The article sheds light on psychological and work science aspects of the design and utilization of service robots. An initial presentation of the characteristics of man–robot interaction is followed by a discussion of the principles of the division of functions between human beings and robots in service area work systems. The following aspects are to be considered: (1) the organisation of societal work (such as the different employment and professional profiles of service employees), (2) the work tasks to be performed (...) by humans and robots (such as handling, monitoring or decision-making tasks), (3) the possibilities and the limitations of realizing such tasks by means of information technology (depending, for example, on the motoric capabilities, perception and cognition of the robot). Consideration of these three design perspectives gives rise to criteria of usability. Current debate focuses on the (work science) principles of man–machine communication, though in future these should be supplemented with robot-specific criteria such as "motoric capabilities" or "relationship quality." The article concludes by advocating the convergence and combination of work science criteria with ideas drawn from participative design approaches in the development and utilization of service robots. (shrink)

Both developing and developed countries face an increasing mismatch between what patients expect to receive from healthcare and what the public healthcare systems can afford to provide. Where there has been a growing recognition of the entitlement to receive healthcare, the frustrated expectations with regards to the level of provision has led to lawsuits challenging the denial of funding for health treatments by public health systems. This book analyses the impact of courts and litigation on the way health systems set (...) priorities and make rationing decisions. In particular, it focuses on how the judicial protection of the right to healthcare can impact the institutionalization, functioning and centrality of Health Technology Assessment (HTA) for decisions about the funding of treatment. Based on the case study of three jurisdictions - Brazil, Colombia, and England - it shows that courts can be a key driver for the institutionalization of HTA. These case studies show the paradoxes of judicial control, which can promote accountability and impair it, demand administrative competence and undermine bureaucratic capacities. The case studies offer a nuanced and evidence-informed understanding of these paradoxes in the context of health care by showing how the judicial control of priority-setting decisions in health care can be used to require and control an explicit scheme for health technology assessment, but can also limit and circumvent it. (shrink)

This paper develops a hermeneutic technology assessment of quantum technologies. It offers a “vision assessment” of quantum technologies that can eventually lead to socio-ethical analysis. Section 2 describes this methodological approach and in particular the concept of the hermeneutic circle applied to technology. Section 3 gives a generic overview of quantum technologies and their impacts. Sections 4 and 5 apply the hermeneutic technology assessment approach to the study of quantum technologies. Section 5 proposes distinguishing (...) three levels in the analysis of the creation and communication of social meanings to quantum technologies: (a) fictions, (b) popularization, and (c) scientific journalism. Section 6 analyzes the results and defines some lines of action to increase social acceptance and trust in quantum technologies. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the debate on quantum technologies by enhancing the reflection on them and their potential, as well as illustrating the complexity of technological innovation and the need to shape it. (shrink)

This paper explores the usefulness of the 'ethical matrix', proposed by Ben Mepham, as a tool in technology assessment, specifically in food ethics. We consider what the matrix is, how it might be useful as a tool in ethical decision-making, and what drawbacks might be associated with it. We suggest that it is helpful for fact-finding in ethical debates relating to food ethics; but that it is much less helpful in terms of weighing the different ethical problems that (...) it uncovers. Despite this drawback, we maintain that, with some modifications, the ethical matrix can be a useful tool in debates in food ethics. We argue that useful modifications might be to include future generations amongst the stakeholders in the matrix, and to substitute the principle of solidarity for the principle of justice. (shrink)

Technology assessment (TA) is – for several reasons – not detachable from ethical questions. The development of institutions and concepts for TA, especially in the USA and Western Europe, has been marked by an increasing tendency to focus evaluative and normative questions. In the following paper, we point out, in as far as the common notions of TA are implicitly normative, why reflection upon conceptual options of TA inevitably leads to ethical questions, and that the key question of (...) participation necessarily comes up in the context of societal decisions made under conditions of risk or uncertainty. Arrangements of participatory and discoursive TA are referred to as possible applications of discourse ethics, but there are consequences to consider, which result from discourses in TA not being ideal discourses. Concepts and performance of TA arrangements on biotechnology and gene technology in different European countries are compared, analysing what similarities and differences can be found with respect to ethical clarification. Crucial questions of how to conceptualise participatory TA (pTA) and current topics in ethics of technology are shown to coincide. A proposal is presented of how these – theoretical normative and empirical descriptive – considerations can be used in a comprehensive conception for participatory and discoursive TA. (shrink)

Interactive technology assessment (iTA) provides an answer to the ethical problem of normative bias in evaluation research. This normative bias develops when relevant perspectives on the evaluand (the thing being evaluated) are neglected. In iTA this bias is overcome by incorporating different perspectives into the assessment. As a consequence, justification of decisions based on the assessment is provided by stakeholders having achieved agreement. In this article, agreement is identified with wide reflective equilibrium to show that it (...) indeed has the potential of justifying decisions. We work out several conditions for this agreement to be achievable and just. (shrink)

Interactive technology assessment is a novel approach to evaluating (health) technology, which philosophically draws from the works of Rawls and Habermas. That is, it seeks to organise a practical setting for discursive ethics in order to find a legitimate basis for policy to be pursued when the technology under scrutiny features a moral controversy. Interactive technology assessment involves a cycle of interviews with all stakeholders, who are explicitly asked to respond (anonymously) to the concerns (...) and issues raised by other participants. This cycle is completed repeatedly, so that a process of vicarious learning develops. This process aims at identifying issues agreed and disagreed upon, on the basis of which widely endorsed policy recommendations can be formulated. This chapter involves an interactive technology assessment of paediatric cochlear implantation. The rationale, the design, and the results are explained, as well as the main ethical aspects of the procedure. (shrink)

Technoscience and technology assessment Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s10202-010-0080-8 Authors Karen Kastenhofer, Austrian Academy of Sciences Institute of Technology Assessment Strohg. 45/5 1030 Wien Austria Doris Allhutter, Austrian Academy of Sciences Institute of Technology Assessment Strohg. 45/5 1030 Wien Austria Journal Poiesis & Praxis: International Journal of Technology Assessment and Ethics of Science Online ISSN 1615-6617 Print ISSN 1615-6609 Journal Volume Volume 7 Journal Issue Volume 7, Numbers 1-2.

The current model of technology assessment treats ethics itself as just another problem‐solving technology. Ethics should resist this model to play a more critical role in technology assessment by better understanding the complex relationship between society, medicine, and technology—and by recasting how problems are defined.

The current model of technology assessment treats ethics itself as just another problem‐solving technology. Ethics should resist this model to play a more critical role in technology assessment by better understanding the complex relationship between society, medicine, and technology—and by recasting how problems are defined.

Participatory Technology Assessment initiatives have usually been analyzed as if they existed in a social and political vacuum. This article analyzes the linkages that occur, in both directions, between the microcosm set up by a pTA exercise and the real world outside. This dual-dynamics perspective leads to a new way of understanding the function and significance of pTA initiatives. Rather than viewing them as a means to create the ideal conditions for real public debate, they are viewed here (...) as an additional public arena in which sociotechnical controversies are played out. This perspective is developed from the analysis of an interactive technology assessment exercise conducted by the French National Institute for Agricultural Research, on the topic of genetically modified vines. (shrink)

A synthesis of neo-Schumpeterian evolutionary, sociological, and historical coevolution ary models could be used for constructive technology assessment, aimed at the active management of the process of technological change. This article proposes a synthetic quasi-evolutionary model, in which variation and selection are neither independent nor coincidental processes. Variation and selection are linked by actors, resulting in the actor role labeled technological nexus. On the basis of the quasi-evolutionary approach, three constructive technology assessment strategies are proposed: stimulating (...) alternative variations, changing the selection environment, and creating or utilizing technological nexus. The usefulness of these concepts is demonstrated for the case of clean technolo gies. Ultimately, a conscious application of these strategies could result in a new actor role for government as a creative social regulator of technological change. (shrink)

This article addresses the question of how policymakers could deliberately influence processes of technology development. Using the development of wind turbines in Denmark as an example, the article describes the frames of meaning guiding the actions of those involved in the three subprocesses of policymaking, the generation of new technologies, and the management of the firms that bring new artifacts to the market. The three types of actors share an interest in one notion: the meaning of a technological artifact. (...) This notion, however, plays a different role in the respective frames of meaning of the actors. For policymakers and managers, it is an instrumental notion. For technologists, it provides guidance to their activities. The shared interest affords the possibility of reaching common action with only congruent meanings. Interactive forms of technology assessment can play a central role in bringing about such congruent meanings and thus in influencing the generation of new technologies. (shrink)

Handling the impacts and consequences of technology has become a problem of political, social and scientific relevance since the Sixties. The earlier assumption that technological evolution would automatically lead to social and human progress in an emphatic sense can no longer be sustained. The ambivalence of technology has become a standing topic in the public, philosophical and scientific debate .In this situation new challenges to technology policy are emerging. Functions of an `early warning' with respect to the (...) risks or potentials of new technologies or to ways of avoiding or, at least, resolving technology conflicts by compromise have been postulated . Technology policy pursued by parliament or government, therefore, is in need of scientific consultation . Since the Seventies a number of institutions in this field have been founded , either primarily as parliamentary bureaus of knowledge-transfer to the decision-makers , as networks with a low degree of institutionalization or as independent scientific institutes .The scientific discussion on how to acquire and establish orientational knowledge for decision-makers facing the ambivalence of technology is sectoralized into two branches: the ethics of technology and technology assessment . These two branches are based on fundamentally different assumptions concerning how to give orientation to technology policy: the philosophical ethics, of course, emphasizes the normative implications of decisions on technology and the importance of moral conflicts , while technology assessment relies mainly on sociological or economic research .Both approaches have largely been developed and practised without regard to one another. In Germany, at the beginning of the Nineties the conceptual discussion around these questions was initiated. At first, a lot of misunderstandings appeared, both parties fundamentally criticizing each other, often one denying the competence of the other to deal appropriately with technology problems . In this paper the conflict is analyzed by looking at the situation in Germany, summarizing and weighing the main arguments which have been brought up by TA and the ethical approach to technology.As a result it will be shown that both are partly right, whereby the relative weight of both approaches in their capacity to give orientation is dependent on contextual circumstances. A non-reductionistic overall approach must take into account the normative aspects of the ethics of technology when handling moral conflicts as well as the need for operationalization, concreteness and established knowledge about the processes of “managing technology in society” postulated by TA. (shrink)

Synthetic biology is regarded as one of the key technosciences of the future. The goal of this paper is to present some fundamental considerations to enable procedures of a technology assessment of synthetic biology. To accomplish such an early “upstream” assessment of a not yet fully developed technology, a special type of TA will be considered: Prospective TA. At the center of ProTA are the analysis and the framing of “synthetic biology,” including a characterization and (...) class='Hi'>assessment of the technological core. The thesis is that if there is any differentia specifica giving substance to the umbrella term “synthetic biology,” it is the idea of harnessing self-organization for engineering purposes. To underline that we are likely experiencing an epochal break in the ontology of technoscientific systems, this new type of technology is called “late-modern technology.” —I start this paper by analyzing the three most common visions of synthetic biology. Then I argue that one particular vision deserves more attention because it underlies the others: the vision of self-organization. I discuss the inherent limits of this new type of late-modern technology in the attempt to control and monitor possible risk issues. I refer to Hans Jonas’ ethics and his early anticipation of the risks of a novel type of technology. I end by drawing conclusions for the approach of ProTA towards an early societal shaping of synthetic biology. (shrink)

Whether it is nuclear power, geo-engineering or genetically modified foods, the development of new technologies can be fraught with complex ethical challenges and political controversy which defy simple resolution. In the past two decades there has been a shift towards processes of Participatory Technology Assessment designed to build channels of two-way communication between technical specialists and non-expert citizens, and to incorporate multiple stakeholder perspectives in the governance of contentious technology programmes. This participatory turn has spurred a need (...) for new tools and techniques to encourage group deliberation and capture public values, moral and choices. This book specifically examines the ethical dimensions of controversial technologies, and discusses how these can be evaluated in a philosophically robust manner when the ones doing the deliberating are not ethicists, legal or technical experts. Grounded in philosophical pragmatism and drawing upon empirical work in partnership with citizen-stakeholders, this book presents a model called "Reflective Ethical Mapping" - a new meta-ethical framework and toolbox of techniques to facilitate citizen engagement with technology ethics. (shrink)

“HTA is a multidisciplinary process that summarizes information about the medical, social, economic and ethical issues related to the use of a health technology in a systematic, transparent, unbiased, robust manner. Its aim is to inform the formulation of safe, effective, health policies that are patient focused, and seek to achieve best value” (EUnetHTA 2007). Even though the assessment of ethical aspects of a health technology is listed as one of the objectives of a HTA process, in (...) practice, the integration of these dimensions into reports remains limited. The article is focused on four points: 1. the HTA concept; 2. the difficult HTA-ethics relationship; 3. the ethical issues in HTA; 4. the methods for integrating ethical analysis into HTA. (shrink)

In this contribution, I wish to explore the potential of health technology assessment and ethics for increasing our capacity to pre-empt the shortcomings and undesired consequences of modern health care while maintaining its benefits. Central is the presumption that in case of some health problems this cannot be done unless we explicitly reconsider some features of the modern health care system, especially those related to its strong reliance on scientific rationality and the strong role played by medical professionals.So (...) as to both maintain the benefits of advanced health care and ensure that it produces less reason for concern, we need to reconsider our approach to rationality—and maybe even the way in which we build our health care system around that rationality. That is, we need to introduce an element of reflexivity. Two types of circumstances are being explored in which such reflexivity may prove worthwhile: controversies on side effects, and persistent problems encountered in optimising health care. Drawing on brief discussions of typical cases, we explore the potential of reflexive HTA and its methodical prerequisites.We conclude that ethicists may contribute to reflexive HTA, if they combine a hermeneutic—and often also participative—methodology with a solid understanding of the relation between the health problem under scrutiny and more general critique of the health care system. Insights from the areas of science and technology studies, as well as from social philosophy may be critical items in their tool kit. (shrink)

Problem: Visions of technology, future scenarios, guiding visions represent imaginations of future states of affairs that play a functional role in processes of technological research, development and innovation—e.g. as a means to create attention, communication, coordination, or for the strategic exertion of influence. Since a couple of years there is a growing attention for such imaginations of futures in politics, the economy, research and the civil society. This trend concerns technology assessment as an observer of these processes (...) and a consultant on the implications of technology and innovation. TA faces increasing demands to assess imaginations of futures that circulate in the present and to participate in shaping these through scenarios or foresights. More than ever, this raises the question, which propositions can be made based on these imaginations by TA and how this can be used in advisory practices. Imaginations of futures are relevant for TA not as predictions but in their significance and effectiveness in the present, which need to be understood and assessed.Contents: This discussion paper outlines how present significance and effects of imagined futures in technological research and innovation processes can be conceived and analyzed. In this paper, all forms of imaginations of technology futures will be called “socio-technical futures” because within them technological developments and social changes are interwoven and inseparably interrelated. In this paper, we discuss why TA should analyze socio-technical futures, how such analyses can grasp the societal conditions that are expressed in the imagined futures and how these become effective in processes of technology development, communication, decision making etc. We raise the question which self-reflexive positioning or possible realignment of TA is needed as a response to its increased concern with assessing and even co-producing socio-technical futures. The latter is often demanded regarding the growing attention by politics and publics to imaginations of futures with wide temporal and spatial reach.Addressee of this paper is the TA community in a broader sense. The aim is to sensitize colleagues for the topic and its challenges, to consolidate discussions and to provide theoretical and methodical suggestions for research in TA and related advisory practices with respect to socio-technical futures. This paper has been originally initiated during the workshop “The present of technological futures-theoretical and methodical challenges for Technology Assessment”, in which all of the paper’s authors participated. The contents of this discussion paper are preliminary results that shall initiate and guide further discussions. (shrink)

The paper contributes to the current discussion on the role of participatory methods in the context of technology assessment (TA) and science and technology (S&T) governance. It is argued that TA has to be understood as a form of democratic policy consulting in the sense of the Habermasian model of a “pragmatist” relation of science and politics. This notion implies that public participation is an indispensable element of TA in the context of policy advice. Against this background, (...) participatory TA (pTA) is defended against recent criticism of procedures of lay participation which states that pTA is lacking impact on S&T decision making, that pTA instead of opening S&T policies to new perspectives is used as a means to support mainstream S&T policy and that in pTA procedure the authentic lay perspective is systematically contorted by dominant expert knowledge. (shrink)

With a growing number of genetic tests becoming available to the health and consumer markets, genetic health care providers in Canada are faced with the challenge of developing robust decision rules or guidelines to allocate a finite number of public resources. The objective of this study was to gain Canadian genetic health providers' perspectives on factors and criteria that influence and shape resource allocation decisions for publically funded predictive genetic testing in Canada. The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with 16 senior (...) lab directors and clinicians at publically funded Canadian predictive genetic testing facilities. Participants were drawn from British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia. Given the community sampled was identified as being relatively small and challenging to access, purposive sampling coupled with snowball sampling methodologies were utilized. Surveyed lab directors and clinicians indicated that predictive genetic tests were funded provincially by one of two predominant funding models, but they themselves played a significant role in how these funds were allocated for specific tests and services. They also rated and identified several factors that influenced allocation decisions and patients' decisions regarding testing. Lastly, participants provided recommendations regarding changes to existing allocation models and showed support for a national evaluation process for predictive testing. Our findings suggest that largely local and relatively ad hoc decision making processes are being made in relation to resource allocations for predictive genetic tests and that a more coordinated and, potentially, national approach to allocation decisions in this context may be appropriate. (shrink)

In recent years, citizens’ and civil society engagement with science and technology has become almost synonymous with participation in institutionally organized formats of participatory technology assessment (pTA) such as consensus conferences or stakeholder dialogues. Contrary to this view, it is argued in the article that beyond these standardized models of “invited” participation, there exist various forms of “uninvited” and independent civil society engagement, which frequently not only have more significant impact but are profoundly democratically legitimate as well. (...) Using the two examples of patient associations and environmental and consumer organizations in the field of nanotechnology, it is illustrated that interest-based civil society interventions do play an important role in the polycentric governance of science and technology. In conclusion, some implications for the activities of TA institutions and the design of novel TA procedures are outlined. (shrink)

A comprehensive assessment of a health technology requires that a wide variety of questions are addressed. These range from whether the use of a technology results in achievement of its intended effects at acceptable costs and without incurring undue risks to the patient, to whether its use may challenge existing social arrangements and values. Clearly, this is a major challenge, since it requires the use of quite different methods of inquiry. In the past decades, we have rarely (...) witnessed assessments where both types of questions were addressed in a balanced way. Rather, a wide gap exists between inquiries with a strong empirical focus and an almost complete neglect of underlying normative issues, and inquiries which are largely discursive, but with a serious disregard of relevant empirical data. The complex interplay between normative frameworks and empirical data in the assessment of health technologies is illustrated in two case studies: the assessment of surgical management of children with glue ears, and the assessment of Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation in neonates. (shrink)

In recent years, citizens’ and civil society engagement with science and technology has become almost synonymous with participation in institutionally organized formats of participatory technology assessment (pTA) such as consensus conferences or stakeholder dialogues. Contrary to this view, it is argued in the article that beyond these standardized models of “invited” participation, there exist various forms of “uninvited” and independent civil society engagement, which frequently not only have more significant impact but are profoundly democratically legitimate as well. (...) Using the two examples of patient associations and environmental and consumer organizations in the field of nanotechnology, it is illustrated that interest-based civil society interventions do play an important role in the polycentric governance of science and technology. In conclusion, some implications for the activities of TA institutions and the design of novel TA procedures are outlined. (shrink)

Technology assessment has been evolving as a research-based and anticipatory field of scientific policy-advice for more than fifty years. Its position at the interface between science and policy-making has caused several debates on its adequate roles. Proposals reach from the position of a neutral and distant observer of ongoing developments up to taking an active role in transformation processes fueled by the technological advance, e.g. in favor of sustainable development. In this paper, several role concepts of TA will (...) be discussed against the background of a new framework concept on technology assessment. It will be shown, that TA usually has to take the role of an Honest Broker in assessing new technologies as an umbrella role concept. The specific manifestations of this umbrella role, however, can vary from context to context. The role concept of the Honest Broker serves as an orientation to determine the more specific roles in the tension between assumed neutrality and the obligation to create impact. (shrink)

The UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is responsible for conducting health technology assessment on behalf of the National Health Service. In seeking to justify its recommendations to the NHS about which technologies to fund, NICE claims to adopt two complementary ethical frameworks, one procedural—accountability for reasonableness —and one substantive—an ‘ethics of opportunity costs’ that rests primarily on the notion of allocative efficiency. This study is the first to empirically examine normative changes to NICE’s approach and (...) to analyse whether these enhance or diminish the fairness of its decision-making, as judged against these frameworks. It finds that increasing formalisation of NICE’s approach and a weakening of the burden of proof laid on technologies undergoing HTA have together undermined its commitment to EOC. This implies a loss of allocative efficiency and a shift in the balance of how the interests of different NHS users are served, in favour of those who benefit directly from NICE’s recommendations. These changes also weaken NICE’s commitment to AfR by diminishing the publicity of its decision-making and by encouraging the adoption of rationales that cannot easily be shown to meet the relevance condition. This signals a need for either substantial reform of NICE’s approach, or more accurate communication of the ethical reasoning on which it is based. The study also highlights the need for further empirical work to explore the impact of these policy changes on NICE’s practice of HTA and to better understand how and why they have come about. (shrink)

Science and technology policy is often confronted with issues that are both complex and controversial and which have to be decided upon in a delicate constellation of policy-makers, experts, stakeholders, non-governmental organizations and the public. One attempt to deal with such a complex problem is via citizen involvement. Participatory technology assessment (pTA) already goes back to several decades, and countries have made various experiences. While in some countries, governments established technology assessment organizations, which also included (...) pTA in their methodological portfolio, others primarily rely on experts to make decisions on science and technology policy. In a third group of countries non-state actors, such as social scientists, experimented with pTA. However, they were often unable to link these experiments to policy-making. This paper deals with the question of why this variation exists and compares the use of pTA in Switzerland and Austria. Despite similarities between the two countries, both had quite different experiences with pTA so far. Whereas several pTAs have been carried out in Switzerland until today, Austrian pTAs have remained infrequent. The aim of this paper is to explain this difference as a result of different ways of policy-making which affect the use and chances of pTA. (shrink)

Since James Carroll (1971) made a strong case for “participatory technology”, scientists, engineers, policy-makers and the public at large have seen quite a number of different approaches to design and implement participatory processes in technology assessment and technology policy. As these participatory experiments and practices spread over the last two decades, one could easily get the impression that participation turned from a theoretical normative claim to a working practice that goes without saying. Looking beyond the well-known (...) forerunners and considering the ambivalent experiences that have been made under different conditions in various places, however, the “if” and “how” of participation are still contested issues when questions of technology are on the agenda. Legitimation problems indicate that attempts to justify participation in a given case have not been entirely successful in the eyes of relevant groups among the sponsors, participants, organizers or observers. Legitimation problems of participatory processes in technology assessment and technology policy vary considerably, and they do so not only with the two domains and the ways of their interrelation or the specific features of the participatory processes. If we ask whether or not participation is seen as problematic in technology assessment and technology policy-making and in what sense it is being evaluated as problematic, then we find that the answer depends also on the approaches and criteria that have been used to legitimize or delegitimize the call for a specific design of participation. (shrink)

In this article, we inquire into two contemporary participatory formats that seek to democratically intervene in scientific practice: the consensus conference and participatory technology assessment. We explain how these formats delegitimize conflict and disagreement by making a strong appeal to consensus. Based on our direct involvement in these formats and informed both by political philosophy and science and technology studies, we outline conceptions that contrast with the consensus ideal, including dissensus, disclosure, conflictual consensus and agonistic democracy. Drawing (...) on the notion of meta-consensus and a distinction between four models of democracy, we elaborate how a more positive valuation of conflict provides opportunities for mutual learning, the articulation of disagreement, and democratic modulation—three aspirations that are at the heart of most pTAs and consensus conferences. Disclosing the strengths and weaknesses of these different models is politically and epistemically useful, and should therefore be an integral part of the development of participation theory and process in science and technology. (shrink)

When one wants to use citizen input to inform policy, what should the standards of informedness on the part of the citizens be? While there are moral reasons to allow every citizen to participate and have a voice on every issue, regardless of education and involvement, designers of participatory assessments have to make decisions about how to structure deliberations as well as how much background information and deliberation time to provide to participants. After assessing different frameworks for the relationship between (...) science and society, we use Philip Kitcher's framework of Well-Ordered Science to propose an epistemic standard on how citizen deliberations should be structured. We explore what potential standards follow from this epistemic framework focusing on significance versus scientific and engineering expertise. We argue that citizens should be tutored on the historical context of why scientific questions became significant and deemed scientifically and socially valuable, and if citizens report that they are capable of weighing in on an issue then they should be able to do so. We explore what this standard can mean by looking at actual citizen deliberations tied to the 2014 NASA ECAST Asteroid Initiative Citizen forums. We code different vignettes of citizens debating alternative approaches for Mars exploration based upon what level of information seemed to be sufficient for them to feel comfortable in making a policy position. The analysis provides recommendations on how to design and assess future citizen assessments grounded in properly conveying the historical value context surrounding a scientific issue and trusting citizens to seek out sufficient information to deliberate. (shrink)

Technology Assessment is a new mode of knowledge: it attempts to grasp the impact of large bodies of techniques and processes on large bodies of people and social institutions. We are not yet quite clear what exactly we mean by "impact" which is at the heart of TA judgments. Therefore it is of great importance that we look deeper into the epistemological foundations of TA, and attempt to learn where lie its strengths and pitfalls, under what circumstances it (...) can be best practised, what kind of qualities of mind it requires. (shrink)

The international technology assessment movement represents a noteworthy attempt at understanding and mastery of technological progress by modem industrial society. This paper explains why Technology Assessment has enjoyed marginal success. TA has patterned its methodology after the technologies it must evaluate. More fundamentally it has sought philosophical support from the same positivistic assumptions on which science based technology is grounded. Because positivism perpetuates the error that scientific technology is intelligible in terms independent of the (...) political and economic context, TA itself is deprived of substantive criteria which could form the basis of a critique of technology. (shrink)

The World Health Assembly has encouraged WHO member-states to establish capacity in health technology assessment (HTA) as a support for achieving universal health coverage (UHC). Simultaneously, the WHO has stated that UHC is “a practical expression of the concern for health equity and the right to health.” This has prompted questions about potential tensions between priority-setting efforts and the right to health on the road to UHC. South Africa (SA) is an ideal setting in which to explore how (...) the priority-setting work of an HTA body may be integrated with an existing rights framework. (shrink)