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Handbook of Risk Theory pp 159–177Cite as

Risks and Scientific Responsibilities in Nanotechnology

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Abstract

This chapter outlines a number of risks of nanotechnology and considers whether scientists can be held responsible, and if so, to what extent. The five risks discussed are representative of different kinds of risks and the list is not comprehensive: nanoparticles, privacy, grey goo, cyborgs, and nanodivides. The extent to which scientists can be held responsible for harms resulting from their research depends on the nature of science and here two models are outlined and assessed; the linear model and the social. The relationship of moral values to scientific research is examined with respect to both models and four interfaces are considered: the issues of concern to ethics committees, moral values in the acceptance or rejection of hypotheses, setting research agendas, and scientific responsibility. This leads to a discussion of responsibility itself, and on the basis of this, the five risks noted at the beginning of the chapter are revisited and an assessment given of the moral responsibility of scientists in each case.

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Acknowledgment

I would like to thank the Ethics Centre of South Australia and the Ian Wark Research Institute (Particle and Material Interfaces) at the University of South Australia, for giving me a Research Fellowship in Ethics in 2008. The discussions there were valuable in the formation and development of the ideas in this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE), Charles Sturt University, LPO Box 8260, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia

    Prof. John Weckert

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  1. Prof. John Weckert
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Correspondence to John Weckert .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Philosophy Department Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Sabine Roeser

  2. Philosophy Department, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands

    Sabine Roeser

  3. Human Technology Center, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Rafaela Hillerbrand

  4. Department of Plant Physiology and Forest Genetics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden

    Per Sandin

  5. Section for Philosophy and Ethics, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Martin Peterson

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Weckert, J. (2012). Risks and Scientific Responsibilities in Nanotechnology. In: Roeser, S., Hillerbrand, R., Sandin, P., Peterson, M. (eds) Handbook of Risk Theory. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1433-5_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1433-5_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-007-1432-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-007-1433-5

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