Co-hosted by two Springer journals: SN Social Sciences and SN Business & Economics, this Topical Collection is part of their joint Permanent Collection “Sustainable Digital Development: Business, Values, and Governance”.

Guest Editors:

Marco Innocenti, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, France

Dr Hao Wang, Wageningen University and Research, Netherlands

Open to submissions from 1 January to 31 August 2025

The United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals can provide innovators and R&D teams with shared purposes, enabling them to understand their work as contributing to the values promoted by this ‘global’ agenda. However, their goals and aspirations may be influenced by the concepts associated with the technology being developed. Consider, for example, the meaning and role they may assign to the concepts of ‘autonomy’, ‘efficiency’, and ‘explainability’ in envisaging its use. These concepts and expectations may interact with the values adopted by the SDGs in different ways, e.g., supporting, contradicting, or re-ordering them. In other words, innovators’ ideas on future developments and the uses of their product can either regroup them around an SDG or divert the team from it, as well as give priority to some of these points while concealing others from the practitioners’ view. This perspective supports the relevance of a ‘reflexive’ approach formulated by Stilgoe et al. (2013) as a pillar of a procedural responsible innovation – reflection that consists of assessing the values and concepts guiding the innovative process surrounding a technology under development.

This kind of ‘reflexivity’ is particularly relevant in a public and private context shaped by AI-driven innovation. In fact, artificial intelligence is both prone to borrowing concepts from other fields (see Floridi and Nobre 2024) and, arguably, far from unfolding its full potential (i.e., it is still in an R&D or early adoption phase in many areas). As mentioned above, the ability and willingness of research teams to pursue sustainable goals in this field may also depend on the concepts and expectations that guide them. This Topical Collection will analyse these concepts (and their interaction) in light of the establishment and maintenance of virtuous practices of R&D in AI innovation.

Significance

This call for papers intends to contribute to two main lines of research, starting from connecting them. The first is the one emphasising the links between hermeneutics and ethics in the context of technological development, regardless of whether this goes by the name of “moral hermeneutics” (Kudina 2023), “hermeneutic ethics of technology” (Reijers & Coeckelbergh 2022), or “digital hermeneutics” (Romele 2019). What these approaches often overlook, however, is the perspective of a developing technology (such as artificial intelligence), where these concepts influence the work, cohesion, and direction of the team producing it, as well as the ethical choices of its members.

At the same time, this line of research is related to the recent studies on collective virtues, which began (broadly speaking) with Fricker’s (2005) account of them, continued with Cordell’s (2017) response, and led to Baddorf & McKay’s (2024) recent proposal. Beyond the meaning of ‘collective virtue’ in general terms, other studies have focused on specific virtues that can be cultivated by a collective, as in Astola (2022) or Astola et al. (2022). In these collectives, a focus on the relationships among the ‘narratives’ with which different members make (moral) sense of their ‘practices’ (adopting MacIntyre’s vocabulary, 2007 [1988]) can open up new perspectives in this direction, also with reference to specific goals.

Scope and Topics

This Topical Collection intends to clarify these dynamics and offer guidance for welding the scientists, engineers, and designers leading today’s AI innovation. The papers it will regroup should offer valuable frameworks and perspectives for managing practitioners’ cohesion around a sustainable goal both on a small scale and institutional level. This may concern specific concepts or goals as well as overall (theoretical or practical) views on the dynamics described above. Preference will be given to those articles that adopt not only a descriptive approach, but also suggest changes in the concepts in use or strategies for an assessment and correction of these concepts by public or private actors. In any case, the papers should contribute to the definition of a ‘Sustainable Digital Development’ after which the Permanent Collection is named.

In accordance with the Permanent Collection, submitted papers, which should be original and unpublished, can contribute from the perspective of the following fields of study:

• Applied Ethics and Practical Philosophy, including Business Ethics

• Philosophy of AI

• Philosophy of Innovation

• Strategic Management and Economic Management

• Innovation Policy

For further information, please contact: marcoinnocenti256@gmail.com

References

Astola M (2022) Collective Responsibility Should be Treated as a Virtue. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements 92:27–44. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1358246122000133

Astola M, Bombaerts G, Spahn A, Royakkers L (2022) Can Creativity Be a Collective Virtue? Insights for the Ethics of Innovation. J Bus Ethics 179:907–918. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04833-0

Baddorf M, McKay N (2024) A Theory of Collective Virtue. JESP 27:. https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v27i3.2005

Cordell S (2017) Group Virtues: No Great Leap Forward with Collectivism. Res Publica 23:43–59. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-015-9317-7

Floridi L, Nobre AC (2024) Anthropomorphising Machines and Computerising Minds: The Crosswiring of Languages between Artificial Intelligence and Brain & Cognitive Sciences. Minds & Machines 34:5. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-024-09670-4

Fricker M (2005) Can There Be Institutional Virtues? Oxford Studies in Epistemology 3:235–252

Kudina O (2023) Moral Hermeneutics and Technology: Making Moral Sense through Human-Technology-World Relations. Rowman & Littlefield Lexington Books

MacIntyre AC (2007) After virtue: a study in moral theory, 3rd ed. University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Ind

Reijers W, Coeckelbergh M (2020) Narrative and Technology Ethics. Springer International Publishing, Cham

Romele A (2019) Digital Hermeneutics: Philosophical Investigations in New Media and Technologies. Routledge

Stilgoe J, Owen R, Macnaghten P (2013) Developing a framework for responsible innovation. Research Policy 42:1568–1580. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2013.05.008