Future studies and ethics

Future studies, the raison d’être of this journal, is a hybrid field, combining methodology, technical matters and philosophy (in that it is a particular way of seeing the world).
Future studies are on the frontier between reasoning and imagination, explains Jacques Lesourne, but they are always geared to action, and therefore part of the work of those who attempt to study the future is shaped by their ethics and the way they apply them in their studies.
The author therefore offers here an outline of the values and criteria that might guide someone in the choice of research topic. Ethics then represents a choice for some people as to whether or not to undertake a study of a particular field. But for someone engaged in future studies it is a duty, argues Lesourne – a duty, amongst other things, to take account of all the factors available for consideration and all the actors affected by the study.