July 8th 2024 at Sala Consiglio DAER, second floor of the Polimi building BL25 (Via La Masa 34)

What should a researcher do if he realises that the results of his research could be used to develop weapons or, more generally, to cause damage on a large scale? The expression “dual-use dilemmas” is used in the literature to refer to situations of this kind.
Usually these dilemmas are presented as ethical problems (“What should the researcher do, according to morality?”), but they can also be understood as legal problems (“What should the researcher do, according to law?”).
The main objective of this talk is to address the issue of the (moral and legal) responsibility of researchers who are confronted with such problems. To this end, I will first briefly outline the current legal framework governing the dissemination of research results that may have both civil and military uses.
Secondly, I will analyse some methods that have been proposed within the framework of research ethics to deal with dual-use dilemmas. In conclusion, starting from the idea that these problems can be reconstructed as conflicts between principles (that of academic freedom, on the one hand, and that of public safety, on the other), I will try to apply the balancing model, developed by legal theorists and philosophers, to resolve dual-use dilemmas that may arise in the field of academic research.