Since it is now broadly acknowledged that ethics should receive early consideration in discourse on emerging technologies, ethical debates tend to flourish even while new fields of technology are still in their infancy. Such debates often liberally mix existing applications with technologies in the pipeline and far-reaching visions. This paper analyses the problems associated with this use of ethics as “preparatory” research, taking discourse on human enhancement in general and on pharmaceutical cognitive enhancement in particular as an example. The paper (...) will outline and discuss the gap between the scientific and technological state of the art and the ethical debates, pointing out epistemic problems in this context. Furthermore, it will discuss the future role of genuine ethical reflection in discourse on human enhancement, arguing also that such discourse needs to include a technology assessment—in the broad sense of the term—which encompasses, inter alia, anthropological perspectives and aspects of social theory. (shrink)

Responsible Research and Innovation provides a framework for judging the ethical qualities of innovation processes, however guidance for researchers on how to implement such practices is limited. Exploring RRI in the context of nanotechnology, this paper examines how the dispersed and interdisciplinary nature of the nanotechnology field somewhat hampers the abilities of individual researchers to control the innovation process. The ad-hoc nature of the field of nanotechnology, with its fluid boundaries and elusive membership, has thus far failed to establish a (...) strong collective agent, such as a professional organization, through which researchers could collectively steer technological development in light of social and environmental needs. In this case, individual researchers cannot innovate responsibly purely by themselves, but there is also no structural framework to ensure that responsible development of nanotechnologies takes place. We argue that, in such a case, individual researchers have a duty to collectivize. In short, researchers in situations where it is challenging for individual agents to achieve the goals of RRI are compelled to develop organizations to facilitate RRI. In this paper we establish and discuss the criteria under which individual researchers have this duty to collectivize. (shrink)

The genetically manipulated organism crisis demonstrated that technological development based solely on the law of the marketplace and State protection against serious risks to health and safety is no longer a warrant of ethical acceptability. In the first part of our paper, we critique the implicitly individualist social-acceptance model for State regulation of technology and recommend an interdisciplinary approach for comprehensive analysis of the impacts and ethical acceptability of technologies. In the second part, we present a framework for the analysis (...) of impacts and acceptability, devised—with the goal of supporting the development of specific nanotechnological applications—by a team of researchers from various disciplines. At the conceptual level, this analytic framework is intended to make explicit those various operations required in preparing a judgement about the acceptability of technologies that have been implicit in the classical analysis of toxicological risk. On a practical level, we present a reflective tool that makes it possible to take into account all the dimensions involved and understand the reasons invoked in determining impacts, assessing them, and arriving at a judgement about acceptability. (shrink)

There is no agreement on how nanoethics should proceed. In this article I focus on approaches for discerning ethical issues in nanotechnology, which is as of yet one of the most difficult and urging tasks for nanoethics. I discuss and criticize two existing approaches for discerning ethical issues in nanotechnology and propose a network approach as alternative. I discuss debates in nanoethics about the desirable role of ethics in nanotechnological development and about the newness of ethical issues in nanotechnology. On (...) basis of a critical analysis of both debates, I formulate a number of desiderata for a method for discerning ethical issues in nanotechnology and argue that the network approach that my colleagues and I have developed for ethical issues in research and development networks is also appropriate in nanotechnology. (shrink)

Nanomedicine plays a prominent role among emerging technologies. The spectrum of potential applications is as broad as it is promising. It includes the use of nanoparticles and nanodevices for diagnostics, targeted drug delivery in the human body, the production of new therapeutic materials as well as nanorobots or nanoprotheses. Funding agencies are investing large sums in the development of this area, among them the European Commission, which has launched a large network for life-sciences related nanotechnology. At the same time government (...) agencies as well as the private sector are putting forward reports of working groups that have looked into the promises and risks of these developments. This paper will begin with an introduction to the central ethical themes as identified by selected reports from Europe and beyond. In a next step, it will analyse the most frequently invoked ethical concerns–risk assessment and management, the issues of human identity and enhancement, possible implications for civil liberties (e.g. nanodevices that might be used for covert surveillance), and concerns about equity and fair access. Although it seems that the main ethical issues are not unique to nanotechnologies, the conclusion will argue against shrugging them off as non-specific items that have been considered before in the context of other biomedical technologies, such as gene therapy or xenotransplantation. Rather, the paper will call on ethicists to help foster a rational, fair and participatory discourse on the different potential applications of nanotechnologies in medicine, which can form the basis for informed and responsible societal and political decisions. (shrink)

This paper describes issues associated with integrating the study of Ethical, Legal and Social Issues (ELSI) into ongoing scientific and technical research and describes an approach adopted by the authors for their own work with the center for nanophase materials sciences (CNMS) at the Oak Ridge national laboratory (ORNL). Four key questions are considered: (a) What is ELSI and how should it identify and address topics of interest for the CNMS? (b) What advantages accrue to incorporating ELSI into the CNMS? (...) (c) How should the integration of ELSI into the CNMS take place? (d) How should one judge the effectiveness of the activity? We conclude that ELSI research is not a monolithic body of knowledge, but should be adapted to the question at hand. Our approach focuses on junctures in the R&D continuum at which key decisions occur, avoids topics of a purely ethical nature or advocacy, and seeks to gather data in ways that permit testing the validity of generalization. Integrating ELSI into the CNMS allows dealing with topics firmly grounded in science, offers concrete examples of potential downstream applications and provides access to the scientists using the CNMS and their insights and observations. As well, integration provides the opportunity for R&D managers to benefit from ELSI insights and the potential to modify R&D agendas. Successful integration is dependent on the particular ELSI question set that drives the project. In this case questions sought to identify key choices, information of value to scientists, institutional attributes, key attributes of the CNMS culture, and alternatives for communicating results. The opportunity to consult with scientists on ELSI implications is offered, but not promoted. Finally, ELSI effectiveness is judged by observing the use to which research products are put within the CNMS, ORNL, and the community of external scholars. (shrink)

Neuroscience, together with a broadened concept of “mind” has instigated pragmatic and ethical concerns about the experience and treatment of pain. If pain medicine is to be authentic, it requires knowledge of the brain-mind, pain, and the relative and appropriate “goodness” of potential interventions that can and/or should be provided. This speaks to the need for an ethics that reflects and is relevant to the contemporary neuroscience of pain, acknowledgment and appreciation of the sentient being in pain, effects of environment (...) and value(s), and the nature of healing. It may be that neuroethics provides this viable meta-ethic for pain care. This essay describes how an integrative neuroethics of pain care allows, if not obligates, alignment of facts, values, and moral attitudes as a continuing process of re-investigation, analysis, and revision of what we know (and don’t know) about brains, minds, selves, and how we regard and treat the painient. (shrink)

There might not be a specific nano-ethics, but there definitely is an ethics of new & emerging science and technology (NEST), with characteristic tropes and patterns of moral argumentation. Ethical discussion in and around nanoscience and technology reflects such NEST-ethics. We offer an inventory of the arguments, and show patterns in their evolution, in arenas full of proponents and opponents. We also show that there are some nano-specific issues: in how size matters, and when agency is delegated to smart devices. (...) Our overall approach is a pragmatist ethics, and we conclude that struggle (and learning) might be more productive than models emphasizing consensus. (shrink)

The emergence of nanotechnology, with all its promises of economic, social, and medical benefits, along with dire predictions of environmental, health, and safety threats, has occasioned an active debate in the Science and Technology Studies field, in which we have seen five distinct conversations that frame the discussion. The topical threads include ethics, regulation, opportunities and threats including utopian/dystopian visions of the future, public perception, public participation. These conversational distinctions are not absolutes with firm borders as they clearly overlap at (...) many points. Nonetheless, common to all is a strong sense that control and consequence are significant problems that have yet to be addressed adequately by the promoters of nanotechnology. A final section addresses articles on nanotechnology that exemplify the social construction theory of technology. We include herein a selective summary of this recent body of science, technology, and society (STS) journal literature focused on the social and ethical interactions of nanotechnology (SEIN) that has emerged in the last few years. The intent is not to be encyclopedic in coverage, but rather to seek to understand, in a general way, the key issues and concepts STS scholars are discussing. It is clear that STS-oriented scholars are well poised to grapple explicitly with the cultural, socio-political, and ethical dimensions of nanotechnology. Drawing on understandings of earlier socio-technical areas of interest and concern—nuclear power, genetically modified organisms, the human genome—such scholars have moved well beyond the questions of whether and where nanotechnology intersects society. More important is their effort to seek an understanding in depth of exactly how they are socio-politically, culturally, and ethically interconnected. In doing so, SEIN studies have at the same time become increasingly diverse and more sophisticated and mature over the course of the past decade. Scholars have quite rightly recognized the inadequacies of blanket ideas of moratoria versus non-regulatory environments, utopian versus dystopian futures, and whether or not the public has a role to play in nanotechnology decision making. Rather, a more sophisticated, often case specific, flexible understanding of the societal context of a given issue or concern is called for. (shrink)

The subject of this essay is NBIC convergence (nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science convergence). NBIC convergence is a recurring trope that is dominated by the paradigm of integration of the sciences. It is largely influenced by the considerations of social and economic impact, and it assumes positivism in the name of technological progress. The culture of NBIC convergence, including NBIC discourses, is ensconced on the borders between modernity/ postmodernity, ambition/restraint, unity/fragmentation, and rational intellect/creativity. Both the rhetoric of ambition (...) and visionary development, and its responding calls for some level of restraint and caution, make contrasting assumptions that, however unintentionally, further polarize the debate concerning NBIC technologies. Those engaged in producing the culture, including scientists, engineers, and ethicists of convergence, consider the ramifications of these technologies for subjectivity and identity in ways that do not fully account for the diversity of human experience, or the ambiguity of human nature. NBIC convergence, such as artificial intelligence, is a “projection of the normative self, unaware of its own specificity;” in other words, that converging technologies offer negligible insight into human corporeality or experience and, in their theoretical frameworks, are hardly conscious of the necessity of effectively mobilizing the diversity within society and of social existence in bringing about nanotechnology’s “maximum benefit to humanity,” and are part and parcel of creating a “nanoself,” bereft of uniqueness. (shrink)

That cacophony you hear is coming from the growing number of commentators addressing ethical, social, and policy issues raised by nanotechnology. Like many novel technologies that disturb the status quo, nanotechnologies raise questions about the adequacy of oversight systems; the extent to which the technologies push legal, moral, and political boundaries; and ultimately, the implications for human health and well-being. Because nanoscale techniques and products challenge our ways of thinking about biology, physics, and chemistry, nanotechnology forces us to reconsider accepted (...) wisdom on toxicity, mutagenicity, contamination, biocompatibility, and other interactions among humans, the environment, and technologies. The sheer scale and reach of nanotechnologies demands institutions, collaborations, and conventions that can cross-link knowledge across organizations, disciplines, and locales. If ever there was an occasion to rethink the limits of disciplinary-specific knowledge, norms about regulatory processes, and societal implications of new technologies, nanotechnologies provide the opportunity. (shrink)

Nanomedicine promises unprecedented innovations for diagnosis and therapy as well as for predicting and preventing diseases. On the other hand it raises fears linked to new and unknown characteristics of nanoscale materials. Both, promises and fears, are closely linked to the realm of uncertainty. To a large extent it is currently not known which expectations could become reality and which suspected adverse events might come true. Medicine is quite familiar with decision-making under uncertainty. Rules and regulations for clinical research have (...) been developed to reduce possible harm for research participants without abandoning necessary investigations. Here we examine whether clinical research trials of nanomedicine need new regulations and conclude that the established rules should suffice. (shrink)

The field of nanotechnology and nanoscience is growing rapidly in many areas of research, from electronics to biomedicine to material science. Carbon nanotubes are receiving a lot of attention in the research due to their unique properties and many possible applications. This new material is a good example of how nanotechnology provides us with new opportunities, but at the same time leaves us a lot of unknowns to deal with. In order to deal with the unknowns we need to consider (...) both the science and the ethics of the different applications of this novel material. Nanoethics is the study of the ethical issues in nanotechnology. It is a relatively new field of study and a lot of different methods have been suggested in this area. In this article a method is suggested combining an existing ethical theory with a practical approach in order to do a case study of the ethical considerations of using carbon nanotubes in biomedicine. For the case study to be of practical significance the scientific characteristics and properties of carbon nanotubes are reviewed to give the reader an overview of the research field. (shrink)

The present essay includes an overview of key milestones in the development of computer ethics as a field of applied ethics. It also describes the ongoing debate about the proper scope of CE, as a subfield both in applied ethics and computer science. Following a brief description of the cluster of ethical issues that CE scholars and practitioners have generally considered to be the standard or "mainstream" issues comprising the field thus far, the essay speculates about the future direction of (...) CE and describes some theoretical and practical questions that will likely arise. (shrink)

Lately, nanotechnology has become one of the main topics in the debates regarding what has been called the _Next Industrial Revolution_ within what are known as _emergent technologies_. This paper contains a comparative analysis of the different philosophical groundings, arguments and principles invoked in the official ethical approaches proposed by each of two of the main Western communities. By _official ethical approaches_ or _official positions_ we mean the opinions officially expressed by the government institutions about how ethical considerations prompted by (...) nanotechnologies should be tackled. The analysis is based, then, on the official points of view, expressed through two documents, namely two official releases issued by governmental offices or institutions in both communities, Europe and the United States of America, and considered by the authors as representative of the official opinions of the governmental institutions in each society. (shrink)

There is a rapidly expanding field of research on social and ethical interactions with nano-scaled sciences and technologies. An important question is: What does social and ethical research actually mean when it is focussed on technological applications that are largely hypothetical, and a field of science spread out across multiple disciplines and lacking unification? This paper maps early literature in the field of research as a way of answering this question. Our aim is to describe how this field is developing (...) in response to its difficult task, and particularly, to comment on the topics of focus and where there is potential for future development. We present four topical categories, labelled Governance, Perception, Science and Philosophy, and use these as a tool to both map the field and to analyse its development. We find a majority of literature currently focused on issues of governance and perception, and offer suggestions for why this might be so. We then discuss cross-category themes of definition, novelty and interdisciplinarity, highlighting diverse positions and a problematic lack of direct debate. Our conclusion is that the field would benefit from more interaction, cross-referencing and creative research across traditional fields of inquiry. (shrink)

Nanotechnology shows great promise in a variety of applications with attractive economic and societal benefits. However, societal issues associated with nanotechnology are still a concern to the general public. While numerous technological advancements in nanotechnology have been achieved over the past decade, research into the broader societal issues of nanotechnology is still in its early phases. Based on the data from the Web of Science database, we applied the main path analysis, cluster analysis and text mining tools to explore the (...) main research fronts and hierarchical structure of these societal issues. We found that the research studies fell into four categories: "General Toxicity and EHS (Environment, Health and Safety)," "Medicine and Cytotoxicity," "Assessment and Regulation," and "Environment and Ecotoxicity." These research studies have disclosed much information about the potential effect of nanotechnology on public health and the environment. Relatively speaking, the studies on the assessment, regulation, preventive solutions, and environmental protection are just emerging. This finding indicates that an abundance of effort should be conducted on these emerging themes to maximize the benefits of nanotechnology while minimizing its potential harm. The implications for various parties in this domain are also presented. (shrink)