The relationship between innovation and ethics is ambiguous. On the one hand, ethical
considerations are often said to be an obstacle to social or technological progress, constraining innovative approaches for the sake of being overly cautious. In that vein, codes
of conduct, ethical review commissions or public debates on controversial topics such as
genome editing might delay the implementation of technological solutions to pressing
social and medical problems. On the other hand, while ethical principles reassuringly
prevent an anything-goes attitude, they can even come to act as drivers of innovative
approaches and even become a decisive factor in the competition for ideas. Of course,
neither of these two contradictory viewpoints is valid on its own. Ethical considerations
need to go hand in hand with innovation and should not be just an afterthought. It is a
truism that any new technology poses a trade-off between benefits and risks. The advent
of digital technologies, however, introduces challenges that concern all aspects of life
but particularly the sensitive area of health, where a long tradition of ethical principles
applies.
