Research On “Responsible Innovation” From The Perspective Of Ethics

The science and technology have become a ubiquitous productivity in modern society. The issues related to the innovation of the science and technology are increasing and becoming more and more complex accompanied with the occurrence of some ethical problems. As a result, the introduction of the concept of “responsible innovation” is the rational thinking and action over the innovation dilemma. “Responsible innovation” is a new development concept which has been put forward by the relative scholars of the European and American countries in recent years. The combination of responsibility and creation is the inevitable trend of the development of the society. The introduction of “responsible innovation” has provided an operable way for the sustainable development. Responsible innovation is to put more elements into the responsibility system, take charge of the innovation practice and make the innovations greener. “Responsible innovation” has affirmed the great impetus of innovation. In addition, it has also emphasized the control of the society to the development of science and technology. Its appearance is beneficial to the enrichment and development of the new ethic of science and technology. Although “responsible innovation” has already got wide attention of the theoretical circle and the society, its specific academic definition has not reached an agreement yet.This paper first introduces the definition of technology innovation in order to elaborate the connotation of it in detail as well as its characteristics such as comprehensive and creative high investment and high risk. It will also discuss the insufficiency exists in the practice such as the drift of the main body of the ethical responsibility, the lack of embedment of ethical responsibility in the technical practice, the lack of the consideration of public interest as well as the lack of long-term responsible follow-up, evaluation and feedback of the influence of some technological innovation projects.All these will lead to the introduction of “responsible innovation” which is introduced mainly in the second part. It will discuss about its practical framework including forecast,reflection, negotiation and feedback. Besides, it will also analyze some classical cases of the practical activities in terms of “responsible innovation” such as Rotterdam in Netherlands, the nanotechnology in the United States and Dalian in China. At last, some thinking and enlightenment will be put forward to China through the practice of “responsible innovation”and rethink there are misunderstandings of “economic doctrine only”, “optimism” and“ethical center doctrine” in “responsible innovation”.The combination of responsibility and creation is an open, interactive and inclusive development as well as a kind of benign development on technology. although the concept of responsible innovation has been put forward recently, there are still some limitations. therefore,the research should be deepened in the process of the future development in order to maximize its value of theory and practice.