirable, especially given that people in developing countries were badly affected by this unforeseen outcome (Blok and Lemmens 2015). This example illustrates that the ideals of RI cannot be achieved insofar as outcomes of technological innovations are unknown. Unknown outcomes are in fact a vital characteristic of technological innovation (Rammert 1997), contrary to what the techno-economic paradigm suggests.
Hence, because the innovation processes at stake in the RI discourse adhere to the techno-economic paradigm and, as a result, come with fundamental power imbalances, information asymmetries, and unpredictable outcomes, the ideal of RI to steer such processes becomes problematic.