The situated multimodality of integrating ethics: orientation work for co-laborative reflexivity and empowerment

My paper is meant as orientation work for those who shall give orientation in innovation processes and struggle for orientation themselves in their work of integrating ethics. Drawing upon my work in/about integrating ethics and in actualizing some of the long-discussed issues in the field, I argue that integrating ethics is not only about taking an informed decision for a certain method. It rather is a situated, evolving, epistemic and social activity. It draws upon a repertoire of different modes of research that alternate over the course of a project. That are (1) joint problem solving, (2) joint processes of labor, (3) ethical impulses, (4) ethical services, (5) research on/in the field of innovation, and (6) ethical research. For each mode, I sketch out its characteristics and inner tensions as well as the tensions between the modes. I conclude that instead of expecting integration ethicists should be prepared for co-laboration.