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Which Focus for an Ethics in Nanotechnology Laboratories?

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Ethics on the Laboratory Floor

Abstract

Over the last decade, ethics has been institutionalised as an integral part of nanotechnology research. This integration was a response to the alert ‘Mind the gap’, which was launched in 2003. ‘As the science leaps ahead, the ethics lags behind. There is danger of derailing NT [nanotechnology] if the study of ethical, legal, and social implications does not catch up with the speed of scientific development’ (Mnyusiwalla et al. 2003). One year later, the report of the Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering in Great Britain Nanoscience and Nanotechnology: Opportunities and Uncertainties also pointed to the gap between technology and ethics, and made a similar claim about the gap between science and the public (Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering 2004).

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© 2013 Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent

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Bensaude-Vincent, B. (2013). Which Focus for an Ethics in Nanotechnology Laboratories?. In: van der Burg, S., Swierstra, T. (eds) Ethics on the Laboratory Floor. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137002938_2

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