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Nanoethics and the Breaching of Boundaries: A Heuristic for Going from Encouragement to a Fuller Integration of Ethical, Legal and Social Issues and Science

Commentary on: “Adding to the Mix: Integrating ELSI into a National Nanoscale Science and Technology Center”

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Abstract

The intersection of ELSI and science forms a complicated nexus yet their integration is an important goal both for society and for the successful advancement of science. In what follows, I present a heuristic that makes boundary identification and crossing an important tool in the discovery of potential areas of ethical, legal, and social concern in science. A dynamic and iterative application of the heuristic can lead towards a fuller integration and appreciation of the concerns of ELSI and of science from both sides of the divide.

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Notes

  1. Indeed, more confrontational and political approaches are advocated by leading researchers (e.g., Anthropological Research on the Contemporary [ARC] documents which are publications and working papers from the Anthropology of the Contemporary Research Collaboratory at Berkeley: http://anthropos-lab.net/documents/ (accessed on October 6, 2011)).

  2. “Big Science” is research and development large enough to demand the resources of many different institutions, government agencies, researchers, etc.

  3. They also offer more modest suggestions for the third challenge, including a searchable log of broad experiences—similar to Stanford’s “MBA Case Study” program—and a “benchside consultation” service.

  4. Cloning poses slightly different challenges but is still an instance of a breached boundary (as described below) since it involves the elimination of uniqueness at the level of a biological individual.

  5. The opposite might also be true. That is, because of the relatively higher ratio of surface area to volume experienced by particles as they get smaller, nanoparticles might be subject to greater effects from viscosity, Brownian motion, or quantum effects. Whether one should consider a nanoparticle as highly viscous or highly dispersible will vary with the context and contrast class of particles and the specifics of the situation.

  6. See http://www.azom.com/details.asp?ArticleID=1066 or http://www.nanowerk.com/nanotechnology/introduction/introduction_to_nanotechnology_28.html (accessed on October 6, 2011) for a number of other examples of nanomaterial properties.

  7. Efforts to assess and lessen the negative effects of Buckyballs, for instance, are well underway (Sayes et al. 2004).

  8. See for instance US Patents: 6069295, 6139585, 6569547, 7048767, or 7320798.

  9. This is not to say that data banks and consultation services are not useful or should not be promoted.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Philosophy Department, Division of Humanities, University of Chicago, 1115 East 58th Street, Chicago, IL, 60637, USA

    Julio R. Tuma

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  1. Julio R. Tuma
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Correspondence to Julio R. Tuma.

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Tuma, J.R. Nanoethics and the Breaching of Boundaries: A Heuristic for Going from Encouragement to a Fuller Integration of Ethical, Legal and Social Issues and Science. Sci Eng Ethics 17, 761–767 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-011-9322-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-011-9322-y

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