The CHANGER project participated at the 2024 Forum on Philosophy, Engineering, and Technology (fPET 2024), which was held from 17 to 19 September 2024, at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), partner of CHANGER, in Karlsruhe, Germany.

Alexander Bagattini, by partner KIT, gave a talk on Moral Expertise on Emerging Technologies, highlighting the growing need for moral expertise in navigating the ethical challenges of emerging technologies. In his talk he proposed the role of moral technology advisors—professionals who combine ethical insight with technical understanding. The talk called for new training programs to prepare experts capable of addressing the complex moral landscape of innovation.

The abstract of the talk: Moral expertise can be understood as the combination of a) knowledge of a wide range of ethical considerations, that can be gained, for example, by the study of ethical theories and b) a set of abilities and motivational sets that help identify moral issues and give adequate guidance in moral reflection and action. One might additionally demand that the corresponding disposition of such ethical experts is reliable in tracking ethical truth or correctness. Even if we assume that such ethical expertise is achievable, it is a further question whether there can be ethical expertise on emerging technologies. Ethical expertise on moral issues of emerging technologies would involve additional complications. Emerging technologies come with considerable uncertainties regarding their further development and implementation in society and consequently with uncertainty regarding their consequences. If there is ethical expertise on emerging technologies, then there are ways to deal with these uncertainties adequately. In this paper we argue for specific competencies/abilities and motivational sets that are at least necessary of moral expertise in emerging technologies.

You can find the abstract of the talk included in the book of abstracts here (page 40).