From Commitment to Committees

IN the last few decades ethics has become a source of legitimization in implementing science and technology policies in so-called knowledgebased societies and economies.In western countries, ethics has become a political instrument to normalize innovation by supposedly neutralizing social choices on science and technology, and by making them accepted by citizens without any direct citizen involvement in the decision-making process. In this sense, ethics has been framed as a soft legal tool aimed at facilitating the implementation of technoscience.