Vision Assessment: Shaping Technology in 21st Century Society: Towards a Repertoire for Technology Assessment

213 Pages·2000·8.11 MB·English

by  Michael Decker, John Grin, Armin Grunwald, Peter Mambrey, Rob Reuzel, August Tepper (auth.), Dr. John Grin, Priv.-Doz. Dr. Armin Grunwald (eds.)

Wissenschaftsethik und Technikfolgenbeurteilung
Band4
Schriftenreihe der Europiiischen Akademie zur Erforschung
von Folgen wissenschaftlich-technischer Entwicklungen
Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler GmbH
herausgegeben von Carl Friedrich Gethmann
Springer
Berlin
Heidelberg
New York
Barcelona
HongKong
London
Milan
Paris
Singapore
Tokyo
John Grin· Armin Grunwald
(Eds.)
Vision Assessment:
Shaping Technology in
21 Century Society
st
Towards a Repertoire for Technology Assessment
, Springer
Reihenherausgeber
Professor Dr. Carl Friedrich Gethmann
Europaische Akademie zur Erforschung von Folgen
wissenschaftlich -technischer Entwicklungen
Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler GmbH
Postfach 1460, 0-53459 Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler
Bandherausgeber
Dr. John Grin
Afdeling Politicologie
U niversiteit van Amsterdam
OZ Achterburgwal237, NL -1012 DL Amsterdam
Priv.-Doz. Dr. Armin Grunwald
Institut fur Technikfolgenabschatzung und Systemanalyse
Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe
Postfach 3640, 0 -76021 Karlsruhe
Redaktion
Dagmar Uhl, M. A.
Europiiische Akademie GmbH
Postfach 1460, 0 -53459 Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler
Library of CongressCataloging-in-Publication Data applied for
Die Deutsche Bibliothek -Cip-Einheitsaufnahme
Vision assessment: shaping technology in 21" century society / John Grin, Armin Grunwald (eds.).
Berlin; Heidelberg; New York; Barcelona; Hongkong; London; Milan; Paris; Singapore; Tokyo: Springer, 2000
(Wissenschaftsethik und Technikfolgenbeurteilung; Bd. 4)
ISBN-13: 978-3-642.64°92-6
ISBN-13: 978-3-642-64092-6 e-ISBN-13: 978-3-642-597°2-2
DOl: 10.1007/978-3-642-59702-2
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SPIN:I0747743 62/3020SC -5 4 3 210
European Academy
for the Study of Consequences
of Scientific and Technological Advance
Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler GmbH
The European Academy
The European Academy Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler GmbH is con
cerned with the scientific study of consequences of scientific and
technological advance for the individual and social life and for the
natural environment. The European Academy intends to contribute
to a rational way of society of dealing with the consequences of
scientific and technological developments. This aim is mainly rea
lised in the development of recommendations for options to act,
from the point of view of long-term societal acceptance. The work
of the European Academy mostly takes place in temporary inter
disciplinary project groups, whose members are recognized scien
tists from European universities. Overarching issues, e.g. from the
fields of Technology Assessment or Ethics of Science, are dealt with
by staff of the European Academy.
The Series
The Series "Ethics of Science and Technology Assessment" serves
to publish the results of the European Academy's work. It is pub
lished by the Academy's director. Besides the final results of the
project groups the series includes volumes on general questions of
ethics of science and technology assessment as well as other mono
graphic studies.
Foreword
Life - in science just as in society in general - develops around visions, projects
and unintended events that offer both challenges for existing co-operations and
opportunities for new ones. The particular project from which this book results has
its origins with two events. In October 1996, at the bi-annual Conference of the
European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) in Biele
feld, John Grin bought two just appeared books by two German teams on the role
of visions in socio-technical developments. One came from Meinolf Dierkes and
his colleagues at the Science Centre Berlin, the other from Peter Mambrey and
others at the GMD National Research Centre for Information Technology in Sankt
Augustin. These studies touched upon one of Grin's key interests: how can we, in
a reflexive and critical-reflective way, come to terms with the long term future?
The concept of visions draws our attention to the fact that this is not just a naive
question of how to sketch blueprints for the next fifty years, but a matter of criti
cally judging and adapting of the visions that simply are already guiding devel
opments in societal sectors into ones that more people like better.
The second event occurred a few months later, when the chief-of-operations of
the Royal Dutch Air Force invited John Grin to give a 'provocative lecture on
technological and conceptual planning of the airforces' at an International Collo
quium on The Future of Airpower, to be held late November 1997. The invitation
of giving such a lecture in front of senior officers from all NATO countries was
provocative enough to just accept it, but having been out of the field of military
technology and security for some years this immediately created the necessity for
an intensive literature survey. While preparing this lecture some of the problems
that occurred reminded him of Mambrey c.s. 's work. Their 'discourse analysis' of
the visions they found among their colleagues revealed a similar bias in the vi
sions that dominate 21 century airpower concepts.
5t
That was the start of a session John Grin proposed for the 1998 EASST confer
ence in Lisbon, on 'Expectations, Technology, the 21st Century and Technology
Assessment.' Rob Reuzel and Gert Jan van der Wilt, whose both critical and clini
cally oriented work on medical technology assessment had been a ground for
frequent exchange since long, fortunately agreed to join the session. Their work,
relying on sound medical knowledge, ethics and technology assessment method
ology, added the sharp view implied by any attempt to justice to both established
socio-technological development and, sometimes fundamental, criticism of it.
Parallel, another chain of events had developed in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler,
Germany, where the European Academy for the Study of Consequences of Scien
tific and Technological Advance had settled itself. As a young, European-oriented
institute it wishes to contribute to T A in Europe both through innovative work by
its own staff and through exchange with colleagues from all over Europe. That
made Armin Grunwald, vice-director of the European Academy and also inter
ested in long term planning and T A, to propose a paper to the forum of the 1998
EASST Conference. In spring 1998, the Academy invited John Grin to discuss
VIII Foreword
with them the methodical guide on interactive T A he had recently co-authored. At
that occasion, John Grin asked Armin Grunwald to contribute to the session at the
EASST Conference, because his paper added to the others a both praxeological
and fundamental reflection, betraying Grunwald's departure from planning theory,
ethics and epistemology, on the tension between long-term planning and public
legitimacy.
The project got real impetus in Lisbon. We experienced not only that we share
an interest in research on long term orientations that is fundamental and critical as
well as empirical and constructive. Even more stimulating, we discovered that a
variety of themes were running through our respective papers, in ways that were
both fascinating and too intricate to explore them, during that session, in any other
way than very superficially. Our idea to publish a volume where we could explore
these matters further turned into a project to be realised in the recently started
book series of the European Academy.
It appeared that another Academy researcher, Michael Decker, could enrich the
book with a chapter on robotics applications in health care, which is the only ex
ante analysis in the book, a proposal on how to start a T A-project on a new tech
nology, of which little understanding exists outside expert circles.
Intensive exchanges along all 5 x 4 conceivable axes did the rest to elaborate
the commonality of our contributions, both by writing the first and final chapters
and by adapting the original conference papers.
June, 1999 John Grin
AmsterdamlBad Neuenahr Armin Grunwald
Contents
Outline
Michael Decker. John Grin. Armin Grunwald. Peter Mambrey
Rob Reuzel. August Tepper. Gert Jan van der Will .................................. I
Introduction
Vision Assessment to Support Shaping 2151 Century Society?
Technology Assessment as a Tool for Political Judgement
John Grin .................................................................................................. 9
II Case Studies. Technology Assessment and the Role of Visions
Technology Assessment as Metaphor Assessment.
Visions Guiding the Development of Information and Communications
Peter Mambrey. AugusI Tepper ................................................................ 33
Technology Assessment in the Health Care Area:
A Matter of Uncovering or of Covering Up?
Rob Reuzel. Gerl Jan van der Wilt ............................................................ 53
Bloodless War or Bloody Non-Sense? Technology Assessment's
Role in Uncovering Old Propositions behind New Airpower Concepts
John Grin .................................................................................................. 71
III Visions and Societal Rationality
Technology Policy between Long-Tenn Planning Requirements
and Short-Ranged Acceptance Problems. New Challenges
for Technology Assessment
Armin Grunwald ....................................................................................... 99
Replacing Human Beings by Robots.
How to Tackle that Perspective by Technology Assessment?
Michael Decker ......................................................................................... 149
X Contents
IV Conclusions
The Lessons we Learnt: First Outline of Strategy
and a Methodical Repertoire for Vision Assessment
John Grin, Michael Decker, Armin Grunwald, Peter Mambrey,
Rob Reuzel, Gert Jan van der Wilt ............................................................ 169
List of Authors .............................................................................................. 191
Outline
Michael Decker, John Grin, Armin Grunwald, Peter Mambrey, Rob Reuzel,
August Tepper, Gert Jan van der Wilt
In this book, we take up the challenge of the role of technology in the first half of
the 21s, century, as we are supposedly entering the 'post-industrial', 'trans
national', 'post-modern' (and so on) society. We will assume that one way to
shape socio-technological systems is through the visions that guide their
development. The idea is not to create such visions bolt from the blue. Rather, the
assumption is that visions exist already in most societal sectors, that these visions
tend to reproduce the ways in which these sectors have developed hitherto, and
that a critical discussion of these visions is a prerequisite for changing the course
of development. We will ask how we can critically assess and construct visions on
the ways in which technology and social problems are going to relate to each other
so as to support critical discursive moments in existing recursive practices.
We thereby attempt to shed some light not only on existing visions, but also on
thinking about guiding long-term societal development. Is it possible, indeed, to
provide some orientation to long-term development in a way that i) contributes to
meeting challenges like the need for sustainable development; while ii) escaping
the risk of authoritarian blueprints and iii) ensures it public legitimacy.
Dealing with these matters, this volume draws upon insights from technology
studies, policy studies, epistemology, sociology and ethics. It is to contribute to
the recent stream of literature in technology studies on 'shaping technology',
taking into account the 'co-evolution of technology and society'. It connects to
that technology assessment literature that emphasises TA's pro-active role and its
contribution to political judgement. It uses those insights from policy planning and
epistemology that may help to reconcile long-term planning and public legitimacy.
It considers socio-technological systems from a broader point of view, taking into
account both macro-sociological and ethical analysis.
A book like this, with a variety of chapters that rather than discussing a series
of research questions one by one, each in their own way touch upon a set of
common themes, cannot be introduced in any linear way. John Grin introduces
these themes, suggesting questions and exploring answers, and relates this to the
chapters that follow. It is organised around the question how we may, somehow,
shape the future, escaping the risk of falling into authoritarian utopias but
simultaneously addressing some of the serious problems that the 20'h century has
brought us. It discusses the possibility that processes of political judgement, in
which guiding visions are being discussed and transformed, may be at the core of
the answer. But, as it is emphasised, pluriform judgement goes beyond the
widespread habit of integrating into a particular, dominant vision those elements
of alternative visions that may help to make that dominant vision more robust.
J. Grin et al. (eds.), Vision Assessment: Shaping Technology in 21 st Century Society
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2000