Review of Martha C Nussbaum's Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice

Philosophy

/1/14, 6:18 PMPolitical Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice // Reviews // Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews // University of Notre Dame Page 1 of 7http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/47163-political-emotions-why-love-matters-for-justice/ College of Arts and Letters Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2014.03.34 Author Martha C. Nussbaum Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice Published: March 30, 2014 Martha C. Nussbaum, Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice, Harvard University Press, 2013, 457pp., $35.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780674724655. Reviewed by Helga Varden, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Martha Nussbaum's capability theory of justice belongs to the tradition of "political liberalism" in legal-political philosophy. "Political liberalism" refers to John Rawls's later philosophy (indeed, his post-A Theory of Justice [TJ] work on domestic justice was published as Political Liberalism [PL]). In Political Emotions, Nussbaum engages core questions about the relationship between political stability and moral psychology (or, the emotions). Rawls considers these questions in the final section of TJ (entitled "Ends"), but never revisited them in the light of his later ideas of political liberalism. Nussbaum thus proposes a theory of political love (and its affiliated emotions) that addresses these questions in a manner consistent with the spirit of political liberalism, and so in a way that Rawls himself might have wanted. Before directly engaging some of Nussbaum's ideas, I provide a brief overview of the philosophical context for her book and of its content. Theorists belonging to the tradition of political liberalism affirm a core idea from Rawls's later philosophy, namely that a state fundamentally committed to justice -understood in terms of freedom and equality -leaves its citizens' "comprehensive doctrines" alone. A comprehensive doctrine is any set of deeply held ethical, religious, or metaphysical views about the good life. A liberal society committed to ideals of freedom and equality strives to ensure, the argument goes, that its public justifications for the state's legitimate coercive power do not invoke principles or arguments that conflict with any citizen's reasonable comprehensive doctrine. An important consequence of this is that the grasp of the state's coercive power also does not conflict with any citizen's reasonable comprehensive doctrine. Being a reasonable citizen, correspondingly, means respecting every other citizen's equal right to a comprehensive doctrine, and so requires one to discuss matters pertaining to the state's coercive power only in terms of the liberal, political ideas constitutive of liberal societies. Hence, being a full citizen in a liberal society is fully compatible with holding any type of religious, ethical, or metaphysical view -irrespective of the wisdom of that view -as long as it's a reasonable version of this view; citizenship in a liberal society only demands that people treat each other as free and equal citizens in this way. Consequently, in a diverse, pluralistic liberal society (one characterized by the "fact of reasonable pluralism," in Rawls's term), all use of state power is understandable, justifiable, and affirmable by any citizen who interacts with fellow citizens in this way, that is, by any reasonable citizen. Rawls's dissatisfaction with the degree to which he incorporated this normative fact about the justification of state coercion in liberal societies in TJ (1971) led him to revise some of those ideas in subsequent papers, which were ultimately collected and published as Political Liberalism (1993). In the latter, he suggests that his original theory of justice as fairness (as it appeared in TJ) should be understood as a comprehensive doctrine. Moreover, he maintains, the work culminating in PL transforms the comprehensive doctrine of justice as presented in TJ into a "liberal, political conception of justice," meaning that all its core normative ideas are now formulated in terms of only the liberal, political ideas constitutive of modern, liberal democracies. Consequently, his liberal, political conception of justice as fairness is affirmable by any reasonable citizen (regardless of that citizen's particular comprehensive doctrine). In the introduction to the paperback edition of PL released a 4/1/14, 6:18 PMPolitical Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice // Reviews // Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews // University of Notre Dame Page 2 of 7http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/47163-political-emotions-why-love-matters-for-justice/ few years later (1996), Rawls clarifies that he considers his liberal, political conception of justice as fairness as belonging to a family of such conceptions that co-exist in a liberal society. Much scholarship over the past couple of decades has been devoted to understanding these particular amendments to Rawls's project of "justice as fairness," and to incorporating them into the framework of other theories. As Nussbaum clarifies at the beginning of her book, she regards her own "capability" theory of justice as one member of this family of liberal, political conceptions of justice, and as such affirmable by any reasonable citizen of a liberal society. Recently, liberal scholars have paid increasing attention to the question of what a political theory must exclude when it adopts (as many do) this reasonableness-aspect of Rawls's later work. The question entails three parts: first, the proper justification in legal-political theory; second, legitimate public discussion and engagement; and third, Rawls's later move toward political liberalism in relation to the final part of TJ ("Ends"). In the latter, as aforementioned, Rawls discusses the stability of a just state in relation to concerns about moral psychology (such as the problem of envy), among others. As Nussbaum emphasizes (9), Rawls himself does not revise this aspect of his 1971 version of justice as fairness in PL or in any other later works, beyond occasionally remarking that such an account is required by a liberal, political conception of justice and that his original (1971) theory needs revision along these "reasonableness" lines. Nussbaum takes up all three questions. In response to the first two, she provides an independent account of how love matters for legal political theory and for public reason and engagement. In response to the third, she argues that her account can also be seen as one suggestion for how to develop Rawls's later philosophy so that it not only bears on his earlier work in "Ends," but also overcomes some "rationalistic" worries she has in relation to Rawls's original 1971 account of political stability and moral psychology. By engaging this important aspect of liberal (includingRawlsian) political thought, Nussbaum also engages important issues in the dispute concerning so-called ideal vs. non-ideal theory. The latter discussion concerns a twofold worry regarding ideal theory. First, the worry is that much liberal thought fails to engage real societies in a practical way, since it only ever tries to sketch the ideal towards which we should strive. Hence, ideal theory does not properly engage our very non-ideal realities, neither on the individual nor the state level. Many object, therefore, that we do not need more ideal theory: after all, when judged against the ideal of any of these liberal theories, or even just common sense, we still fail dramatically. Perhaps we should focus instead on the darker parts of humanity, and build institutions that protect each of us a little better against them. Second, the worry is that by searching for the human ideal, liberal thought focuses only on shared aspects of humanity and ignores the fact that our particular societies and states differ widely based on our very different histories. For example, from where I sit right now in St. Andrews, one might see out the window Scottish men wearing kilts. Scottish people see this practice as profoundly lovable, playful, sexy or erotic, and life-affirming (a description in line with the one Nussbaum probably would have given had she used this example in her book). But these loving emotions in regard to the practice of wearing kilts are not readily accessible for the rest of us from a first-personal point of view; to experience those emotions, we have to be immersed in the practice for a little while at least. Preferably, we would see kilts on someone we love already, like a Scottish man (indeed, loving a Scottish man probably includes coming to love this side of him). It would be a fun project, obviously, but a project nonetheless for non-Scottish people. Experiencing all the right emotions in response to kilts is therefore tricky for non-Scottish people. And since it's so easy to hurt and disrespect people if one relates to this national and political side of them in the wrong way, time and caring guidance are typically prerequisites for getting it right. More generally, the worry is that ideal theory's focus on our shared aspects does not properly attend to or capture what sets us apart, as individuals and as political societies. And although some of the non-shared features of individuals and societies are "quirky" (one of Nussbaum's favorite words for non-shared features), they are some of the aspects of ourselves and others that we love the most. Kilts are very much part of what it is to be Scottish, for example. Despite these being unshared features -and in some ways weird -they are also strangely loveable and deeply meaningful. 4/1/14, 6:18 PMPolitical Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice // Reviews // Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews // University of Notre Dame Page 3 of 7http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/47163-political-emotions-why-love-matters-for-justice/ In Nussbaum's view, a distinct virtue of Rawls's work in the final part of TJ is that it addresses some of these issues concerning non-ideal theory. But she agrees with Rawls that his account in "Ends" needs revision to be fully compatible with political liberalism's ideals. Additionally, she finds the account in "Ends" running the danger of seeming too ideal or "rationalistic." Hence, despite the fact that Rawls engages moral emotions, like envy, that are important for a political theory of stability, Nussbaum views it as a fair worry that he pays too little attention to our affective and quirky nature as well as to our truly nasty sides. She aims to rectify both in her account by showing how (political) love embraces our quirkiness while also doing important work with regard to our dark sides by helping us stabilize our political societies and strive towards a more just world. Political Emotions, then, is divided into three parts. In Part I, "History," Nussbaum explains which aspects of relevant historical philosophical and musical texts she views as central to a satisfactory account of non-ideal stability. Because there isn't enough help in Rawls's own work or contemporary theory, and because this "non-ideal" political theory engages the quirky as well as the truly dark sides of human nature, Nussbaum searches in new places to investigate the issues and to clarify her approach and claims. To help us see the importance as well as the character of healthy love of one's country, why affectionate love (with its affiliated emotions, like compassion and sympathy) is needed in addition to justice (with its affiliated emotions, like respect), she first goes to Mozart. She sets the stage in the first chapter by demonstrating two very different ways of understanding how the stage comedy The Marriage of Figaro (written by Pierre Beaumarchais and politically very controversial in its day) was brought to life in opera form by Mozart (who wrote the music) and Lorenzo Da Ponte (who wrote the Italian libretto, or text). Especially important here are the contrasts between the male and female characters (with Cherubino). For Nussbaum the male characters represent the traditional values of justice, whereas the female characters point towards the idea of civic love she is after, the one deemed central to stabilize just societies, including by the way in which it captures playfulness, forgiveness, vulnerability, and affectionate friendship. She proceeds to clarify the philosophical issues and challenges at hand by engaging relevant philosophers, especially Comte, Herder, J.S. Mill, and Tagore (and especially their work on the relationship between religion and the construction of states), as well as Rousseau and Kant. In Part II, "Goals, Resources, Problems," Nussbaum continues to demarcate our justice-seeking projects. She aims to identify the emotional resources available, to draw attention to the relevant kinds of problems the quirky and nasty aspects of our nature create, and to explain the way in which the project as a whole stays within the basic normative commitments of political liberalism. To fill in seemingly intractable gaps of the theories discussed in part I, as well as Rawls' theory she draws on her own work in moral psychology and the moral emotions, as well as research from experimental psychology dealing with humans and non-human animals which display complex behavior. In Part III, "Public Emotions," Nussbaum illustrates and further elaborates on key features of her account with interpretations of related aspects of the two particular states she loves and knows best: the U.S. and India. The aim is to indicate how great American and Indian political figures and public projects have sought to inspire public emotions of a stabilizing and justice-seeking kind through their exercise of political influence. Included are illustrations of the aspirations and work of key political leaders such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King, Jr. from the U.S., and Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru from India. These illustrations also deal with how they have addressed atrocities and grave injustices committed towards segments of the populations in the name of respect for and love of their country. In this part, Nussbaum also proposes ways to understand how various aspects of educational systems and public art (national monuments, memorials, and city planning) express, aid, and foster citizens' projects of loving and working on their countries in the right kind of way, namely, in the way that furthers its striving towards a more just and stable future, not only for itself but for all of humanity. 4/1/14, 6:18 PMPolitical Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice // Reviews // Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews // University of Notre Dame Page 4 of 7http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/47163-political-emotions-why-love-matters-for-justice/ Political Emotions is, in other words, a long and rich book. And as all of Nussbaum's books, it is deeply engaging, fun to read, filled to the rim with interesting arguments and reflections, beautifully written in addition to creating a space in which it is safe and good to think about some truly difficult and charged topics. Since it's simply impossible to do justice to the very many themes and issues raised in the book within the scope of such a short review, I start by asking one general question concerning the relationship between public and non-public emotions. I then raise two questions concerning Nussbaum's claim that "Each political ideal is supported by its own distinctive emotions," (115) and in particular the way in which the political ideal of political liberalism is seen as inconsistent with those of monarchies and libertarianism. The first question to which I'm struggling to find the answer in her book is how (if at all) Nussbaum draws the distinction and envisions the relationship between public and private emotions. For example, in her opening discussion of Mozart, the ability to forgive is (correctly, in my view) seen as central to affectionate personal loving relations. Yet it's not clear, to me, exactly how public officials and political leaders, on Nussbaum's theory, should relate to issues of forgiveness given her commitments to political liberalism. After all, it seems plausible to argue that at least in cases where a particular citizen has been subjected to injustice, the question of whether or not this person should forgive her wrongdoer is a matter to be settled by the wronged person's deeply held ethical and religious convictions as well as a question of what this person can do. If so, however, then the question of forgiveness, at least in these cases, is one political leaders should leave alone or be silent about. One place where this issue arises specifically is in relation to Nussbaum's discussion of a controversy surrounding what Lincoln said in his Second Inaugural Address. Nussbaum considers two common interpretations of this speech. On the one hand, some argue that in this speech an urgent need for reconciliation . . . led Lincoln to stress a nonjudgmental attitude of forgiveness prematurely. . . . On the other hand . . . [some find that] the speech is actually shrewd and also generous, rising above partisanship and seeking reconciliation, trying to create a united "us" once again, while continuing to blame the South. (234) Why, I wonder, doesn't Nussbaum take a definite stand on what Lincoln at least should have said? I'm not sure if Nussbaum thinks that a general theory of political love cannot or should not answer this question. In addition, in my view, if Lincoln's speech was consistent with the ideals of political liberalism, then he argued along the lines of the second interpretive option. If so, then he did not, as he should not, try to put pressure on those citizens who had been gravely wronged by slavery or by the civil war to let love of others -and so love's companions, compassion and forgiveness -do the work of justice. Instead of saying that people ought to forgive and have compassion for their wrongdoers, Lincoln simply identified as legitimate the moral resentment of those who had been wronged, and then, having acknowledge this and not urging those wronged to forgive their wrongdoers, he appealed to the people to show love and compassion for the nation (to let affective love do its stabilizing work) and to interact respectfully (in line with each others' rights). From the point of view of political liberalism, the important point is that he acknowledged the injustice as well as appealed to love and compassion in a way respectful of people's reasonable comprehensive doctrines, namely by leaving it (in perpetuity) to each person to decide on the issue of whether or not to forgive their wrongdoers (exactly in accordance with their own comprehensive ethical and religious convictions). In this way Lincoln combined justice and love, by appealing to a general, 4/1/14, 6:18 PMPolitical Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice // Reviews // Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews // University of Notre Dame Page 5 of 7http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/47163-political-emotions-why-love-matters-for-justice/ affective love of country as well as respect for the principles of justice in an effort to facilitate healing and moving forward as one nation. To me, this seems to be what the normative ideals of political liberalism require of public officials in situations such as these.[1] My second question concerns Nussbaum's view that monarchies are inconsistent with the ideals of political liberalism. Like most of my North American friends and colleagues, Nussbaum cannot make good sense of European monarchies. In her view, the main problem is their political ideal and corresponding emotions, namely that "Monarchies have long relied on cultivating emotions of childlike dependency, encouraging subjects to depend on the king as on a quasi-divine father." (115) Limited to the monarchies I know, the European ones, this description does not ring true. I don't think the reason why Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, and the British, for example, have not chosen to abolish their monarchies is that we like being treated like children, and I don't think our monarchs typically think of their roles in this parental way either. This is of course not to say that we might not choose to change this part of our nations or that these parts of our countries are also still works in progress, but the account of why we haven't yet abolished them is more complex and reasonable. I believe the better kinds of interpretations of this quirky element of our nations maintain that it has something to do with inherited aspects of who we are (our histories). To illustrate, take Norway, the monarchy I call home. Norwegians commonly view the nation as first unified into one monarchy (or the starting point of this unification process) in the year 885 CE. That we are comfortable with the way in which we have separated the "love-aspect" of our commitment to our country (royalty) from the "justice-aspect" (prime minister) derives from this historical fact of unification. It's in part because of our history that it is not so obvious to us that we want to fuse these two roles into one, as in the American president (as so aptly described by Nussbaum in her book), but still choose to keep them apart. And there are advantages to our approach too. For example, it's stabilizing to have someone (who feels up to the task, and usually insofar as they actually are up to it) who is trained and well-honed to function as a continuous nonpartisan political partner in dialogue for any political leaders, who does not heror himself have actual political power (beyond, typically, very limited and overridable veto powers), and who does this continuously for decades. It is also stabilizing to have someone enabling and giving expression to healthy love of country for everyone (independent of their political affiliation), including by honoring citizens for national efforts or by taking leading roles in supporting the citizens in times of wars and national tragedies. Still, these advantages are not why we do it or why we haven't yet changed it. Indeed, these good, stabilizing elements can be sought in other ways. The why is probably that realizing these aspects of political life in part tracks the history of the nation in important ways as well as fulfilling these stabilizing functions in good ways. Moreover, it's not as if we think of the monarchy as necessary, uncontroversial, or required of anyone (royals can abdicate and live as private persons). Neither do we think it is suitable for any nation (regardless of history), or that it doesn't come with its own problems in addition to some problems shared with others (such as the problems associated with having particularly klutzy presidents). It's also considered an incomplete project. For example, in my view, the next major improvement surely must concern the Norwegian royal family's formal connection with a particular religion, which (if things go well) will go by the wayside with the state church in Norway. And, of course, we do have a lot of humor about this side of us -we recognize it as in some ways quirky -even if it's typically most funny when we are the ones making the jokes. In sum, although it seems to me that this part of the Norwegian nation should be accounted for in terms of non-ideal theory or moral psychology (a historical-cultural fact that ideal theory can make space for), I do not see why it cannot in principle be considered a fundamentally healthy and justifiable part of the Norwegian state. Finally, I find myself resisting the idea that the libertarian political ideal and emotions are fundamentally inconsistent with those of political liberalism. The reason Nussbaum thinks there is such an incompatibility is a result of the way in which the liberal state of political liberalism goes beyond the libertarian minimal state by its characteristic commitment to social and 4/1/14, 6:18 PMPolitical Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice // Reviews // Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews // University of Notre Dame Page 6 of 7http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/47163-political-emotions-why-love-matters-for-justice/ economic justice. She argues that to succeed in stabilizing such socio-economic projects theories committed to the ideals of political liberalism are necessarily "far more concerned with the extension of sympathy needed to sustain such programs" than libertarians are. (123, cf. 122-24, 115-117) It's the idea of state cultivation of "extended sympathy," she suspects, that any libertarian will reject since it involves "intrusive and uncertain projects of improvement" of the people (116). In my view, however, it remains to be seen where the libertarians end up regarding issues of socio-economic theory as a matter of ideal theory. Where they land will depend, I suspect, on how they ultimately deal with issues concerning systemic injustice as well as the rights of the sick, the disabled, and children. Hence, assuming (which, as we saw above, I'm not sure I'm right to) that Nussbaum agrees that loving or affectionate emotions like sympathy, love, and compassion cannot and should not do the work of moral emotions like anger and moral resentment in response to injustices, and assuming that love stabilizes justice in good ways, the extent to which sympathy is compatible with libertarianism will depend on how extensive these institutions of justice turn out to be on the libertarian (ideal) theories. Let me try to illustrate this last point by means of an example concerning poverty that Nussbaum gives significant attention to, namely Roosevelt's efforts to inspire Americans to partake in the New Deal through photographs and speeches (249f, 2824). We could read his efforts in two very different ways: On the one hand, we can see Roosevelt as calling upon Americans' compassion and extended sympathy (as such) for America in general and the poor in particular. On this reading, his aim isn't to draw Americans' attention to injustice of any sort, but to the need to love and have compassion for the nation by supporting the New Deal. But if so, then libertarians will respond that Roosevelt was wrong to make such appeals because such projects should be undertaken as voluntary projects, projects of charity, and so not be undertaken in the name of the state-organized coercive, redistributive justice project the New Deal was. From this libertarian point of view, the problem with the New Deal is that the state has no right to enforce such economic projects in the name of love of the state and justice. Hence, if this is what Nussbaum took Roosevelt to be doing as part of showing how love can be utilized to support justice, and sometimes the way she writes pushes me in this direction, then libertarians will always resist -and I believe they'd be right to resist. On the other hand, we can argue differently -and some of Nussbaum's descriptions lead me to think this is her view. We can argue that Roosevelt was trying to show Americans the changed reality they were facing: By the 1930s, Americans could no longer move somewhere else to get means or acquire an un-owned piece of land (like the first settlers took themselves to be able to do, though sometimes wrongly). These options were no longer available to newcomers, to factory workers, and to other poor people; there was nowhere to go. America was becoming, for the first time in its history, a place where very many became dependent on (the new economic and financial) systems in order to access means legally, and these systems were themselves in trouble. That is to say, economic systems of free trade are at the heart of justice understood in terms of freedom, and yet it became evident that they can fail to realize freedom (though typically through no one individual's fault or wrongdoing) under certain conditions unless we take certain institutional steps to secure them and the people whose exercise of freedom is subjected to them. Only in this way can we reconcile their role with each citizen's right to be free, or to have their exercise of freedom fundamentally independent of the choices of other private persons in the right way. And only systemic solutions to poverty -systemic welfare protections, and the New Deal was perhaps the first major US effort in this regard -can ensure that. Under these systemic conditions, securing everyone's basic economic rights is therefore not a matter of charity, sympathy, or compassion, but a matter of not participating in or permitting systemic wrongdoing. In other words, the first American settlers did not have this type of duty of justice since it's not a duty that private persons have in relation to each other; it's a kind of duty that we have only as citizens of states under certain systemic conditions. But if so, then the relevant core moral emotions tracking these basic economic rights include respect, moral resentment, and anger. Moreover, once the proper role is given to justice and its moral emotions, then, of course, other moral emotions, like 4/1/14, 6:18 PMPolitical Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice // Reviews // Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews // University of Notre Dame Page 7 of 7http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/47163-political-emotions-why-love-matters-for-justice/ compassion and sympathy can play their proper roles and general love for one's country can be appealed to by encouraging people to have affection and support for "basically good [existing] institutions" as well as institutions that are to be "shortly realized" (23). In sum, then, if libertarians can accept this argument concerning poverty as a systemic problem in the context of modern states as a matter of ideal theory, then they can also agree with this second reading of Roosevelt's New Deal and their theories can be seen as belonging to the family of liberal, political conceptions of justice. Moreover, how extensive the socio-economic institutions should be in a just state, including whether other issues (like health and education) should also be treated as concerns of systemic injustice in such contexts, would then remain a matter of reasonable disagreement. Hence, libertarians may be more restrictive here (as they commonly are in, for example, Scandinavian politics), but their policies will not be unreasonable. Finally, it seems worth pointing out that Nussbaum agrees with libertarians in resisting the idea that one can use state coercion to create love or sympathy (of any kind). Where Nussbaum and libertarians disagree may be on any idea of cultivating "extended sympathy" through projects financed by tax money. Then again, I'm not sure whether such public projects must be seen as justified because they cultivate extended sympathy (although they have this effect), rather than, for example, because they are ways in which we publicly honor national heroes, victims of severe injustice, and make cities livable places through public parks and artwork. It is, in other words, not clear to me that libertarians couldn't agree with the correctness of many of the public projects Nussbaum discusses in Political Emotions. And even if some of these projects take us beyond what libertarians can agree with, because they are democrats, they can (pragmatically) accept some yielding to the majority view here. For these reasons, perhaps libertarian theories need not necessarily conflict with political liberalism's normative ideals.[2] [1] The Kantian I find to write the best on these issues, though in the context of South Africa, is Lucy Allais ("Retributive Justice, Restorative Justice, and the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission," Philosophy and Public Affairs, 39 (4), 2011). She similarly argues that the TRC isn't about forgiveness, but about addressing issues of justice and moral resentment under conditions where trials of justice for all those affected were de facto impossible because of the lack of evidence and the enormous amount of wrongdoing. Hence, those wronged could choose to have truth told instead of a trial, and no one required or expected to forgive. This, of course, is also completely consistent with also seeing Mandela (like Lincoln, on my reading) as appealing to everyone's affectionate love for South Africa and moral love (respect) for its true moral ideals (freedom and equality for all) -with corresponding moral and affectionate compassion -as they move forward together. [2] Thanks to Nancy Abelmann, Ingrid Albrecht, Lucy Allais, Barbara Sattler, David Sussman, and Shelley Weinberg for patiently helping me think through many themes in this review. Copyright © 2014 ISSN: 1538 1617 College of Arts and Letters Notre Dame, IN


Philosophy

RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access Technology in the Age of Innovation: Responsible Innovation as a New Subdomain Within the Philosophy of Technology Lucien von Schomberg1 & Vincent Blok2 Received: 9 April 2019 /Accepted: 7 November 2019 / # The Author(s) 2019 Abstract Praised as a panacea for resolving all societal issues, and self-evidently presupposed as technological innovation, the concept of innovation has become the emblem of our age. This is especially reflected in the context of the European Union, where it is considered to play a central role in both strengthening the economy and confronting the current environmental crisis. The pressing question is how technological innovation can be steered into the right direction. To this end, recent frameworks of Responsible Innovation (RI) focus on how to enable outcomes of innovation processes to become societally desirable and ethically acceptable. However, questions with regard to the technological nature of these innovation processes are rarely raised. For this reason, this paper raises the following research question: To what extent is RI possible in the current age, where the concept of innovation is predominantly presupposed as technological innovation? On the one hand, we depart from a post-phenomenological perspective to evaluate the possibility of RI in relation to the particular technological innovations discussed in the RI literature. On the other hand, we emphasize the central role innovation plays in the current age, and suggest that the presupposed concept of innovation projects a technoeconomic paradigm. In doing so, we ultimately argue that in the attempt to steer innovation, frameworks of RI are in fact steered by the techno-economic paradigm inherent in the presupposed concept of innovation. Finally, we account for what implications this has for the societal purpose of RI. Keywords Technological innovation . ResponsibleResearch and Innovation . Philosophy of innovation . Philosophy of technology. History of innovation . Techno-economic paradigm https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-019-00386-3 * Lucien von Schomberg firstname.lastname@example.com Extended author information available on the last page of the article Published online: 29 November 2019 Philosophy & Technology (2021) 34:309–323 1 Introduction Dating back to Ancient Greek views on techne, and travelling through the works of philosophers such as Francis Bacon and Martin Heidegger, the history of Western philosophy unmistakably denotes a rich variety of reflections relating to technology. While this philosophical interest in technology continues to be carried through by a range of contemporary thinkers, ongoing research on technological assessment has paved the way for a new but surely related concept: innovation. Praised as a panacea for resolving all societal issues, and self-evidently understood as technological innovation, the concept has become "the emblem of the modern society" (Godin 2008; Nowotny 2008). This is especially reflected in the context of the European Union, where it is considered to play a central role in both strengthening the economy and confronting the current environmental crisis (European Commission 2015). With global issues such as economic inequality and climate change becoming increasingly urgent, the pressing question of today is how we can steer technological innovation into the "right" direction.1 To this end, recent frameworks of Responsible Innovation (RI) emphasize the need to ensure the ethical acceptability and societal desirability of emerging technologies in an inclusive and democratic way (Owen et al. 2012, European Commission 2015). A commonly used framework of RI features the importance of four dimensions: anticipation, reflexivity, inclusion, and responsiveness. In this view, innovators and institutions should anticipate the possible outcomes of emerging technologies, reflect on what their moral responsibilities are, and engage with all types of stakeholders including the general public, and all of these in response to the values and changing circumstances of society. Together, these dimensions present several governance mechanisms and management practices that are claimed to enable more responsible innovation (Owen et al. 2012; Stilgoe et al. 2013). While the RI literature focuses on the governance of innovation processes, little thought goes to what innovation itself means conceptually (Blok and Lemmens 2015; Von Schomberg and Blok 2018). Both EU policy makers and researchers continuously discuss how to enable outcomes of innovation processes to become more desirable and responsible, but rarely raise questions with regard to the technological nature of these processes. What understanding of technology does the concept of technological innovation presuppose? To what extent does this understanding of technology affect the way we innovate today, and consequentially, what implications does it have for the societal purpose of RI? How can the concept of technological innovation be critically assessed from the perspective of the philosophy of technology? These questions call for an investigation in which RI becomes both a subdomain within the philosophy of technology, and a domain in which the philosophy of technology can contribute significantly. It is against this background that this paper raises the following research question: To what extent is RI possible in the current age, where the concept of innovation is predominantly presupposed as technological innovation? As a first step, we elaborate on the rise of technological innovation, both within and beyond the RI literature. In this respect, we learn that even though the concept is widely considered in light of an intrinsic relation between technology and the market, the emergence of RI urges 1 This question is also the result of the negative impacts technological innovation has caused in the past, such as nuclear waste (Cf. von Schomberg 2019). 310 L. von Schomberg, V. Blok innovation to go beyond the sole intent of generating commercial value (Section 2). In light of the philosophy of technology, we then bring into question to what extent the concept of innovation-presupposed as technological innovation-can shift away from its current commercial orientation. On the one hand, we depart from a postphenomenological perspective to evaluate the possibility of RI in relation to the particular technological innovations discussed in the RI literature. On the other hand, we emphasize the central role innovation plays in the current age, and suggest that the presupposed concept of innovation projects a techno-economic paradigm. In doing so, we ultimately argue that in the attempt to steer innovation, frameworks of RI are in fact steered by the techno-economic paradigm inherent in the presupposed concept of innovation. Finally, we account for what implications this has for the societal purpose of RI (Section 3). 2 The Rise of Technological Innovation2 In this section, we show that while innovation originally had a political meaning it only recently developed into the concept of technological innovation, which essentially prioritizes the ideals of technological and its commercial exploitation. We go on to describe the emergence of RI as an attempt to shift away from the commercial exploitation of innovation, thereby reawaking its political origins. This ultimately brings us to question whether this attempt is feasible in practice, where the concept of technological innovation remains to dominate both within and beyond the RI discourse. 2.1 The Political Origins of Innovation In its broadest sense, to innovate means to introduce changes and new ideas. Changes and new ideas can be introduced in science and technology, but also in other fields, such as management and education. Despite this broad scope, there are very few investigations with regard to what innovation means conceptually (cf. Godin 2008, 2015, 2016; Bontems 2014; Blok and Lemmens 2015; Blok 2019). Instead, almost any study related to innovation both within and beyond the RI literature, self-evidently presupposes the concept of innovation in terms of technological innovation. That is to say, it has become exceptionally common to connect innovation with the field of emerging technologies (Timmermans and Blok 2018). Interesting to note, however, is that technological innovation is not merely concerned with the creation of new technologies, but ultimately refers to technologies that contribute to the market (Godin 2015). Throughout the last 60 years, mainstream economics has predominantly taken over the discourse of innovation. The concept is now said to first and foremost pertain to the business world, and even is claimed to originate in a tradition of economic analysis (Staudenmaier 1985; Cajaiba-Santana 2013). Consequentially, innovation is currently described as "the development of new ideas into marketable products and processes" (Stoneman 1995, p. 2); its significance lies in delivering value to consumers (Carlson and Wilmot 2006). The 2 This section is largely based on the findings made by von Schomberg and Blok (2018). 311Technology in the Age of Innovation: Responsible Innovation as a... commercial dimension of technological innovation is further illustrated by the popular saying of American industrialist J. Paul Getty: "True innovation is coming up with a product that the customer didn't even know they needed." For this reason, technological innovation can also be referred to as commercialized innovation. The current dominance of technological innovation is further confirmed when considering the common distinction made between incremental innovation and radical innovation. At the level of incremental innovation, one specifically refers to improved technologies, i.e., technologies that have been there before, but that are now transformed to supposedly work more efficient. An example would be the iPhone 8 replacing the iPhone 7. At the level of radical innovation, one speaks of completely new to the world technologies, such as the first integrated navigation system. Noticeably, the latter is claimed to be in the hand of startups and entrepreneurs which set up "the competitive dynamics which characterize innovation" (Bessant 2013, p. 5, own emphasis). Innovation has not always been understood as something technological and commercial. In fact, the concept of innovation originally emerged in Ancient Greece with a political meaning, where it was essentially understood as "introducing change into the established order" (Godin 2015, p. 5). This is reflected in works such as Plato's Laws (7.797b) and Aristotle's Politics (10.xii.1316b), in which it refers to either cultural change or changes specifically brought to political constitutions (Cf. Plato 1988; Aristotle 1984). In the fourth century, the concept of innovation made its entry into the Latin vocabulary. Initially, it meant a form of renewing or returning (Ladner 1959). For instance, in a religious context, it implied a return to the purity of the soul (Godin 2015). Centuries later, the concept of innovation was used in a similar vein to refer to the renewal of laws (Machiaveli 1992). However, the concept of innovation predominantly continued taking place within a political context as it was mainly defined in terms of revolutionizing the established order. This was the case all the way up to the period from the Reformation to the nineteenth century, where the concept represented radical changes that ruined, troubled, and discontented the State (cf. Burton 1976). For a large part of our history, innovation is thus comprehended as a political concept used to denote anything or anyone that threatens the order, and has very little to do with the way we generally understand innovation today.3 Nevertheless, in the nineteenth century, the concept of innovation starts to receive a more positive meaning (Bontems 2014; Godin 2015). This is primarily because innovation now steadily enters a context in which progress and utility is celebrated. In response to this new context, innovation becomes an honorable concept (Godin 2015). While in the preceding centuries, the term innovation is mostly found in religious and political pamphlets, it now gradually appears in books, scientific journals, and general magazines. In this upcoming literature, the concept no longer carries a subversive tone, and instead refers to the successes made inmathematics, mechanics, astronomy, geography, and basically all the useful arts and sciences (Cf. Pigott 1792; Robinson 1782). Interestingly, in this period, the concept of innovation does not yet concern any relation between technology and the market. It may denote new technologies such asmining (Blavier 1806) and printing (Comte 1877), but is by no means constrained to them, let alone to their commercial value. 3 For a detailed account on the intellectual history of innovation, see Godin (2015). Innovation contested: The idea of innovation over the centuries. New York: Routledge. 312 L. von Schomberg, V. Blok It is only after the rise of the more specific ideals of technological and economic progress that the concept of innovation evolves into our techno-economic understanding of innovation. To be sure, as soon as the domain of mainstream economics becomes more prominent, the field of commercialized technologies is brought into the innovation discourse. Specifically after the Industrial Revolution, the commercial value of new technologies becomes increasingly recognized. The latter has ultimately led political economists such as Joseph Schumpeter to popularize the concept of technological innovation, according to which innovation becomes commonly associated with technological goods and products, overshadowing the original political character it once had. From this brief history of innovation, we learn that as long as the world is seen and understood as a stable order, innovation is considered a danger to this order and thus widely categorized as a pejorative concept. It is for this reason that Plato for instance despises innovation in music and even in children's toys, as he believes this could lead to the embracement of new habits that eventually cause political instability (Plato 1991). As soon as the ideal of stability of the world makes place for the idea of progress, both in the field of technology and beyond, innovation gradually starts to receive a positive connotation. In this period, a new piece of literature is considered just as much an innovation as a new technology is. The Industrial Revolution and the rise of mainstream economics ultimately led to the current dominance of technological innovation, a concept that intrinsically relates technology with the market (Fig. 1). In this respect, the creation of the iPhone or the drone is a typical example of current innovations. 2.2 The Emergence of RI To a certain extent, ongoing research under the heading of RI reawakens the political origins of innovation. While still associating innovation with the field of emerging technologies, the RI discourse urges these technologies to go beyond the sole purpose of creating commercial value. Instead, they should primarily focus on generating the "right" impact, especially with regard to today's grand societal challenges, such as for instance climate change and world poverty (von Schomberg 2013). Given the complexity of these grand challenges and the indeterminacy of the right impact, recent Historical Period Ideal The Concept of Innovaon +/450 BC – AD 300 The ideal of maintaining stability Understood in terms of cultural and polical change brought to the established order +/AD 300 – AD 1800 Understood in terms of revoluonizing the established order +/AD 1800 – AD 1950 The ideal of achieving progress in all types of spheres of society Understood in terms of the successes made in various fields (e.g. mechanics, mathemacs, geography, astronomy, science) +/AD 1950 – Today The ideal of achieving technological progress while generang economic value Understood in terms of technological innovaon Fig. 1 An overview of the concept of innovation throughout history 313Technology in the Age of Innovation: Responsible Innovation as a... frameworks of RI attempt to shift the focus toward formulating a political discourse of innovation, and implementing it in practice (cf. Owen et al. 2013). Other than the four dimensions described in "Introduction," these frameworks highlight, for example, the importance of democratically determining the purposes of innovation (Owen et al. 2013), and typically argue how placing innovation processes within the values of the European Union will enable outcomes to become ethically acceptable, sustainable, and societally desirable (von Schomberg 2013). Yet, while the entire RI discourse focuses on conceptualizing and operating the dimensions of "responsible" innovation, the question of innovation itself is rarely raised. Instead, the concept of technological innovation remains to prevail throughout the literature (Von Schomberg and Blok 2018). For example, in Responsible Innovation: Managing the Responsible Emergence of Science and Innovation in Society-a central book in the RI literature-the included texts continuously alternate between the words "innovation" and "technological innovation," as if they are self-evidently the same. In discussing the impact of innovation, it is argued that "technological innovations are unpredictable" (von Schomberg 2013, p. 55, own emphasis). Similarly, it is claimed that while innovation involves a "process of bringing something new into the world" (Grinbaum and Groves 2013, p. 119), in order to achieve responsible innovation, we have to reflect "on the ethical significance of technological innovation" (p. 119, own emphasis). Beyond the usage of the word technological innovation, the RI literature also adheres to its technological and commercial connotation. This is for instance the case in "A Vision of Responsible Research and Innovation" (2013), written by Rene von Schomberg, who introduced the concept of RI at the level of the European Commission and thereby plays a dominant role in the RI discourse. Here, he places innovation within a distinction that immediately presupposes that innovation is necessarily technological. On the one hand, he discusses mere technical inventions, and specifically refers to introduction of new technologies, such as Bartolomeu's "machine for sailing through the air" (p. 52). On the other hand, von Schomberg discusses modern innovations. Also in this respect the usage of the term technology keeps prevailing. Furthermore, while Bartolomeu's machine is referred to as a "mere" technological invention, "modern innovations are distributed through market mechanisms" (von Schomberg 2013, p. 54). To put it differently, modern innovations do not just refer to emerging technologies, but rather to technological products that are essentially shaped by the successes they make on the market. This connection between innovation and commercialized technologies is further demonstrated by the particular innovations that von Schomberg discusses, such as genetically modified organisms (GMOs), video-gaming technology, the electronic patient record system (EPRS), nanotechnology, and bodyscanning technology. His vision on innovation is reflected in official documents of the European Commission, in which these technologies are considered to be the main innovations to shape the future (cf. Matter 2011). The presupposed concept of technological innovation is also dominant in EUfunded RI governance projects such as ProGReSS (Coles 2014a) and Res-AGorA (Lindner et al. 2016). To be sure, ProGReSS has delivered reports in which it investigates how research funding can steer innovation toward positive results, mainly with regard to societal desirability. Upon closer examination, these reports unquestioningly account for the societal desirability of technologies that are particularly 314 L. von Schomberg, V. Blok economically beneficial (Coles 2014b). These specifically include synthetic biology, nanotechnology, and information and communications technology (ICT). Although Res-AGorA strategically differs from ProGReSS, most attention is also dedicated to the "what is responsibility?" aspect of RI. Conversely, the "what is innovation?" aspect is barely explored. Instead, the ethics formulated once again concern economically beneficial technologies. That is to say, they developed the Responsibility Navigator, which is supposed to guide innovation processes through the application of ten principles, most of which are illustrated and placed within the context of marketbased technology (Cf. Von Schomberg and Blok 2018). The above analysis shows that while the concept of innovation is rarely considered as an object of reflection, it is generally presupposed as technological innovation. Noticeably, the term itself implies that not all innovations are technological. In this sense, we have shown that innovation is in fact a very broad concept, and originally contains a fundamentally political connotation. Similarly, the term implies that not all technologies are innovative. In this sense, we have shown that in the current age, in order for a technology to be considered as an innovation it ultimately needs to generate commercial value. In other words, we currently share a techno-economic understanding of the concept of innovation. Even though emerging frameworks of RI now attempt to shift away from this techno-economic understanding of innovation, the concept of technological innovation remains to prevail throughout both the literature and policy documents. This brings into question whether innovation-presupposed as technological innovation-can shift away from its current commercial orientation. To what extent is it possible to operationalize the dimensions of RI within a context where innovation is understood in light of an intrinsic relation between technology and the market? For instance, reflecting upon the ethical significance of technologies could be jeopardized by the self-interested pursuit of economic welfare. Similarly, inclusion and deliberation may proceed strategically in function of maximizing one's own profit, while responsiveness may easily amount to window dressing. 3 Technological Innovation and the Possibility of RI: an Investigation for the Philosophy of Technology 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. 3.1 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 315Technology in the Age of Innovation: Responsible Innovation as a... 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 316 L. von Schomberg, V. Blok 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. 3.2 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 themodern 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 317Technology in the Age of Innovation: Responsible Innovation as a... 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.4 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 4 While the main focus of this paper is to show how the way we self-evidently presuppose innovation disables the infinite possibilities in which we can account for reality and its uncertainties, in future research we investigate in what way innovation could precisely be about enabling these possibilities. 318 L. von Schomberg, V. Blok 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 havemore 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 319Technology in the Age of Innovation: Responsible Innovation as a... 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. 4 Conclusion The departure point of this paper lies in the observation that while the current age is marked by the concept of innovation, little thought goes to what innovation means conceptually. Instead, it is self-evidently presupposed as technological innovation, which denotes both a technological and commercial connotation. In Section 2, we inquired into the rise of technological innovation and learned that historically the concept has little to do with technology, let alone with the market. Originally, the concept of innovation was political, and essentially referred to changing the political order. Only with the rise of mainstream economics did the concept of innovation become understood in light of an intrinsic relation between technology and the market, particularly in the period of the last 60 years. Conversely, in response to current global issues such as climate change and epidemics related to lifestyle diseases, ongoing research on RI now emphasizes the political role of innovation. That is to say, they call for innovation processes to exceed economic purposes, and to primarily serve societal and political purposes. At the same time, however, we have shown that the concept remains presupposed in terms of technological innovation as it continues to prevail both in the RI literature and in policy documents. Against this background, in Section 3, we engagedwith the philosophy of technology to investigate what implications our techno-economic understanding of innovation has for the possibility of RI. In this respect, we provided two reflections. First, at an ontic level and from a post-phenomenological perspective, we accounted for particular technological innovations and for how these mediate the human–world relation each in their own way. In mediating the human–world relation, we demonstrated that these innovations also carry ethical significance. That is to say, some may result to be more ethically acceptable and societally desirable than others. Accordingly, the purpose of RI is to ensure that innovation processes are steered into a responsible and desirable direction. As such, the technological innovations RI focuses on show to play an important role in confronting, for example, loss of biodiversity and pollution. Second, at an ontological level, we emphasized the central role innovation plays in the current age, and demonstrated how the specific technoeconomic mode in which the concept of innovation is self-evidently presupposed at the same time projects a techno-economic paradigm. This led us to argue that, parallel to Heidegger's view on technology as Enframing, the dominant mode of calculative ordering constrains us to the self-evident techno-economic paradigm of innovation. This disables the possibility of other ways in which we can think of innovation. Accordingly, even if RI attempts to exceed the market, the concept of innovation remains technologically and 320 L. von Schomberg, V. Blok economically oriented. That is to say, the particular innovations that currently dominate the RI discourse share-despite their differences-a techno-economic paradigm. The implications of the techno-economic paradigm are reflected in the innovation processes, which ultimately come with fundamental power imbalances, information asymmetries, and unpredictable outcomes. Hence, even though RI provides a critical analysis of innovation at the ontic level (i.e., concerning the introduction and usage of particular innovations), it still lacks a critical analysis at the ontological level (i.e., concerning the techno-economic paradigm of innovation). Therefore, RI is in need of a fundamental reflection that not only exposes the techno-economic paradigm of innovation-which we did in this paper- but that also explores an alternative concept of innovation which addresses the public good beyond the current privatization wave. The political origins of innovation that we encountered in Section 2, along with the political ends that the RI literature explicitly prioritizes, suggest that we should inquire into a political orientation of innovation. A crucial task of this inquiry would be to account for what such a political orientation of innovation precisely entails at the ontic level, and how it relates to the current technoeconomic paradigm of innovation at the ontological level. Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. References Araya, D., & Peters, M. A. (2010). Education in the creative economy: knowledge and learning in the age of innovation. 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Philosophy and Technology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-016-0221-7. Publisher's Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Affiliations Lucien von Schomberg1 & Vincent Blok2 1 Philosophy Group, Wageningen University, Hollandseweg 1, 6706 KNWageningen, The Netherlands 2 Philosophy Group, Wageningen University, Hollandseweg 1, 6706 KNWageningen, The Netherlands 323Technology in the Age of Innovation: Responsible Innovation as a...