Ethically Structured Processes

Whilst research and innovation may allow for increasing efficiency in the pursuit of human ends, they also pose dangers, linked to the unpredictability of their development, which call for unprecedented responsibility. This book contends that the structure of a "process", in the sense of an efficient propensity in the possible that can be actualized by research and innovation, can be intrinsically ethical, that is, it can take into account and preserve the freedom of the actors concerned. This point is explored through a consideration of four processual ethical structures, each of which can constitute a point of reference for the exercise of a responsibility. Ethically Structured Processes questions dualities that are very firmly established in the West, such as "theoretical/practical" and "descriptive/prescriptive", through a detour into historical Chinese traditions of thought. The generality of the thesis concerning ethical processes is tested, in a privileged way, on the case of the "Invisible Hand". Is this notion based on a philosophically and ethically consistent concept of "freedom"?

Table of Contents:
Foreword ix Introduction xiii Part 1. Ambiguity and Responsibility 1 Chapter 1. The Possible and the Necessary 3 1.1. The formal and the transcendental, or the logical point of view 3 1.2. Conditions and determinations: a matter of freedom 6 1.3. The concept of the possible 8 1.4. The duplicity of contingency 12 1.5. The concept of the necessary 13 1.6. Elements of effectiveness and ethical innervation 15 1.7. A situation, a context and a world 20 1.8. Efficiency and effectiveness: philosophical freedom 20 Chapter 2. Pre-determination Figures 23 2.1. Modes of objective constraint 23 2.2. An unorthodox use of “possible worlds” 27 2.3. Ontological truth and processual effectiveness 32 2.4. Definitorial point of view and determinism 33 2.5. The meaning of the definitorial position for the relationship between efficiency and effectiveness 34 2.6. An ambiguous responsibility 36 2.7. The ascent into the possible 39 2.8. Responsibility: a limit to ontological discourse 40 Chapter 3. A Processual Effectiveness 43 3.1. A process of the possible 44 3.2. The open totalities 45 3.3. Propensities 46 3.4. Distinctions (or contingent partitions) 47 3.5. A drape of the possible 47 3.6. Ethical innervation 48 3.7. The viability of the possible 48 3.8. The circulation of the possible 49 Chapter 4. Universality and Responsibility 53 4.1. Unlike phenomenology 53 4.2. Measuring gaps from Hegel 58 4.3. The finite will 59 4.4. Reconciliation in situation 61 4.5. Autonomy 63 4.6. The question of the relevance of the conditions (effectiveness) 65 4.7. The universal within plurality 66 4.8. The originarity of language 68 4.9. An assumption in consciousness (detachment) 70 4.10. Consciousness and attachment 74 4.11. Political pluralism and comparability of value systems 76 Conclusion to Part 1 81 Part 2. Four Criteria of the Effectiveness of a Process 91 Chapter 5. Summary of What was Learned in Part 1 Using the Example of GMOs 93 5.1. The transcendental: four categories of the definitorial, a test for the thought of the process 99 Chapter 6. The Responsibility of a Meeting: China 105 6.1. The common thread: a project led by INRA in France, between 2001 and 2003 112 6.2. Four objective criteria of the universal 114 6.2.1. “Sincerity” as a criterion 114 6.2.2. The “non-separation” criterion (from the “framework”) 119 6.2.3. The “viability” criterion 124 6.2.4. The “non-attachment” criterion 129 6.3. Four types of “fall of the drape” 134 Chapter 7. Obstacles to an Ethical Consideration of the Drape 139 7.1. Overcoming the question of a normative nature 139 7.2. Obstacles related to the concept of a normative nature 140 7.3. Normativity in thinking about the process 142 7.4. Another fall of the drape in Europe: the loss of “wisdom” 143 Chapter 8. Objectively Ethical Processes 145 8.1. Practical wisdom 145 8.2. Ethical knowledge 147 8.3. Judging 148 8.4. Christianisms and processes 149 Conclusion to Part 2 155 Part 3. Demystifying the Invisible Hand 163 Chapter 9. The Limits of the Freedom of Neoliberals 165 9.1. Myth and ideology 165 9.2. Teleology and immanence 168 9.3. Five objections to the invisible hand 171 9.3.1. Conatus and freedom 171 9.3.2. Logics and elements 174 9.3.3. Negativity and bias 177 9.3.4. Balances and mathematical temporality 179 9.3.5. Univocity and ambiguity 180 9.4. Towards a global responsibility 183 9.5. Note on “genealogy” 186 9.6. Note on ultra-liberal “freedom” 188 Conclusion to Part 3 191 Conclusion 197 References 203 Index 211