Finally, we suggest presponsiveness as an expression of responsiveness as forward-looking responsibility, drawing attention to stakeholders whose unavailability at a given moment does not per se make them any less significant.
Further, responsiveness as forward-looking responsibility signifies a 'receptive attitude' of reacting and responding to new knowledge as it emerges, while acknowledging the uncertainty and limited control that are inherent to innovations (Pellizzoni, 2004; Stilgoe et al., 2013).
Presponsiveness further elaborates responsiveness as forward-looking responsibility: While the first step is to acknowledge that there are uncertainties regarding stakeholders, the receptive attitude should also result in efforts to identify stakeholders and their needs, so that mutual relations could be (at some point) established.
With our focus on responsiveness (i.e. forward-looking responsibility), we assume in this paper that accountability remains with the innovator.
The mediating role of computer technologies complicates the effort of retrospectively tracing back the causal connection between actions and outcomes, but it also complicates forward-looking responsibility.
It can be glossed as a distinction between blameworthiness and actual expressions of blame; between backward- and forward-looking responsibility (i.e., responsibility for things one has done in the past versus responsibility for doing certain things in the future); and between responsibility as a form of judgment versus responsibility as a form of sanction.
A forward-looking responsibility principle, on the other hand, is a consequentialist notion, down-prioritising patients whose current imprudent health behaviour might affect prospective treatment (e.g. rationing access to liver transplantations for non-abstainers as continued alcohol consumption could damage the new liver).
A backward-looking responsibility principle claims that patients who have caused their bad health through voluntary but imprudent choices in the past should be down-prioritised, required to pay more for medical care, or in some other way stand back to others who have made more prudent choices in the past.
Looking ahead, it is the responsibility of Democrats to finish what Obama has started.
Looking after a rented property is a responsibility in terms of time and money.
Looking back, I can see how taking responsibility has mysteriously worked miracles for me.
