Tentative governance: An exploration of ethical governance strategies for emerging science and technology

It has become a consensus that the benign development of emerging science and technology (S&T) urgently needs the support of an ethical governance framework. At present, there are three focal points in the construction of the S&T ethical governance system: risk governance, agile governance and global governance. The analysis of these three concerns in this study shows that there are still some practical problems, such as insufficient emergency capacity, low governance efficiency and weak global cooperation capacity. Tentative strategies for S&T ethical governance are helpful to solve these problems. The strategies are characterized by cautious, dynamic, flexible and progressive approaches, adopting both top-down and bottom-up governance methods and paying special attention to early warnings, feedback and the adjustment of strategies to seek the best results. The governance process of these strategies is more suitable for the ‘upstream’ stage in the development of emerging S&T. As a response to uncertainty, tentative strategies can help to improve the ethical governance system of S&T. However, such strategies also have some problems, so there is a need for practical wisdom, such as balancing flexibility and stability, considering temporary and long-term factors, and coordinating localization and globalization.