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Moral Imagination, Trading Zones, and the Role of the Ethicist in Nanotechnology

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Abstract

The societal and ethical impacts of emerging technological and business systems cannot entirely be foreseen; therefore, management of these innovations will require at least some ethicists to work closely with researchers. This is particularly critical in the development of new systems because the maximum degrees of freedom for changing technological direction occurs at or just after the point of breakthrough; that is also the point where the long-term implications are hardest to visualize. Recent work on shared expertise in Science & Technology Studies (STS) can help create productive collaborations among scientists, engineers, ethicists and other stakeholders as these new systems are designed and implemented. But collaboration across these disciplines will be successful only if scientists, engineers, and ethicists can communicate meaningfully with each other. The establishment of a trading zone coupled with moral imagination present one method for such collaborative communication.

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Notes

  1. See [9].

  2. “The truth of the doctrine of cultural (or historical—it is the same thing) relativism is that we can never apprehend another period’s imagination neatly, as though it were our own. The falsity of it is that we can therefore never genuinely apprehend it at all. We can apprehend it well enough, at least as well as we apprehend anything else not properly ours; but we do so not by looking behind the interfering glosses that connect us to it but through them” ([10]: 44).

  3. Nanotechnology raises some unique challenges for regulation that arise from the multifunctional nature of the application. The orthpedic implant, which is usually regulated by FDA as a “device”, may also warrant consideration for regulation as a “drug” when it also contains a system for the controlled release of therapeutic agents (silver ions) to function as an antibiotic. Historically, the FDA clearance of an application as a “drug” has invited far greater scrutiny that its application as a “device”. As a result of this confusion, FDA has created a new category of a “combination drug-device” to regulate such applications. Stepping beyond the human body, a number of interactions at the ecosystem level warrant consideration, such as effects of nanosilver release on species earlier on within the food chain, such as fish, where bioaccumulations of toxins is known to be a major problem. The effect of nanosilver on beneficial bacteria, such as those within the body or at waste-water treatment plants is also largely unknown. All of these issues will require new trading zones that involve scientists, regulators, companies, ethicists and consumers

  4. In guided self-assembly, a surface is altered so that when it is bombarded by molecules of a particular compound, these molecules will assemble themselves into the pattern suggested by the alteration.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Science, Technology & Society, School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Virginia, 351 McCormick Road, Thornton Hall, P.O. Box 400744, Charlottesville, VA, 22904-4744, USA

    Michael E. Gorman

  2. Institute for Business and Professional Ethics, DePaul University, Chicago, IL, USA

    Patricia H. Werhane

  3. School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Virginia, 351 McCormick Road, P.O. Box 400744, Thornton Hall, Charlottesville, VA, 22904-4744, USA

    Nathan Swami

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  1. Michael E. Gorman
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  2. Patricia H. Werhane
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  3. Nathan Swami
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Correspondence to Michael E. Gorman.

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Gorman, M.E., Werhane, P.H. & Swami, N. Moral Imagination, Trading Zones, and the Role of the Ethicist in Nanotechnology. Nanoethics 3, 185–195 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-009-0069-8

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