Governing technological risks is not only a technical matter, but also a matter of ethical and societal considerations. Risk governance scholars and practitioners therefore argue that risk decisions must include all stakeholders. However, inclusiveness cannot account for normative uncertainties; i.e. when there is no unequivocal right or wrong decision and it is unclear how one ought to act. Moreover, inclusiveness cannot adjudicate between different normative priorities of stakeholders . Further, concerning transboundary and intergenerational risks (e.g. energy and climate risks), it is impossible to include all stakeholders , which exacerbates normative uncertainties.
Good governance of technological risk would require us to identify and address normative uncertainties. In this talk, I define normative uncertainty as a comprehensive notion that covers broader aspects of uncertainty associated with technological risks, in which there are different partially morally defensible but incompatible options or courses of action, or because there is no fully morally defensible option. I will distinguish between evolutionary normative uncertainty (when one does not know which moral norm would apply to a technology, because both the technology and moral views could evolve), theoretical normative uncertainty (when different ethical theories would respond differently to an ethical question), conceptual normative uncertainties (when different ethically relevant concepts such as values could be prioritized or interpreted differently) and epistemic normative uncertainties (when there is incomplete knowledge about fundamental phenomena, or different interpretations (with different moral implications) are possible of the same body of knowledge). This will provide for crucial insights towards ethically justified decision-making in different stages of risk assessment and management and, hence, good governance of technological risks.