Paper short abstract:

Can we consider the institutions dealing with ethical issues in European societies - especially regarding digital science and technology - as mechanisms of continuity set up to respond to the transformations in the relationships between digital science, politics and economy ?

Paper long abstract:

The idea of disruption is often used when commenting on the effects of digital innovation. However, it seems problematic : turning these innovative knowledges and technologies into vectors of unfathomable novelty makes the transformations they engender appear as unthinkable. This rhetoric therefore hinders our ability to observe changes in our social existences and especifically, how digital science and technology contribute to the transformation of the relationships between the fields of science, politics and economy.

Contrasting with such a rhetoric and based on a two-year investigation within the French National Digital Ethics Committee, this paper tries to consider this ethical board as a mechanism of continuity and self-correction.

The observation of the collective writing of ethical reports enables a more accurate perception of the dual movement characterising ethics : it aims to reach universalisable principles and concurrently tends to adapt to technological developments and to the expectations of society. Such oscillations lead to some sort of circular thinking, feeding on technological and moral changes in society while seeking to influence their course. Thus, through concrete examples of discussions where scientific, political and economic discourses were interwoven, I will analyse the ability of ethical discourse to mobilize different tones - from descriptive, to prescriptive, prospective, or even performative - in order to produce some continuity in our conception of the world despite the changes experienced.

Describing the entanglement of these tones enables us to understand both what is perceived as changing and the mechanisms put in place to act upon these transformations.