WHich values conflict?

Examine value conflicts

What is the result of this step?

The previous step may have pointed out that some values conflict, which can give rise to ethical questions. This step will provide a method to work towards an answer to those questions, which will attend to the values of all stakeholders and which will help technology developers to progress on their technology.

Why?

Value conflicts may hinder further development of the technology. They can be considered as constraints on the design space. Examples are; the support for the value ‘food safety’ may jeopardize the realization of ‘privacy’, as food safety may demand to trace unsafe foods back to the origin of the contamination and this may reveal the identity of the source. Other typical value conflicts may include environmental sustainability versus economic competitiveness, transparency versus security or knowledge sharing versus remaining competitive (see box 7 for more examples relevant for the agri-food domain). 


The purpose of ethical deliberation is trying to come to an agreement about the best way to solve the conflicts between values. The final goal is making better products and services and improve their acceptability among users.

How?

Basically, ethical deliberation is a structured discussion. Preferably, representatives of relevant stakeholder groups are included in the discussion. For practical reasons, you can also do the deliberation with a mixed group from the project development team (e.g. from finance, legal, sales, production section etc.), who are engaged to play the role of stakeholders. In this case you should identify the external stakeholders’ interest and concerns based on the earlier steps 3, and 4. Find detailed instructions on how to do the deliberation in the guideline for ethical deliberation(​​​​​​​download the guideline).

Box 7: Example

Conflicting values 

Example

Go to step 6