Bridging the Gap between Social Acceptance and Ethical Acceptability.

Area of Science:

• Technology Governance
• Risk Assessment
• Applied Ethics

Background:

• New technologies present both benefits and significant risks.
• Current policymaking often prioritizes social acceptance over ethical considerations.
• Overlooking ethical dimensions can be problematic for technologies with transnational and intergenerational risks.

Purpose of the Study:

• To argue for the necessity of analyzing both social acceptance and ethical acceptability in technological risk governance.
• To demonstrate the limitations of relying solely on social acceptance.
• To propose a method for integrating these two analytical frameworks.

Main Methods:

• Conceptual analysis of social acceptance and ethical acceptability.
• Discussion of the Rawlsian wide reflective equilibrium as an integration method.
• Case study examination of multinational nuclear waste repositories.

Main Results:

• Social acceptance studies alone are insufficient for capturing all morally relevant features of risky technologies.
• Ethical analyses often lack empirical input from stakeholders.
• Integrating social acceptance and ethical acceptability provides a more robust framework for governance.

Conclusions:

• Good governance of risky technology necessitates a combined approach of social acceptance and ethical acceptability analysis.
• The Rawlsian wide reflective equilibrium offers a viable method for bridging the acceptance-acceptability gap.
• This integrated approach is vital for effective national and international policymaking regarding complex technological risks.