Description:
This symposium explores possibilities for creating a code of conduct for practitioners working in technology ethics. It follows up on the publication of a recent position paper in the Journal of Responsible Innovation (Vermaas, Ammon, and Mehnert, 2025), in which such a code of conduct is proposed. This position paper ended with the promise not to stop with publishing, but to continue the discussion on the possibility of a code with the stakeholders concerned. This symposium is part of this promise.
The overall argument is that the number of technology ethics practitioners is currently growing, specifically creating different roles like embedding ethicists in research projects on technology, members of research ethics committees who assess the consequences of technological research, ethicists advising companies, or facilitators in moral/ societal exploration through workshops, games, and brainstorm sessions. These technology ethics practitioners are involved in assessing technologies and their applications and they are increasingly providing guidance for technology development through approaches like responsible research and innovation, ethics by design, or design for values. This in turn results in challenges that practitioners are confronted with and which guidelines in the form of codes of conduct can help to address. Technology ethics evolves in this way to a profession aimed at giving advice, and by arguments that can be found within technology ethics itself, it can be argued that this profession can use a code of conduct for its practitioners.
This symposium focusses on preliminary issues when considering a code of conduct, such as identifying the types of ethics practitioners the code can be for, the roles the code can play for these practitioners, charting controversies it should address, and the (institutional) arrangements needed for making a code effective. First answers will be presented at the symposium, for critical responses and constructive exploration.
Reference
Vermaas, P.E., S. Ammon and W. Mehnert (2025) Toward a Code of Conduct for Technology Ethics Practitioners, Journal of Responsible Innovation 12(1), 2440958
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23299460.2024.2440958
Structure of the symposium
The symposium is organized for enabling extensive discussion and exploration of the proposal to arrive at a code of conduct for technology ethics practitioners. In the first part of the symposium the proposers will present the discussion paper through an impulse of 15 minutes, reflecting on the different roles practitioners can find themselves in, as well as potential challenges and hurdles that need to be addressed. In the second part there will be three comments of each 5 minutes, one by an expert of codes of conducts in technology organizations, one by a colleague who assessed the proposal critically, and one by a representative of the SPT, the organization that could implement the Code of Conduct in accordance with the proposal. After the shared perspectives, there will be ample time for the audience to join the discussion, in the first part with questions and in the second for further exploration of possibilities and shared ideas.
Schedule
Introduction (10 minutes)
- Pieter Vermaas
Part 1:
Impulse (15 minutes)
- Sabine Ammon & Wenzel Mehnert: On roles and challenges of ethics-practitioners
Questions (10 minutes)
- Audience
Part 2:
Comments (15 minutes)
- Alfred Nordmann, Mareike Smolka, Ibo van de Poel
Exploration (30 minutes)
- Audience
Wrap up/plan of action (10 minutes)
- Pieter Vermaas
total 90 minutes
Participants
Moderator:
- Pieter Vermaas, Philosophy Department, TU Delft, the Netherlands; p.e.vermaas@tudelft.nl
Impulse:
- Sabine Ammon, Berlin Ethics Lab, TU Berlin, Berlin, Germany; ammon@tu-berlin.de
- Wenzel Mehnert, Berlin Ethics Lab, TU Berlin, Berlin, Germany; wenzel.mehnert@tu-berlin.de
Commentators:
- Alfred Nordmann, Department of Philosophy, TU Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany; nordmann@phil.tu-darmstadt.de
- Mareike Smolka, Knowledge, Technology & Innovation chair group, Social Sciences Department, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands; mareike.smolka@wur.nl
- Ibo van de Poel, Philosophy Department, TU Delft, the Netherlands; i.r.vandepoel@tudelft.nl
