Ethical issues of information and communication technologies (ICTs) are important because they can have significant effects on human liberty, happiness, and people’s ability to lead a good life. They are also of functional interest because they can determine whether technologies are used and whether their positive potential can unfold. For these reasons, policy makers are interested in finding out what these issues are and how they can be addressed. The best way of creating ICT policy that is sensitive to ethical (...) issues pertain to being proactive in addressing such issues at an early stage of the technology life cycle. The present paper uses this position as a starting point and discusses how knowledge of ethical aspects of emerging ICTs can be gained. It develops a methodology that goes beyond established futures methodologies to cater for the difficult nature of ethical issues. The authors outline how the description of emerging ICTs can be used for an ethical analysis. (shrink)

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to criticise ad hoc approaches to ethics in research and development in technology as descriptive and non‐ethical, and based upon a narrow conception of rationality.Design/methodology/approachThe approach deploys a theory of normativity that can incorporate values and a broad conception of rationality, in order to account for the relevance of issues for the addressees of normative injunctions.FindingsA normative approach is possible and required in order to implement ethics in research and development in technology.Originality/valueThe approach draws (...) together themes from current alternative approaches that each fail to deploy the full resources of the normative approach, and so fail to fully account for ethics. This approach identifies and moves beyond present limited approaches. (shrink)

Ethical issues of information and communication technologies (ICTs) are important because they can have significant effects on human liberty, happiness, their ability to lead a good life. They are also of functional interest because they can determine whether technologies are used and whether their positive potential can unfold. For these reasons policy makers are interested in finding out what these issues are and how they can be addressed. The best way of creating ICT policy that is sensitive to ethical issues (...) would be to be proactive and address such issues at early stages of the technology life cycle. The present paper uses this position as a starting point and discusses how knowledge of ethical aspects of emerging ICTs can be gained. It develops a methodology that goes beyond established futures methodologies to cater for the difficult nature of ethical issues. The paper goes on to outline some of the preliminary findings of a European research project that has applied this method. (shrink)