Environmental Ethics/Philosophy and Nanotechnology

Nanotech Present: Environmental Impacts and Complexity

The majority of current nanotechnological applications form ingredients and components in other products and industrial processes. The environmental problems which may be associated with these materials are similar to those associated with existing industrial pollution. Nonetheless, the novel intrinsic properties that are often perceived as the chief source of the benefits associated with nanomaterials may also make them a source of increased environmental risk. Environmentally responsible development of nanomaterials seems then to depend on ecotoxicological knowledge, a point underlined by the complex interactions to which engineered [Page 206]nanomaterials may be subject in the environment. The potential of some nanomaterials for harming aquatic species, the capacity of nanoparticles for binding pollutants, and the potential impact of nanoparticles on important soil microorganisms are just some examples of potential hazards.

With the increasing use of nanomaterials in consumer products, particularly in cosmetics), the potential for any harmful effects to be distributed over a wide area, or even globally, and for them to remain latent for years or decades is therefore also ethically relevant. The resulting complexities make potential impacts harder to model and even harder to predict. In these circumstances, established arguments within environmental ethics about the inadequacy of utilitarian (and especially Bayesian and cost-benefit analysis-based) approaches to uncertainty are relevant, according to K.S. Shrader-Frechette, as is the literature on explicitly precautionary decision criteria, according to R. Attfield. Among such criteria may be included the following: avoiding actions which threaten serious irreversible consequences, serious consequences that are spatially or temporally extended, or may interfere with the stability of complex systems.

It is also true, however, that the environmental benefits of nanotechnology may be significant, particularly as the basis for the development of renewable energy technologies. Further, it has sometimes been argued that due to the advances in miniaturization it may make possible, nanotechnology could lead to a general reduction in industrial resource use and greenhouse gas emissions.

Nanotech Future: The End of Nature?

The development of ultraprecise control over matter is often seen as the ultimate goal of nanoscience. In addition to economic and political upheaval, such achievements may bring changes in our understanding of nature. “Nature” is a complex and contested concept. In ancient Greek philosophy, the concept of physis, or the source of whatever exists, is typically contrasted with artifice, the product of techne, intentional human effort exerted upon what exists. Some see among the possible consequences of advanced future nanotechnologies the gradual erasure of this distinction. One of the implicitly philosophical claims, which often circulate throughout attempts to imagine a nanotechnological future, is that “nature is already nanotechnology.” In other words, advanced nanotechnological techniques will allow humans to engineer the kinds of systems that already exist in nature, but to fulfill external purposes, and in ways that circumvent “inefficient” design processes like natural selection.

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