Ethics on the Laboratory Floor

People nowadays live in a human-made environment, or technotope. Their lives are entangled with technology. Because technology not only brings gifts but also costs and hazards, it is important to reflect on what good technology is and, indeed, whether a technology contributes to a good life.

The ethicists and social scientists united in this volume contribute to a novel approach to ethics and technology that initiates or enhances timely ethical reflection with scientists and engineers. Ethical reflection during research and development can help to anticipate how it can change human (social) like, and evaluate those changes. Ethics on the Laboratory Floor contributes to research decisions, for example with regard to what research goals to pursue, what research lines to prioritise, or how best to design user tests. By joining these deliberations Ethics on the Laboratory Floor helps to realise the best technological alternatives.

Simone van der Burg is senior researcher and theme leader Responsible Innovation at IQ healthcare. Her research projects are focused primarily on the development of a cooperative and constructive ethics, which enhances ethical reflection among scientists, medical professionals and patients about the technologies that they develop/use. Themes of interest include genomics, newborn screening, personalized medicine, patient involvement, lay ethics and moral imagination. Her work has been published
in international and Dutch journals and books.

Tsjalling Swierstra is Professor of Philosophy at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. He has published extensively on the mutual shaping of technology and morality, public controversies on emerging technologies, and engineering ethics. He chairs the Centre for Ethics and Politics of Emerging Technologies.