Responsible Stagnation:Clarification And Practice

Innovation is unquestionably the most dazzling "calling card" of our time.National development,social security,public welfare,health care and crisis response seemingly depend on innovation,jointing together to perform a harmonious concert.With meeting human needs,innovation,however,has a deeply effect on our society,such as the worsening ecological environment,the growing scarcity of natural resources,the population explosion.While these visible threats still persist,artificial intelligence,brain-computer interfaces,and gene editing begin to encroach our dignity and rights.Therefore,managing innovation allows of no delay.If human beings don’t awaken timely to take measures,potential dangers are imminent and bound to come.Different from the previous closed innovation system,responsible research and innovation incorporates more stakeholders to form a new responsibility community so that a comprehensive forecast and evaluation of innovation could be conducted.However,if the expression and conceptual composition of this term are carefully studied,its "fatal" defects would be revealed,such as innovation priority,the innate value opposition of responsibility community,and the deficient criteria for anticipation and evaluation.At present,while the research and development on responsible research and innovation is in full swing,some well-known foreign scholars in this field propose responsible stagnation and point out that it may replace the former.Based on the elucidation that responsible research and innovation is short of innovation understanding and responsibility,this study provides further evidence for responsible stagnation whose emergence,replacement and development have its legitimacy and confirmation.First,responsible research and innovation fails to support the desirability and goodness of the innovation achievements it promised.First,its premise and applicability have been questioned.Perceiving economic innovation in economic terms and tending to“value-leading migration”in developed countries put its generating basis in jeopardy.Second,from the conceptual standpoint,the community of shared responsibility in responsible research and innovation and the sticking points in forecasting and evaluation make its objectives a failure.Third,as a term actually representing a combination of theory and practice,responsible research and innovation is doomed to accept its removal.Therefore,a terminology(concept)that is closer to reality,more responsible,and more representative of ethical conventions and value orientation is needed to govern innovation,which fuels up innovation and shortens the gap between science and society.In the next place,the speculative space in responsible stagnation is strong enough to shake up responsible innovation and possibly replace its development.First,responsible stagnation is the champion of innovation for development,and its core still affirms innovation as the exclusive option for current development.Second,given the strong moral constraints of this theory,the“pendulum model”vividly illustrates the dynamic relationship among irresponsible innovation,responsible innovation,and responsible stagnation.Third,the "pendulum model" clearly identifies responsible stagnation through the "confrontation" between morality and the negative externalities of innovation.Fourth,inner restraint and outer support are the typical features of responsible stagnation.On the one hand,the demand for responsible stagnation restrains the law of negation of negation to promote the evolutionary process of its nature.On the other hand,it defuses crises and promotes development by seizing good luck.Responsible stagnation leads to responsible stagnation of economic and social development by the technological development of itself.And responsible stagnation of economic development also tends to a steady-state economy,whereby social welfare will be substantially shifted downward and maximized for the benefit of the public.Responsible stagnation shows the way to achieve itself for the harmonious coexistence and sustainable development of human and nature in three dimensions:concept,practice,and goal respectively.The transcendent traits can be seen in responsible stagnation.Firstly,under the guidance of responsible stagnation,its transcendence is incarnated by giving its inherent development a slowdown.Affected by the traditional development view,technical forecasts and evaluations of innovations are given in haste,but ethical developments cannot keep up with innovation.The slow growth and tardy thinking on development implicated in this theory have bought valuable time for the coordinated development of technical evaluation and ethics.To accomplish this goal,innovative research and development need to reduce its speed and flow into the market and society later.Secondly,this concept brings a transcendental approach to innovation governance.Achieving responsible stagnation from its ideas,practices,and goals offers innovation governance three principles:centrality,fairness and dominance.Thanks to these principles,innovation management has the ability to seize a new favorable turning.Thirdly,it also creates a new innovation paradigm.Strong responsibility innovation is needed to keep technology in control,clarify the boundary between human and technology,and develop responsibility deeply.From a philosophical point of view,Other Ethics,given by Levinas,provides justification for responsible stagnation.The other,the absolutely external object that cannot be assimilated by the subject,always rejects the subject’s violence and experience.The responses of the subject to the other are the responsibilities for the later,and the subjects "dedicate their bread and even their skin" to the other.Others are so empathic and thoughtful that they would like to help everyone without hesitation.When our human need some to protect society,environment and anthropocene as a mission,they take the responsibility,but sacrifice their own needs and desires.In order to discuss its applicability,responsible stagnation can make up for the shortcomings of existing principles,which are not forward-looking enough in the stage of process constraints and outcome assurance.Taking the ethical discussion of geoengineering that transforms the objective world as an example,responsible stagnation supplies suggestions to the ethical development of geoengineering.One more example that human ability enhancement technology transforms the subjective world,its kernel of the ethical debate,the“critical point”,is circumvented owing to responsible stagnation.It combines the debate and technological development with responsible stagnation,which suggests credible stagnation to identify,divide and develop the technology.Inspired by the Responsible Stagnation Matrix,first of all,this research puts responsible innovation into the forefront and grand background to improve innovation,and then destroys it by the inevitable replacement because of its insufficient cores.Next,responsible stagnation is introduced to the center of the research.Finally,a conclusion is drawn that responsible stagnation has its legitimacy.Responsible stagnation calls for slowing down development and strongly criticizes the development paradigm of "innovation+responsibility".Because of responsibility,the courage and purpose are brought to innovation.And strong responsibility innovation is applied to decelerate innovation,which will ultimately promote innovation both theoretically and practically.The nature,transcendence,revelation,and legitimacy of responsible stagnation are certified,and then this study makes the dedication:when innovation and development have an uncertain future,it is more likely that responsible stagnation leads to sustainable and high-quality development,eventually as a key to the happiness that human beings ultimately dream.