The debate on nanoethics' A critical standpoint

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The debate on nanoethics. A critical standpoint

• Arianna Ferrari, PhD MA
• Philosophy Department, TU Darmstadt
• ITAS Kalrsruhe
• Germany

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1. Some examples of the issues

• Large and still growing literature on
  nanoethics
• Initially, there was a debate on the significance
  of a nanoethics, now it is no longer under
  dispute (even if not labelled as nanoethics but
  as ethical issues of nano)
• but there is still a dispute around the best
  methodology for an ethical analysis and the
  significance of an ethics of technology
• Having a look to documents on ethical and social
  issues in nano(bio) technologies we can find that
  the debate assumes the character of a checklist
  of the issues, that can be classified either
  starting with specific technologies or with
  specific ethical values

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1. Some examples of the issues
2 typical ethical checklists

• Nano-sensors problems of monitoring (Big Brother
  societies) but needed for protection (?), dual
  use
• Nanomaterials toxicity, responsibility in
  regulation, consumers choices, public engagement
• Nano in food risks, consumers choices, public
  engagement, collective dimensions, change of the
  significance of food
• Nano in agriculture increase dependency of small
  farmers from big multinational companies due to
  patents, commodification of spaces, manipulation
  instrumentalization of animals

• Challenges for
• Privacy (nanosensors for security, nanochips in
  health because they can storage large amounts of
  personal data)
• Autonomy (brain-machine interfaces, issues of
  responsibility in the governance of risks)
• Justice (virtually in all fields, especially
  discussed in health-care, agriculture -patents-
  food)
• Peace (military applications)
• Respect for nature (toxicity, chimera and
  hybrids, modification and commodification of
  nature)

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1. Some examples of the issues

• Furthermore, since nanotechnologies are many,
  enabling and ubiquitous, the ethical problems
  seem to be very diverse, depending on the field
  of application we consider.
• fragmented picture of the issues
• Recently, in many institutional documents (almost
  in the EU) ethical and social issues connected to
  nanotechnologies have been framed as necessary
  for a responsible development of
  nanotechnologies
• Indeed, responsibility is an ethical value.

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1. Some examples of the issues

• EC Voluntary Code of Conduct (soft law)
• for responsible nanosciences and nanotechnologies
  research
• meaning (all research should be comprehensible to
  the public)
• precaution
• sustainability
• inclusiveness (openness to all stakeholders)
• excellence
• transparency
• respect for the legitimate right of access to
  information
• Who is responsible for what?
• Fragmentation of responsibilities along the model
  of stakeholders

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2. Some problems

• Fragmentation of responsibilities fragmentation
  of ethics
• In the debate different stakeholders are
  identified, who seem to be guided by different
  interests in science policy
• Government Parliament Parliamentarians are
  called to participate to Action plans, laws etc.
  (legislative power) Government has a strong
  influence on science policy at the executive
  level in practice often it does not feel able
  because of the lack of scientific ethical
  expertise and it relies on advice by leading
  scientists industries as well as Ethics
  Committee
• Scientists depending on their positions they
  can shape scientific programs- very much focus on
  internal mechanisms of scientific career and/or
  needs of the market
• Industries diverse marketing-strategies
• Citizens as consumers consumers rights (not
  mandatory)
• Trade Unions workers rights
• Social movements specific rights and duties
  (toward environment, society as a whole etc..-
  probl. of representation) (not mandatory)

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2. Some problems

• Fragmentation of responsibilities causes a
  fragmentation of decision-making and challenges
  for an ethical account because we take the idea
  of stakeholder for granted
• If we take the question of new materials
• Government Parliament are accountable for an
  appropriate regulation
• Scientific community industrialists are
  accountable (if bound by law) responsible
  (voluntary code) for assessing risks and measures
  for avoiding catastrophes
• Consumers can choice which products to buy

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2. Some problems

• BUT
• - Nanotechnologies present some forms of
  uncertainties, ambiguity of risk, knowledge
  limits. It can be also a societal choice to
  accept some risks and to avoid others. This
  choice depend on other factors (such as
  alternative scientific ways, importance of the
  field of application, scenario-investigations
  etc..)
• There are differences in regulating lines of
  research or specific market-products
• Once there is a product on the market a real
  responsible choice is too late, because it
  implies investments of money and energies that
  didnt go in another direction

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2. Some problems

• The fragmentation of the issues reduces ethics to
  be a mere checklist of the issues (for the
  expert)
• The process of ethical expertise is not
  legitimized and it has been criticized in the
  debate as a form of introduction of norms outside
  the traditional process of law-making and
  evocation of the society without involving it.
• How is the ethical expert legitimized?
• In order to avoid this difficulty, today the
  process has been opened to an upstream public
  engagement (long before technologies have
  already been developed)
• ...But... the process has been started and needs
  to be implemented It is not clear how the
  results can be incorporated
• Does the fact that many, virtually all
  stakeholders are engaged in the debate,
  automatically transform the process in a virtuous
  responsible one if the decision-making
  process remain untouched?

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2. Some problems

• A concrete example Nanomedicine
• EGE report (2006) Providing the Environment to
  facilitate Nanomedicine
• The potential impact that nanotechnology will
  have on diagnostics, regenerative medicine, and
  targeted delivery raises the question, which
  ethical, legal, and social aspects have to be
  addressed to create an environment for the
  socially acceptable and economically successful
  development of nanomedical applications. (p.
  104)
• Another important building block for an
  environment in favour of nanomedicine is the
  public acceptance of this novel technology
  (p.105)
• Nanomedicine is presented as having a tremendous
  potential but as posing some challenges
• The ethical debate is lay flat to a discussion
  on balancing risks and benefits if we all
  engage in the debate (all stakeholders) we can
  assure a responsible development (read an
  ETHICAL development)

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2. Some problems

• But (authors underline, especially in NANOMED)
  that
• A more comprehensive analysis is needed
• on the concepts at the core of (nano)medicine
  like health diseases and their interrelatedness
  with social factors
• what kind of science is nanomedicine systematic
  analysis of alternative strategies
• discussion on the visions beyond the processes
  (f.e. the significance of personalized
  medicine)

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3. Other ethical questions

• Alternative proposals are already present in the
  debate They propose together with concrete
  issues for the ethical and social analysis also a
  different methodology
• Need for open up and render more transparent the
  decision-making process
• Involvement of the public (in different forms) at
  all different levels of this process
• Reconsidering of values through a diverse and
  more effective engagement (at ALL stages of
  decision-making process)
• The role of the expertise goes in the direction
  of developing comprehensive analysis of
• philosophical, historical and cultural roots of
  scientific programs
• concrete studies of the socio-economic impacts of
  technologies, also considering examples from past
  technologies (diff. similarities)

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3. Other ethical questions

• What does it mean for the ethical discussion of
  the challenges posed by nanotechnologies?
• Ethics is no longer reduced to a checklist of
  issues but technologies are reconstructed in
  their context of development
• Example 1Debate on enhancement
• Rather than posing questions on the significance
  of human nature (which is culturally determined
  open to different interpretation) as well as to
  the right/duty to self-determination
• It is proposed
• An independent analysis of the goals promoted by
  enhancement in their concrete context (better
  memory for which purpose?) and in relation to the
  needs of which parts of the society
• Comparative analysis of alternative strategies
  (including non-technological)
• Visions of nature of the human being embedded
  in scientific programs (f.e. engineers view of
  societal role and human capacities)

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3. Other ethical questions

• Example 2 Debate on Justice
• Rather than saying that nano (like all new
  technologies) have both potential for improving
  situations of developing countries as well as
  injustice potential due to the problems of
  distribution
• (which practically means that the problem is then
  of an appropriate regulation)...
• It is proposed
• independent analysis of the problems that are
  pretended to be solved by these technologies
  f.e.famine
• Analysis of the scopes/motives of the promoters
  (also analyzing examples from past technologies)
• Analysis of the concrete means of realization of
  these technologies conditions of the population
  who will use them possibility and education to
  cope with them impacts of the patent system (as
  a concrete mean of innovation and distribution)

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3. Other ethical questions

• This means that the ethical analysis of a
  technology needs to be more comprehensive,
• including considerations on the role of
  technologies in society,
• on the motives beyond certain technologies
• as well as on visions and ideas of science and of
  nature that are embedded in them.
• The ethical dimension of the ethical discussion
  depends on its connection with the
  decision-making process (if the purpose is to
  incorporate values in technological development )
• Who is entitled to take ethical decisions?
• Who is accountable for what?
• Is the process of (nano)technological innovation
  really inevitable? Which are the good reasons
  beyond innovation?

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4. Open questions

• Which can be an effective role of ethical
  reflection on technology?
• What kind of choices are the scientists really
  entitled to do?
• Which actors set priorities in research on a
  concrete level?
• Are the concrete goals of scientific programs
  determined only by factors internal to the
  scientific and technological research or also by
  external factors? Which are the most influential
  among these factors?
• Do you think the current mechanisms of
  science-founding as well as the decision-making
  process are ethical obstacles for scientists in
  order to let scientific and societal needs meet?

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Thank you for your attention !

• Arianna Ferrari, PhD MA
• Philosophy Department, TU Darmstadt,
• ITAS Karlsruhe, Germany
• Formerly DEEPEN project
• (Deepening ethical engagement in emerging
  nanotechnologies)

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Some examples of the issues

• Another classification is proposed by Sandler
  (2009)
• Social Context Issues inequal access to health
  care, inequalities in education, unequal access
  to technology, inadequate information
  security/privacy protection, inefficiencies in
  intellectual property systems
• Contested moral issues synthetic biology,
  construction of artificial organisms, biological
  weapons development, stem cell research and
  genetic modification of human beings.
• Technoculture issues overreliance on
  technological fixes to manage problematic effects
  (rather than addressing underlying causes of
  those effects), overestimation of our capacity to
  predict and control technologies
• Form of life issues prolonging life will bring
  the need for reconsidering human flourishings
  measures, impact on familys norms
• Transformational issues maybe need for
  reconsidering what it means to be human, what is
  personal identity etc...