Abstract
This chapter compares issues identified in the nanoethics field in China and the EU, such as enhancement, health, environment, military usage, and privacy concerns, as well as the significance of public perception of nanotechnology. The ‘speculative’ approach, in terms of which science fiction novels’ depiction of nanotechnology issues is used as a medium for debate on nanoethics, occupies the second half of this chapter.
Nanotechnology quests, like all newly developing technological ambitions, are also quests for personal fulfilment. (Berne 2004)
How can such a brave new science, one that is so full of potential that it has been called the ‘Next Industrial Revolution’ by governments and scientists, not also impact our relationships, society, environment, economy or even global politics in profound ways. (Lin et al. 2007)
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- 1.
To put this in context, a human hair is 80,000 nm wide. Although there has been some debate about the precise size range within which a structure may be called nano, this is not of particular relevance to this study. The relevant range is usually 1–100 nm, but can extend to below 0.1 nm and above 100 nm; the upper limit of 100 nm for nanotechnology has however been called arbitrary, and Allhoff (2007) argues, such a limit ignores the dimensionality that nanowires and nanofilms demonstrate.
- 2.
The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies has an online inventory of products at http://www.nanotechproject.org/cpi/.
- 3.
Bayer Polymers has developed a packaging film enriched with silicate nanoparticles that ‘massively reduce the entrance of oxygen and other gases and the exit of moisture, thus preventing food from spoiling’ Joseph and Morrison (2006).
- 4.
He was referring principally to the utopian visions of science fiction writer Frank Heinlein.
- 5.
See also Roache (2008). Roache states that ethicists should ‘focus on maximising what is most valuable’, regardless of whether it is a current concern or a ‘desirable vision of the future’.
- 6.
Go to http://escapepod.org/2006/10/12/ep075-nano-comes-to-clifford-falls/ for a podcasted reading of the story.
- 7.
This can be argued from the growth in nanotechnology papers of 11.88 % between 2000 and 2007 in Russia. However, compare this with 33.51 % in India over the same time period. See Liu et al. (2009). Russia stated in 2008 that it would invest up to 286 billion rubles ($9.4 billion US, approximately, at that time) in nanotechnology projects across the period 2008–2015; see http://en.rian.ru/russia/20090918/156174098.html and http://english.pravda.ru/science/tech/28-04-2010/113140-nanotechnology-0. Russia’s centralised agency, ‘Rusnano’ (created in 2007), has a commercial focus on investment projects in the aerospace, nuclear, and energy areas, running projects in the fields of solar energy and energy, nanostructured material, medicine and biotech, mechanical engineering, and opto- and nano-electronics.
- 8.
See also Sametband et al. (2005).
- 9.
- 10.
See The President’s Council on Bioethics (2004) report Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness.
- 11.
See Doyle’s (1997) description of ‘post-vital’ molecular biology as based on the manipulation of codes in terms that sound familiar to software engineers.
- 12.
‘Charles Stross talks to io9 (2008a, b) about Sex, Prison, and Politics’ at http://io9.com/342235/charles-stross-talks-to-io9-about-sex-prison-and-politics.
- 13.
For comment on the collection, see Lou Anders, ‘New Directions: Decoding the Imagination of Charles Stross. An Interview’, at http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/intcs.htm.
- 14.
As popular in the many science fiction texts that reference Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s idea of the noosphere, or next evolutionary, collective level of consciousness; is a term used by Stross in the Accelerando collection.
- 15.
The focus of the journal is described at
http://www.springer.com/social+sciences/applied+ethics/journal/11569. The statement includes: ‘additionally there are meta-issues including the neutrality or otherwise of technology, designing technology in a value-sensitive way, and the control of scientific research’.
- 16.
For example, chickens might be bred blind (purposely disenhanced) to improve their welfare in animal commodity contexts such as dark breeding pens.
- 17.
- 18.
See, for example, Myska (2011) on the Norwegian NANOTRUST initiative, focusing on the trustworthiness of researchers.
- 19.
See Purra and Richmond (2010).
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Dalton-Brown, S. (2015). What Is Nanotechnology, and What Should We Be Worried About?. In: Nanotechnology and Ethical Governance in the European Union and China. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18233-9_2
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