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Some Pitfalls in the Philosophical Foundations of Nanoethics
Abstract
If such a thing as nanoethics is possible, it can only develop by confronting the great questions of moral philosophy, thus avoiding the pitfalls so common to regional ethics. We identify and analyze some of these pitfalls: the restriction of ethics to prudence understood as rational risk management; the reduction of ethics to cost/benefit analysis; the confusion of technique with technology and of human nature with the human condition. Once these points have been clarified, it is possible to take up some weighty philosophical and metaphysical questions which are not new, but which need to be raised anew with respect to nanotechnologies: the artificialization of nature; the question of limits; the role of religion; the finiteness of the human condition as something with a beginning and an end; the relationship between knowledge and know-how; the foundations of ethics.
... Em relação ao ano de publicação, um artigo foi publicado em 2004 (15); cinco artigos, em 2007 (16)(17)(18)(19)(20); um, em 2008 (21); três, em 2009 (22)(23)(24), três, em 2011 (25)(26)(27); dois, em 2012 (28,29); um, em 2013 (30), um, em 2014 (31) e um, em 2016 (32). Considerando os anos das publicações utilizadas, enfatiza-se a ausência de artigos que tratam da bioética dentro da nanomedicina até o ano de 2004. ...
... E, por fim, tal pesquisa mostra que o futuro da nanomedicina poderá ser brilhante desde que as questões éticas também sejam obrigações dos profissionais de saúde. No trabalho de pesquisa realizado por Dupuy (2007) (17), foram esclarecidas algumas questões filosóficas e metafísicas que não são novas, mas que precisam ser levantadas em relação às nanotecnologias, tais como: a artificialização da natureza; a questão dos limites; o papel da religião; a finitude da condição humana como algo com um começo e um fim; a relação entre conhecimento e saber como; e os fundamentos da ética. Mesmo que sejam feitas diferentes análises da nanotecnologia, quanto às causas comuns que afetam a ética regional, as questões antigas filosóficas e metafísicas são o que torna a "nanoética" possível, sendo essas questões primordiais em discussões relacionadas à bioética dessa tecnologia. ...
... E, por fim, tal pesquisa mostra que o futuro da nanomedicina poderá ser brilhante desde que as questões éticas também sejam obrigações dos profissionais de saúde. No trabalho de pesquisa realizado por Dupuy (2007) (17), foram esclarecidas algumas questões filosóficas e metafísicas que não são novas, mas que precisam ser levantadas em relação às nanotecnologias, tais como: a artificialização da natureza; a questão dos limites; o papel da religião; a finitude da condição humana como algo com um começo e um fim; a relação entre conhecimento e saber como; e os fundamentos da ética. Mesmo que sejam feitas diferentes análises da nanotecnologia, quanto às causas comuns que afetam a ética regional, as questões antigas filosóficas e metafísicas são o que torna a "nanoética" possível, sendo essas questões primordiais em discussões relacionadas à bioética dessa tecnologia. ...
Sabe-se da importância do avanço tecnológico para o desenvolvimento de uma saúde cada vez mais eficaz e segura e, por isso, uma das grandes preocupações que se tem com o uso dos nanomateriais na medicina é a segurança para o paciente e para o meio ambiente. Há, portanto, uma necessidade eminente de avaliação e regulamentação da nanomedicina, tendo sempre como base a ética para que o melhor seja feito para a sociedade. Sendo assim, o objetivo do presente trabalho foi conhecer as produções científicas que abordem a nanomedicina e suas implicações bioéticas. Trata-se de uma revisão integrativa da literatura em que a coleta de dados foi realizada no Portal PubMed (Public/PublishMedline), utilizando os descritores bioethics AND (nanotechnology OR nanomedicine), sem delimitação do tempo, em que foram selecionados de 18 artigos. Foram construídas duas categorias: “Os impactos da nanotecnologia na saúde” e “As questões bioéticas envolvidas na nanotecnologia”. E concluiu-se que a nanomedicina traz à tona muitas questões de natureza ética, quanto ao seu uso, suas aplicações e até mesmo consequências para a sociedade e o meio ambiente. Ainda se fazem necessárias maiores pesquisas e compreensão do assunto, para que a nanotecnologia avance em todas as áreas do conhecimento, auxiliando as presentes e as futuras gerações.
... Dupuy, citing Atlan recommends to reflect on this lesson. (Dupuy, 2007) ...
... Their analysis included nanobioethical issues including human enhancement and nanobiomedical technologies. Dupuy (2007) recommended that nanoethics should confront the great questions of moral philosophy. ...
... It is in this discursive sense that the posthuman and posthumanism have managed to capture the attention of the academy and increasingly the wider "public" (e.g., through popular science magazines, science fiction films, docufiction, social media, and so on). There is an "ambient" posthumanism promoted by powerful corporations like Google, pioneer figures like Elon Musk, and institutions like the Singularity University that are increasingly called upon to advise government administrations and which are promoting a clearly transhumanist version of posthumanism based on the idea that increased technological progress can only be a good thing and constitutes the "natural" next step to becoming (more) "posthuman" (see Dupuy, 2007). There is, however, also a posthumanism that questions this belief. ...
This initial overview maps critical posthumanism as a theoretical and self-reflective discourse that has been establishing itself over the last twenty years or so. While popular notions of posthumanism and the figure of the posthuman tend to focus on technology and its current dynamic of transforming the ‘human’ into some ‘posthuman’ or even ‘transhuman’ state or species, critical posthumanism, in its attempt at a more rigorous and more ‘philosophical’ undertaking, is concerned with what one might term the ‘ongoing deconstruction of humanism’ and its premises: namely, humanism’s anthropocentrism, essentialism, exceptionalism and speciesism. Critical posthumanism and its various denominations and spin-offs are therefore informed by a postanthropocentric ethics, politics and ecology and look towards complex notions of embodiment and of material entanglement between humans and a ‘more-than-human’ world. This overview chapter discusses those aspects while also providing an analysis of the complex temporality at work in posthumanism. It evaluates the posthuman in terms of its past, present, and projected or ‘constructed’ futures, by foregrounding the genealogical dimension of critical posthumanism. In doing so, it provides an illustration of the various meanings of ‘critical’ and ‘critique’ that are at work within posthumanist discourse.
... 131 The latter might well involve, as Dupuy has suggested, raising uncomfortable questions about the human condition and the way it shapes and is shaped by new technologies. 132 From a practical perspective, the analysis can help policymakers and legislators to think critically about ethics as a quality check for research and regulatory strategies, especially in the context of the next research and innovation framework program (Horizon Europe) and the EU's coordinated plan for AI. Particular attention could be given to elaborating ways to ensure democratic representativeness of ethics work and quality checks of its content. ...
Several European Commission's initiatives have been resorting to ethics in policy discourses as a way to govern and regulate Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The proliferation of invocations of ‘ethics’, especially concerning the recent debate on (the regulation of) Artificial Intelligence (AI), can be referred to as the ‘ethification’ phenomenon. This article aims to elucidate the benefits and drawbacks of the ethification of ICT governance, and its effects on the articulations of law, technology and politics in democratic constitutional states. First, the article will provide a mapping to locate where the ethics work is being produced in the EU. Second, the authors will distinguish different types of ethics based on the mapping. Third, the ethification phenomenon will be analyzed through the concepts of boundary and convergence work, where we will both see that it plays the role of ‘normative glue’ between interests of different practices to reach a common goal, but also tracing or obfuscating boundaries to claim autonomy from the law and exclude forms of non-genuine ethics. Fourth, we inquire into the nature of ethics as a practice and the consequences of ethification for the law.
... Central too is an associated set of psycho-social emotions that include juvenile enthusiasm, indifference to the past, risk taking, frontier spirit 1 and optimism (Latour 2008). Although this model of technoscientific advance has been powerful ever since the time of Francis Bacon, where efforts aimed at an everincreasing instrumentalisation of the natural world have been equated ipso facto with human betterment, it is possible to locate nanotechnology as in some ways representing an intensification of such modernist dreams of reason through its metaphysical project of control and improvement (Dupuy 2007). ...
In this article we examine the role of narrative as a resource for developing inclusive governance frameworks, principally through an examination of two public deliberation experiments, conducted concurrently in the UK and Brazil, that took place prior to the rise of interest in responsible innovation. While in the UK we witness a (partial) rhetorical move in science governance, from a top-down technocratic model to a more deliberative model in which public engagement assumes a central role, in Brazil the political contestations over particular technologies failed to gain political traction. A contrast is drawn between the narratives that publics draw upon in responding to nanotechnology between UK and Brazilian publics. We draw on these differences to argue that situated narratives of epistemic inclusion need to be addressed at the outset of adapting any responsible innovation framework to best align its goals and practices with the context of implementation.
... Philosophers of contemporary technosciences such as Nordmann (2006), Bensaude-Vincent (2008 and Dupuy (2007Dupuy ( , 2008 have noted an epistemic shift, in which the main means of validating and justifying technoscientific knowledge, is to build This is a preprint draft copy of an introductory essay for PUS 26 (2) 2017 , freely available for fair use, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use 11 11 devices which 'work', on the basis of that knowledge 2 . ...
This essay begins from the intensified entanglements of technoscientific innovation with miscellaneous societal
and public fields of interest and action over recent years. This has been accompanied by an apparent decline in
the work of purification of discourses of natural and human agency, which Latour observed in 1993. Replacing
such previous discursive purifications, we increasingly find technoscientific visions of the imagined-possible
as key providers of public meanings and policies. This poses the question of what forms of legitimation are
constituted by these sciences, including the ways in which they enter into articulations of public matters.
Revisiting historical and contemporary theories of imagination and science, this essay proposes a joint focus
on imagination, publics and technoscience and their mutual co-production over time. This focus is then
directed towards recent reconfigurations of technosciences with their imagined publics and towards how
public issues may become constituted by social actors as active imaginations-exercising agents.
... Âðàõîâóþ÷è ³íòåíñèâíèé ðîçâèòîê íàíîòåõíîëîã³é, âåäåòüñÿ àêòèâíèé ïîøóê ìåòîä³â ñèíòåçó íàíîìàòåð³àë³â òà âïðîâàäaeåííÿ ¿õ ó ïðàêòèêó, çîêðåìà â ìåäèöèí³, åíåðãåòèö³ , ïðîìèñëîâîñò³ òîùî. Îäíèì ³ç ïð³îðèòåòíèõ íàïðÿì³â º ñàìå íàíîìåäèöèíà, ÿêà âèâ÷ຠìîaeëèâ³ñòü çàñòîñóâàííÿ íàíîòåõíîëîã³÷íèõ ðîçðîáîê äëÿ ïðîô³ëàêòèêè , ä³àãíîñòèêè òà ë³êóâàííÿ ð³çíèõ çàõâîðþâàíü ç êîíòðîëåì á³îëîã³÷íî¿ àêòèâíîñò³, ôàðìàêîëîã³÷íî¿ òà òîêñèêîëîã³÷íî¿ ä³¿ îäåðaeàíèõ ïðîäóêò³â àáî ìåäèêàìåíò³â [13,14,30]ñîö³àëüíèõ, ãóìàí³ñòè÷íèõ, ìîðàëüíî-åòè÷íèõ ïèòàíü [1,3,20,27,34,38,42]. Åòè÷íà îö³íêà íàíîòåõíîëîã³é º âêðàé âàaeëèâîþ çàäà÷åþ ñàìå â íàø ÷àñ, ïåðø í³ae íàñë³äêè âïðîâàäaeåííÿ ðåçóëüòàò³â òàêèõ äîñë³äaeåíü áåçïîñåðåäíüî òîðêíóòüñÿ ñóñï³ëüñòâà. ...
In recent years, the rapid progress in the area of nanotechnology is marked. It opens new possibilities for expansion of interdisciplinary and international cooperation in scientific sphere. Despite the huge potential of nanotechnology in different areas of human activity, unfortunately, ethical, legal and social issues are at low level. It is necessary to involve experts in ethics, philosophers and jurists who should co-operate with scientists to discuss the nanotechnology problems.
... What is necessary for the public to communicate with science is not scientific knowledge, but understanding to be part of the same community. Scientific knowledge is considered necessary only because we still use a framework of the ethics of risk, where ethics is reduced to a cost-benefit analysis (see e.g., Dupuy 2007). We believe that there exists a risk that can be rationally calculated, exactly like in ecological economy we think about the possibility of establishing a price for the environment: by assuming the validity of such framework we have to think that scientific knowledge is necessary to reason on socio-ethical issues of nanotechnology, because an evaluation of the risk requires knowledge. ...
This paper seeks to understand the importance of adopting an ethical framework based on values in the socio-ethical discussion on nanotechnology and generally on emerging technologies. In particular, within such framework it is introduced a distinction between two ideal types of science, defined on the basis of their different aims. Such distinction is considered to be a useful guide in the ethical debate on the technological development of our society, because it may help to understand what are the values of science and their re-lations with our values as members of the social community. My point is that a reflection on the values of science is needed to make scientists aware of their responsibilities as sci-entists in the society. Once scientists have understood their responsibilities as scientists they could be involved in a broader ethical reflection on their responsibilities as citizens. Technological development makes sense only if intended as an evolution of socio-technical systems and it is not possible to make an ethical evaluation of such evolution without having established what are our values and our idea of a common good. For these reasons nanotechnology should deal with our values, our idea of a common good, and our being responsible as citizens.
... Esses exemplos de potenciais nanoimplantes invisíveis no corpo humano, que ainda fazem parte do domínio da ficção no estado atual da NT, levantam a questão das suas implicações na identidade pessoal e social do ser humano (relação a si e aos outros). Trazem para o debate problemas de natureza filosófica, fundamentais na história da filosofia moral, tais como: os conceitos de normalidade e natural, a questão humano-máquina e a artificialização da natureza, a confusão entre natureza humana e condição humana(26).O processo de aprovação de novos fármacos na medicina convencional parece se estender à NT e deve resultar sempre o bem-estar e a saúde das pessoas. No caso da comercialização de nanofármacos ou nanossistemas para administração localizada de drogas (por exemplo, com nanopartículas magnéticas encapsuladas através de lipossomas 3 ), aplica-se a lógica do Princípio da Precaução 4 e do cálculo riscos vs benefícios ...
... Il s'agit du risque pour la société et les individus, implicitement évoqué par certains philosophes, comme résultant de la « reconceptualisation » de la nature qu'implique le projet métaphysique des nanotechnologies. Suivant Popper et son prédécesseur Meyerson, Dupuy définit un projet métaphysique comme «un ensemble de présupposés sur la structure du monde qui ne sont ni vérifiables ni falsifiables par l'expérience, mais qui jouent pourtant un rôle essentiel dans les progrès de la science »[60].Quel est donc le projet métaphysique des nanotechnologies et quel genre de risques pourrait-il induire ? Selon Dupuy, le risque (et cʹest un risque existentiel pour lʹhumanité) se résume à la notion de révolte de la technoscience contre la condition humaine. ...
Résumé Ce papier est une discussion sur la validité des concepts habituellement utilisés dans le cadre du risque chimique, lorsqu'il s'agit d'évaluer les risques liés aux nanotechnologies, que nous appellerons nanorisques. Le nanorisque peut être défini suivant des perspectives variées, depuis celle, restreinte, du risque eco-toxicologique à celle plus large de l'impact sociétal ou culturel, voire même sous l'angle plus philosophique du questionnement de la pertinence du besoin en technologies de la société. Nous résumerons les limitations des évaluations du type "risque chimique" et de celles d'autres schémas de gouvernance récemment proposés en relation avec les nanotechnologies ou les nanomatériaux, en particulier leur incapacité à prendre en compte le risque " sociétal " (propriété de technologies, vie privée, sécurité, " fracture nano"3, convergence nano-bio, etc ..) et le risque " métaphysique " (notamment l'avis du profane sur ces risques). Finalement, nous définirons les principes fondamentaux et les critères sur lesquels un cadre prenant en compte l'ensemble de ces questions devrait être fondé.
... Og vi løber ind i en interessant modsigelse, hvis vi for en stund fastholder det svimlende perspektiv om at designe os selv, vores kroppe og vores følelser. Inspireret af Dupuy (2007) kunne vi kalde det et prometisk dilemma: ...
Artiklen udvikler en teoretisk forståelse af standarder, særlig med henblik på at artikulere et begreb om brugerdrevne standarder, som bl.a. kan bruges inden for arbejdet med unge stofbrugere. Der gås udviklingslogisk frem fra en modsigelsesfyldt almen bestemmelse af standarder gennem den kulturhistoriske psykologis begreb om betydning som praksisidealer fastholdt i artefakter. Bestemmelsen lægger op til den kritiske diskussion af standardisering som en form for styring uden etik, der udvikles med (eller som) modernitet og kapitalisme, og som rammesætter den samfundsvidenskabelige problematik om modstillingen af standarder og subjektivitet. Derefter problematiseres den form for kritisk modernitetsteori, som søger at etablere et standpunkt uden for processen som abstrakt utopi, og der argumenteres for at artikulere konkrete utopier, der i forlængelse af sociale bevægelser kultiverer ‘fortykkede fortællinger’ af standardernes yderside, inderside og transcendens. Denne tilgang konkretiseres til sidst i rusmiddelfeltet, idet der identificeres tre problematikker: evidens, farmaceutisk skadesreduktion og selvhjælp – som endelig omsættes til spørgsmål ind i arbejdet med unge stofbrugere.
... Asimismo la noción de "regulación prudente" ha sido discutida y aplicada al caso de la tecnociencia, ampliando el alcance mucho más allá de lo meramente económico (Dupuy, 2007;Dupuy & Grinbaum, 2004). Un enfoque superador utilizado en el contexto de las tecnociencias es el de "Gobernanza sustentable". ...
Nos proponemos reflexionar sobre las relaciones financieras globales a la luz de la presente crisis de 2008. En lugar de las reacciones urgentes e irreflexivas a la crisis financiera que hemos visto que han tenido nuestros políticos; proponemos plantearnos la importancia de analizar las contradicciones del presente, pues señalan el camino hacia una práctica política que incluya la participación ciudadana en los procesos globales de decisión. De esta forma, abogar por la reconciliación entre Ciencia, Tecnología y la Sociedad que evite una nueva crisis futura. Se propone una nueva simbiosis entre la política, los mercados y la sociedad civil, que permita el surgimiento de una gobernanza financiera global.
... From this aspect of the legend we could learn that we can pursue knowledge and apply this knowledge to the world as long as we don't allow confusion by raising golems to the status of persons or degrading humans to golems. This is also in concord with the advice of Norbert Wiener one of the founders of cybernetics: "On no account is it permissible to mention living beings and machines in the same breadth" (God and Golem, 9). ...
... Although the variety of different concerns regarding nanotechnologies has been recognized, there is a diffused dissatisfaction in the debate. Many authors express the feeling that nanoethics has been reduced to a check list of the various issues, which are common to other technological fields, and it has in some sense become boring now, since many issues are just repeated (Dupuy 2007;Ferrari 2010;Patenaude et al. 2011). ...
Although the variety of different ethical concerns regarding nanotechnologies has been recognized, there is a diffused dissatisfaction in the debate. Nanoethics has been often reduced to a mere check list of concerns or to a sophisticated form of risk and benefit analysis. The debate is not innovative anymore and suffers from repetition. Although the traditional tools of bioethical analysis can be useful for dealing with nanotechnological applications which are already existent or in the pipeline, for a deep engagement with future possible applications the ethical analysis should go beyond the idea of applying abstract ethical principles. Aims of this paper is to propose an alternative way for the normative reflection on those (nano) technological applications which are still at the level of visions. It will be argued that a reflection of the challenges of the future for the current (present) discourse on technological developments is a new and promising field of reflection. Longer detached from an engagement solely with the consequences of technological development, the new analysis will be more comprehensive and lie at the interface between epistemology, ethics and politics.
After having read each of these manifestos separately, we will examine the differences between their different anthropological aims. This will be the starting point of our reflection on the idea of an anthropological shift, which will then be developed in the course of the different chapters that make up Part II.
Transport is one of the largest emitters of harmful
substances that affect air quality. Each transport mode has
different volume of passenger transport and at the same time
has a differentiated negative impact on air quality. That is
why in the European Union has been making special efforts
for many years to create and implement strategies aimed at
improving air quality. The main goal of this paper is to
present a methodology that enables quantification and
analysis of the impacts of each passenger transport mode on
air quality using feed-forward neural networks. The
developed model uses parameters for EU member states in
the period from 2000 to 2014. In addition to the scientific and
practical contribution, the development of model provides a
good basic for the universal platform formation in order to
create and develop strategies, i.e. measures to improve air
quality on global level.
Clinical translation remains the overarching aim of medical nanorobotics although little of the intensifying research in the area in the last two decades have so far been routinised into clinical practice. This research explores the underlying issues of biocompatibility as the primary constraint in the realization of these clinical translatability aims. I argue that this is in large part due to the weak integration of translation-related regulatory and medical-use considerations such as biocompatibility, toxicity etc. in nanorobotics research, especially in the upstream phases of research conceptualisation. Following on from this, the paper suggests meaningful inclusion of regulatory and clinical voices as key for improving translatability.
Medical nanorobots combine the hype, hope and discontents of the wider AI, biorobotics and nanotechnology domains into a single artefact with the single overarching promise of shifting biomedicine and healthcare away from systemic (whole body) therapeutics. Instead, nanorobots are expected to deliver targeted therapeutics by autonomously travelling to hard-to-access target sites within the human body to zap cancerous cells, deliver drugs or genes, make incisions or imaging data, and more. Drawing on an exhaustive review of literature informed by discussions with basic scientists, policymakers, regulators and sociologists, this chapter looks beyond the hype and hope to explore the complexity of technical and non-technical realities of routinising nanorobots into clinical practice though the lens of existing regulatory frameworks for clinical translation. Findings show that inadequate considerations of the biological compatibility (biocompatibility) of nanorobots with human in-vivo environments, in upstream development processes, challenge clinical translatability. This, I argue, is rooted in the overwhelmingly design-driven upstream processes focused on attaining ever-higher levels of bio-intelligence, but mostly at the expense of biological considerations. To a large extent, lack of meaningful integration with multidisciplinary downstream knowledge (e.g., clinical tacit knowledge, regulatory expertise) undoubtedly amplify the design focus. However, it is its underpinnings in weak interdisciplinary engagement throughout the development process, that, I contend, is the overarching critique of the nanorobotics domain’s commitment to translation or its likelihood anytime soon.
Die Nanotechnologie wollte von Anfang an ganz unbedingt ethisch ernstgenommen werden. Diese Form des Ernstnehmens sollte ihr zur Glaubwürdigkeit verhelfen und tat es auch. Somit unterstützt ein großer Teil der öffentlich nachgefragten Nanoethik eine rhetorische Figur, die sich auch jetzt noch als Fehlschluss erweisen könnte: Schon weil die ethischen Implikationen der Nanotechnologie diskutiert werden, muss es sich bei ihr um ein äußerst vielversprechendes und folgenreiches Forschungsprogramm handeln.
Based on an analysis of the current literature on nanoethics, this paper proposes to identify three different models for ethical governance of nanotechnology, respectively called 'conservative model', 'inquiry model' and 'interpretative model'. The propositions of the EGAIS1 Research Project in terms of ethical governance of nanotechnology are related to the latter model.
No presente artigo, propomo-nos a refletir acerca dos conceitos de técnica e tecnologia, com o objetivo de destacar a diferença de ambos os conceitos, além de mostrar diferentes pontos de vista filosóficos acerca do tema e a implicação destes na vida humana. Para tanto, na primeira seção, o itinerário começa em uma análise etimológica dos termos, seguindo através de excertos da República de Platão e da Ética a Nicômaco de Aristóteles. Na segunda seção, elencamos como a técnica se encerra na tecnologia, partindo da perspectiva de saberfazer em relação à natureza para um modus operandi na natureza, onde o foco move-se da supremacia do homem com a técnica sobre a natureza para a técnica sobre a vida humana. Contamos, pois, com as reflexões de Umberto Galimberti, que aponta a tecnologia como técnica de manipulação da natureza; Gilbert Hottois, que corrobora o conceito de tecnociência e destaca a lógica de dominação, intervenção e criação na natureza; e Jean-Pierre Dupuy, que analisa o modo como a tecnologia relaciona-se com a ética, que é baseada em valores de uma natureza que é transmutável.
O estudo desta pesquisa compreende a tecnologia e as suas possibilidades democráticas, integrado a um debate sobre as teorias da democracia. A tecnologia, na modernidade, encontra-se posta como um instrumento com o qual o agente se comunica com o seu meio, e as teorias críticas clássicas que a abarcam partem de dois caminhos: onde a sua potencialidade é um meio de dominação, ou que a sua capacidade é neutra, baseada em uma racionalidade científica inerente. A democracia tem como propósito integrar os interesses de todos e, a partir disso, direcionar as tomadas de decisões. O fator é complexo, porém um composto é perene: a manifestação e a veiculação de um interesse é um pressuposto para que tal interesse faça parte do sistema político e jurídico da sociedade. Pretendeu-se responder ao problema expresso da seguinte forma: o desenvolvimento tecnológico se limita aos termos das correntes instrumentalista e substancialista da tecnologia, tendo em vista a pluralidade democrática contemporânea? Considerando as relações da sociedade industrial contemporânea, a tecnologia possui propulsores democráticos, uma vez pensando-a e integrando, em seu desenvolvimento, as particularidades de cada pessoa ou grupo de pessoas, como meio de potencializar o seu conteúdo e os seus efeitos na sociedade. A inclusão das pessoas com deficiência na esfera digital precisa ser arquitetada, pois encontra sérios impedimentos, análogos à esfera física. O método de abordagem empregado foi o hermenêutico, partindo de premissas que se consubstanciam no problema. O método de procedimento utilizado foi o monográfico, e a técnica de pesquisa, bibliográfica.
In this article, three main approaches of nano-ethics were analyzed from the view of ethical theories and methods, in order to explore the key issues in ethics of high-tech. The first approach is the reduction of ethics as a “heuristic of fear” that serves as a guide to reflect on what the human truly valued is, to appeal for suspending nanotechnology development; The second one is the reduction of ethics as consequentialist evaluation and calculation, which takes the ethical issues as accounting of the risks and benefits and whether man are willing to accept these risks. And the third one is putting nanotechnology in a certain social and cultural context, trying to open the “black box” of the development of nanotechnology, which reveals the close relationship between technology and society, in order to better understand the relationship between nanotechnology and social cultural values. However, these approaches are still difficult to solve the problem of co-existence with uncertainty. Based on the analysis of the approaches above, this article puts forward the conditions of future-oriented nano-ethics framework from the Chinese perspective, utilizing from the ideological resources of the coexistence with uncertainty in Chinese philosophy.
Discovering new processes, investing in new products, expanding into new markets, innovating, and differentiating are all about taking risks. Although risk-taking and scientific advancement are at the heart of technology development and commercialization, other social and humanitarian factors are also critical to the success or failure of a technology’s widespread adoption and use. Notably, this includes consideration of ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) that frame a technology in terms of its normative societal value – not just by its technical capabilities (Calvert & Martin 2009).
There is no science that does not rest on a metaphysics, though typically it remains concealed. It is the responsibility of the philosopher to uncover this metaphysics, and then to subject it to criticism. What I have tried to show is that cybernetics, far from being the apotheosis of Cartesian humanism, as Heidegger supposed, actually represented a crucial moment in its demystification, and indeed in its deconstruction.
Der vorliegende Beitrag analysiert die aktuellen, eng miteinander verbundenen Kontroversen über "Human Enhancement" und "Converging Technologies" sowie christliche Reaktionen auf diese. Aus bioethischer Perspektive stellen beide Kontroversen eine Ausweitung des Themengebiets dar, da es ihnen weniger um die seit Jahren breit diskutierten Fragen im Bereich der Genetik, Medizin und Biotechnologie geht als vielmehr um mehrere übergreifende, auch nichtbiologische Forschungs- und Entwicklungsfelder sowie deren Berührungspunkte und Überschneidungsbereiche. Zunächst ist zu skizzieren, von was die beiden Kontroversen handeln, und darzulegen, wer sie vorangetrieben hat. Offensichtlich hat sich in ihnen eine bestimmte technikzentrierte eschatologische Weltanschauung neuerlich manifestiert. Dieser so genannte Posthumanismus wird von christlicher Seite schon seit Längerem und in jüngster Zeit verstärkt als eine Herausforderung diskutiert. Die politisch-ethische Spezialdebatte zu "Converging Technologies" ist daher vor dem Hintergrund eher akademisch und weltanschaulich geprägter Diskussionen über den Posthumanismus zu untersuchen. In diesen Diskussionen spielen theologische Perspektiven bisher eine größere Rolle als in der eigentlichen Konvergenzdebatte. Nach einer allgemeinen Charakterisierung der Thematik und kurzen Begriffsklärungen wird in diesem Beitrag auf einschlägige forschungspolitische Visionen und den Stand relevanter naturwissenschaftlich-technischer Forschung und Entwicklung eingegangen. Danach werden die Auseinandersetzung um die posthumanistischen Technikvisionen und dabei vor allem christliche Reaktionen auf diese behandelt. Anschließend kommen christliche Beiträge zur Spezialdebatte über konvergierende Technologien zur Sprache. Den Schluss des Beitrags bilden eine kritische Würdigung der diversen christlichen Diskussionsbeiträge und einige Überlegungen zum Umgang mit den posthumanistischen Visionen.
Due to its potential to take advantage of novel properties of matter at the atomic level, nanotechnology promises to provide innovations that will have a tremendously beneficial economic and social impact. However, there are also risks and problems associated with it that must be properly assessed and responsibly dealt with, not just by researchers, businesses and public authorities, but also by society as a whole. The creation of matters of concern related to nanotechnology and of the different publics surrounding those concerns is an open process. To clarify the process, the epistemological status of nanotechnology as a technoscience should also be examined.
This chapter shows the common ancestry found in the evolution of ideas (philosophy and humanities) between cybernetics and emergent (or converging) technologies: nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science—NBIC. It also establishes the historical and philosophical ancestry between cybernetics and transhumanism. This unveils the unfinished (and somewhat surreptitious) transhumanist agenda underpinning much of current emergent technologies. Part of the purpose of this chapter is to show the utmost relevance of cybernetics to contemporary and future endeavors of the sciences and technologies that deal with life (including the mind). Another reason is to remove the feeling of uncanniness or alienation sometimes attached to these emergent technologies—and for that matter, to cybernetics itself. These insights into the way of doing science and technology, with the purpose of altering the human condition, are shown as embedded in the very thrust behind some canonical ideas driving Western civilization (as found in, e.g. Medieval and Modern times).
Ethical and regulatory aspects are important in practice of medicine and the same applies to nanomedicine. As has happened with introduction of all new technologies, in healthcare, these issues need to be considered. The FDA is formulating specific regulations relevant to nanobiotechnology products. The development of pharmaceuticals containing nanoparticles and methods of drug delivery, however, will be regulated by the FDA like any other biopharmaceutical product.
Our conversations about human enhancement by technological means are premised on an image of technology: what it is, what it can do, by which of its virtues humans can transcend their present condition. This image of technology, however, is not technical but social. Günther Anders pointed out already that how we valorize technology expresses our sense of deficiency or vulnerability and, thus, ex negativo, a conception of a better life, of better humans in a better society (Anders, 1956). Half a century later, Sheila Jasanoff foregrounds sociotechnical imaginaries: all the stories of technological determinism or enablement, including the visionary expectations of emergent technologies, are framed by sociotechnical imaginaries (Jasanoff , 2015).
Ethische Reflexion ist eine Weise des Ernstnehmens, sie rückt ihren Gegenstand in einen Brennpunkt des Handelns, der Ein- und Ausrichtung menschlicher Verhältnisse. Hier soll verfolgt werden, wie die Nanotechnologie durch ethische Fragestellungen ernstgenommen wird, und vor allem auch, was an ihr ernstgenommen wird.
Ethical and regulatory aspects are important in practice of medicine, and the same applies to nanomedicine. As has happened with introduction of all new technologies, in healthcare, these issues need to be considered. The FDA is formulating specific regulations relevant to nanobiotechnology products. The development of pharmaceuticals containing nanoparticles and methods of drug delivery, however, will be regulated by the FDA like any other biopharmaceutical product.
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.
One peculiarity of the technologies referred to as ‘new and emerging’, such as synthetic biology, the nanotechnologies, and the converging technologies, is their visionary character. Although applications exist now and there is much applied research, much of the current ethical and political debate is focused on possible technological developments, i.e. on technological visions. Since this visionary character is frequently not acknowledged, the future of the different forms of technology is often taken for granted, which makes it appear that the ethical and political discussion has developed following a dynamic of its own, engaging in problematic speculation. What does it mean to analyse the normative implications of technological visions? After discussing the different meanings of responsibility and providing some examples taken from the current debate on human enhancement, the aim of this article is to disentangle the implications of thinking about responsibility in relation to technological visions.
Theoretical and methodological problems arising in ergonomics systems and industrial environments interfaces designing are examined in the article. A number of solutions (both psychological and technical) to the "man-including-into-the-ergatic-system" problem is presented. Peculiarities of mechanisms of functioning of consciousness's as the interface connecting the subject with the world of activities are described. Some types of intelligence units emerge in interface systems, depending on the level of organization and intelligence-involving interaction's processes are proposed.
In India and other developing countries water security and food and nutrition security are intricately connected. Developments in nanotechnology can have significant implications for water resources augmentation, conservation and use. A framework for assessment of the potential of nanotechnology applications for enhancing water security is developed. Water filtration, waste water treatment and remediation, monitoring water quality and soil moisture and irrigation systems are identified as key determinants of water security that have significant implications for food and nutrition security, which can be impacted by developments in nanotechnology. Using literature and patent data, a model to organise and map nanoresearch areas to the water security determinants is developed. The model is based on a specially designed database, which allows identification and prioritisation of nanotechnologies to enhance water security. The potential for commercialisation of some promising nanotechnologies is also assessed.
The agribiotechnology debates in India over the last decade have set precedents for reflecting on the changing relationship between science and society. This article tries to engage with these lessons in order to stress the need to assimilate them while imagining new technological interventions such as nanotechnology for agriculture and their governance. While searching for an appropriate governance mechanism, the artilce opens up the parallel international debate on 'Responsible Innovation' (RI) in the context of emerging technologies, for scrutiny in the Indian context. In doing so, the article highlights the neglected power dynamics in the overall debates on responsible innovation and proposes a 'beam-balance' metaphor to engage with the idea of 'Responsible Innovation' in order to take the inequalities and alternative perspectives into account.
Based on an analysis of the current literature on nanoethics, this paper proposes to identify three different models for ethical governance of nanotechnology, respectively called "conservative model," "inquiry model" and "interpretative model." The propositions of the EGAIS1 Research Project in terms of ethical governance of nanotechnology are related to the latter model.
Pests, Monsters, and Biotechnology Chimeras: Art, Biology and Technology
The term Mother Nature is quite appropriate if we think that man has a tortuous
relationship with her, between fear and admiration, the desire to control and to nearly
destroy. Such binary visions of and often paradoxical relationships between man and
nature apply to the technologies in the sciences. It is still difficult to overcome the
widespread dualistic perception about technology.
The task of this chapter is to present and briefly discuss the main ethical implications of current and prospective neural applications of nanotechnology. While the task seems simple, undertaking it is by no means so. In part, this is because there is very little literature specifically focused on the intersection of nano- and neurotechnology. At the time of this chapter’s completion, there appear to be approximately a dozen articles that provide substantial ethical consideration specific to nanotechnology and the brain. While this provides a substantial base from which to evaluate the ethical considerations, the dearth of original research material on nanotechnology and neuroscience makes difficult an original thoroughgoing analysis of the ethical implications of nano and neuro. I have drawn from the larger literatures on ‘neuroethics’ and ‘nanoethics’ to supplement the extant articles on the ethics of nanotechnology and neuroscience.
Scholars in the humanities increasingly scrutinize the contemporary significance of cognitive neuroscience in reshaping the contours of the human subject. The essay considers a specific dimension of this new epistemic and ontological frontier—the neuroscience of consciousness as a threshold of life and death—to develop the argument that the biology of consciousness as a cultural problem is part and parcel of the end of life as a biopolitical problem. It turns to two sites of contemporary popular culture to unpack how a particular rationality of freedom intertwines with neural life in order to give form to, and contain, the concrete material, economic, and political problems faced by the end of life. It argues that contemporary reflections on the biology of consciousness must link the cultural problem of organizing a neural subject to specific economic, legal, and ethical problems of late-modern rationalities of government.
This thesis sets out to answer the question of how regulatory regimes come into being, surfacing the limited attention paid to hegemony in traditional accounts of policy-making. In detail, I address the conundrum of how a particular interpretation of the regulatory problem with a new technology, and of its solution, could catch on under conditions of uncertainty. Indeed, I seek to address this research problem of how to regulate a new technology through the two original and rich case studies of nanotechnology governance in Germany and the United Kingdom. Until 2009, the governance of nanotechnologies was marked by soft approaches to nanotechnology regulation, such as the UK industry's "Responsible NanoCode," or the German Industry Association's "Guiding Principles for the Treatment of Nanotechnologies." Problematized against experiences with strict regulation of genetically modified organisms, I explore how under conditions of uncertainty this particular soft approach to regulating nanotechnologies could catch on.
In my analysis, I identify a new form of regulation which is characterised by – what I conceptualise as – a logic of pre-emption. This logic of pre-emption manifests in a new regulatory regime marked by the 'responsible development of nanotechnologies.' In so doing, it leads to a new way of regulating the unknown that rearticulates the notion of regulation against the background of innovation. Deploying political discourse theory, I carve out the role of fantasy and the affective dimension of nanotechnology governance and the contingent constitution of the regulatory object as important vectors impacting on the upcoming regulatory regime. Methodologically, I contribute to the conceptual work on hegemonic policy analysis by building on Jason Glynos' and David Howarth's 'logics of critical explanation' that I articulate in my empirical enquiry together with concepts from rhetorical policy analysis.
Imagine a world where the difference between man and machine blurs, where the line between humanity and technology fades, and where soul and silicon unite. This is not science fiction, but a very real possibility in a few short decades.
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