Abstract
There are a number of different preliminary definitions of dual use familiar in the literature. Research or technology is dual use if it can be used for both: (1) Military and civilian (i.e. non-military) purposes; (2) Beneficial and harmful purposes—where the harmful purposes are to be realised by means of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs); (3) Beneficial and harmful purposes—where either the harmful purposes involve the use of weapons as means, and usually WMDs in particular, or the harm aimed at is on a large-scale but does not necessarily involve weapons or weaponisation. I favour the third definition of “dual use”—at least as a preliminary definition—since some dual use research, such as Gain of Function research in the biological sciences, need not involve a process of weaponisation or a military purpose. However, further conceptual unpacking is called for and provided in this chapter.
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See, for example: Miller and Selgelid (2007), van der Bruggen et al. (2011, 1–122), Miller (2013), Meier and Hunger (2014) and Tucker (2012). Some material (as opposed to technologies), e.g. toxins, might be dual use if, for instance, they are not naturally occurring but were man-made. However, for the sake of simplicity I will not refer to dual use materials unless this is required in the particular case under discussion.
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Rappert and Selgelid (2013).
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These definitions assume that the benefits are also on a large-scale. Moreover, there is a distinction between an object which is a weapon merely because used as one, e.g. a brick used to hit someone on the head, and a weapon which was designed as such from material which is not in itself useable as a weapon and, therefore, needs to go through a process of weaponisation, e.g. a biological agent used in a bioweapon.
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US Department of Health and Human Services (2004).
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Two things can be conceptually distinct even if under some description they are the same thing. Thus being married is conceptually distinct from being a scientist. However, Jones can be a married scientist. Similarly, the original researcher could also be the secondary user, notwithstanding that original researcher and secondary user are distinct concepts.
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I am assuming that in the final analysis the dual use dilemma is a moral dilemma and, therefore, the harms and benefits in question are morally significant (either directly or indirectly).
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I am assuming that the relevant outcomes of dual use research are avoidable even if only by refraining from conducting the research. I am further assuming that the scientists in question could have avoided conducting the research. This raises the question of scientists operating in authoritarian states who are coerced into conducting certain research but also of the possibility of individuals jointly avoiding some activity or outcome. See Chap. 4.
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Selgelid (2016).
- 10.
For an analysis of collective ends and collective responsibility see Chap. 4. As I argue in Chap. 4, it does not follow that these scientists are morally blameworthy since moral responsibility should be distinguished from blameworthiness, albeit the former presupposes the latter. Moreover, collective responsibility is not simply aggregate individual responsibility, so my reference to a share of collective responsibility here and elsewhere does not imply a simple numerical process of disaggregation of collective responsibility based on the numbers of participants in the joint action in question. As argued in Chap. 4, matters are more complex than that.
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The NSABB subsequently reversed its decision/recommendation in March 2012. See Selgelid (2016).
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Some might argue that free/open science would provide the best means to maximization of security. It is not clear what the evidence for this proposition is. Would the world be more safe if, for instance, scientific know-how in relation to nuclear weapons technology was entirely free/open? I return to this issue in Chap. 3.
- 15.
Selgelid (2007).
References
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Miller, Seumas. 2013. Moral Responsibility, Collective Action Problems and the Dual Use Dilemma in Science and Technology. In On the Dual Uses of Science and Ethics, ed. Michael Rappert, and Brian Selgelid. Canberra: ANU Press.
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Tucker, Jonathan (ed.). 2012. Innovation, Dual Use, and Security: Managing the Risks of Emerging Biological and Chemical Technologies. Harvard, MA: MIT Press.
US Department of Health and Human Services. 2004. Fact Sheet: HHS Fact Sheet Project Bioshield. http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2004pres/20040721b.html. Accessed 27 June 2006.
van der Bruggen, Koos, Seumas Miller, and Michael Selgelid. 2011. Report on Biosecurity and Dual Use Research, 1–122. The Hague: Dutch Research Council.
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Miller, S. (2018). Concept of Dual Use. In: Dual Use Science and Technology, Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction. SpringerBriefs in Ethics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92606-3_2
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