Nano-Ethics

Defining Nano-Ethics

A frequent argument against the notion of nano-ethics is that there is nothing novel about ethics as it relates to nanoscale science and engineering. In this view, the issues, concepts, basic principles, and critical perspectives involved are those from bioethics, environmental ethics, medical ethics, and other established areas of applied ethics. Thus, nano-ethics is indistinct from or reducible to these other areas.

In response, proponents of nano-ethics argue that what is crucial is not that it constitutes a distinct field, but that there are significant ethical issues associated with nanoscale science and engineering, and that the extent to which nanotechnology promotes human, environmental, and social goods depends in part on whether these issues are identified and addressed.

In addition, it may be that nanotechnology, due of its distinctive features, what those features enable, the ways in which it is being promoted or disseminated, or the sheer rate and volume of innovation, raises familiar ethical issue in particular compelling, complex, urgent or novel forms. Moreover, just as nanoscale science and engineering is enhanced rather than diminished by being [Page 478]situated at the confluence of multiple disciplines (e.g., physics, genetics, chemistry, and engineering), since it can draw upon their various perspectives and resources, so too might nano-ethics be enhanced in virtue of bringing together the perspectives and resources of various applied ethics disciplines. For all of these reasons, even if nanotechnology does not raise unique or novel ethic issues, nano-ethics appears to be a legitimate and significant enterprise.

Typologies divide and organize conceptual terrain. This typology, like most typologies, is conventional. It is one way of organizing the social and ethical issues that have been raised regarding nanotechnology.

Social Context Issues

Social context issues arise from the interaction of nanotechnologies with problematic features of the social or institutional contexts into which they are emerging. Nanoscale science and technology is not the cause of the problematic features of the social contexts. Nevertheless, when introduced into those contexts it becomes implicated in the issues. Moreover, in many cases it can be reasonably expected that nanotechnology will exacerbate the problem due to the distinctive properties of nanoscale materials, the functionalities and products that nanoscale science and technology enable, or the rate and volume of innovation associated with accelerating nanoscale science and engineering efforts. However, the problematic features sometimes also provide opportunities, insofar as nanotechnologies may contribute to addressing them.

Because nanotechnology is a general use, enabling technology, and there are so many problematic features of the social contexts into which it is emerging, the social context issues are legion and their range expansive. They include, for example, unequal access to medical care, inequalities in education, unequal access to technology, inadequate information security/privacy protection, inefficiencies in intellectual property systems, inadequate protections of individual autonomy (in domains such as labeling and human subjects research), inadequate incentives and resources to develop pro-poor technologies, inadequate consumer safety protection, conflicts of interests among regulators and researchers, inadequate research oversight, externalization of pollution and health costs, unequal exposure to environmental burdens, lack of transparency and accountability in military research, and diminishing public trust in industry and governmental institutions. These are social and ethical issues for nanotechnology because they are relevant to the extent to which nanotechnology will contribute to human flourishing in just and sustainable ways.

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