ABSTRACT
This chapter presents existing approaches for responsible innovation (RI) governance. It aims to bring ethical aspects of RI governance to society, so that they can facilitate decision-making by stakeholders. The chapter suggests that deontological and utilitarian ethics cannot fully address the challenges that AI technological innovations pose to contemporary ethics, which require a more flexible, context-dependent, and case-based approach to morality. For that, it introduces the conceptual laying of prudential rationality ethics. A great deal of insight into the idea of prudence in politics can be gleaned from retracing the discussion of the Greek philosophical roots of practical wisdom, particularly the insights gained from Aristotle’s and Plato’s concepts of virtue that can deepen the incorporation of prudential rationality within ethical egoism. The chapter discusses two main normative ethical decision-making theories, that is, theories for moral and evaluative judgements in ethical decision-making of RI, namely deontology and utilitarianism.
