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Bionanotechnology: A New Challenge for Ethical Reflection?

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Part of the book series: Philosophy and Medicine ((PHME,volume 101))

This paper addresses the rapidly developing field of biomedical nanote-chnology from an ethical perspective. It first provides an overview over important ethical issues of biomedical nanotechnology all of which require a thorough and comprehensive analysis. The question whether these ethical concerns are novel or specific to biomedical nanotechnology is cautiously answered in the negative: most of the questions that are considered ethically relevant in the context of biomedical nanotechnology are already discussed in several fields of applied ethics. However, some of these ethical issues are accentuated specifically by biomedical nanotech-nology. Finally, the article includes considerations concerning basic requirements of a comprehensive ethical investigation into biomedical nanotechnology and gives arguments for an inclusion of visionary projects in an analysis of the ethical aspects of nanotechnology.

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Baumgartner, C. (2008). Bionanotechnology: A New Challenge for Ethical Reflection?. In: Jotterand, F. (eds) Emerging Conceptual, Ethical and Policy Issues in Bionanotechnology. Philosophy and Medicine, vol 101. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8649-6_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8649-6_5

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-8648-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-8649-6

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