Ahteensuu, Marko | Finland

Fellow at IAS-STS: 2004/2005

Marko Ahteensuu studied philosophy, psychology, economics and history at the University of Turku in Finland, from where he got his Master (2003) and Licentiate (2005) of Social Sciences degrees. Currently, he is a Ph.D. student. Since 2002 Ahteensuu has worked in different research projects at the Department of Philosophy (University of Turku). Two of these projects have concerned ethical and social questions of modern biotechnology.

From October 2004 to July 2005 (10 months) Ahteensuu was a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Science, Technology and Society (IAS-STS) in Graz (Austria), where he worked on a research project that is a part of his doctoral thesis. Autumn term 2005-2006, he will be a Fellow at National Chengchi University in Taipei (Taiwan). Ahteensuu’s research interests include philosophical questions related to risks and scientific risk analysis (especially the so-called precautionary principle), to modern biotechnology, and to evolutionary explanations of social behaviour. Besides published articles in scientific journals and books, and held presentations in (international) conferences and workshops, he has given a few lectures in philosophy at the University of Turku and a course at the Mikkeli Polytechnic (spring term 2005).

Project at IAS-STS: The Precautionary Principle in the Risk Management of Modern Biotechnology

The research project that I carried out at the IAS-STS is a part of my Ph.D. studies. First I finished my licentiate (i.e. pre-doctoral) thesis, and after that I started to work on my doctoral thesis. Resulted articles and given presentations are related to my theses.

In my doctoral thesis, I theoretically examine the debate over the so-called precautionary principle that is assumed to provide guidance for action when our knowledge about a severe threat is uncertain. In particular, the purpose of the research is to explicate well grounded and unjustified uses of the precautionary principle in the context of institutionalized environmental and health risk governance. The presumption of the study is that philosophical (conceptual and ethical) analysis can shed light to the discussion, and help to resolve some problems of it.

During my fellowship at the IAS-STS, I concentrated to analyze the distinction between strong interpretation and weak interpretation of the precautionary principle that has been assumed to clarify the ongoing discussion. I tried to question the usefulness of the traditional weak-strong distinction, and I evaluated specific definitions and interpretations of the principle on their own on the basis of theoretical and practical grounds. In the study, modern biotechnology risk policies - in particular, formulations of the precautionary principle in law texts and ‘precautionary’ policy decisions - were used as an example.

Selected Publictions

(2005 forthcoming), with J. Räikkä, ‘The Role of Prohibitions in Ethics’, The Journal of Value Inquiry.

(2004), ‘The Precautionary Principle in the Risk Management of Modern Biotechnology’, Science Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal for Science and Technology Studies 17: 57-65.