Nanotechnology Challenges: Implications for Philosophy, Ethics and Society. Review

Nanotechnology Challenges is an expansive collection of papers originally published in successive special issues of Hyle: International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry and Techne?: Research in Philosophy and Technology, which were themselves the product of a number of stimulating and energetic conferences held at University of South Carolina. It is a welcome development to have the papers collated and published in a single volume. Edited by Joachim Schummer and Davis Baird Nanotechnology Challenges includes a number of notable contributions — particularly by authors such as Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, Alfred Nordmann, Cyrus Mody, Jean-Pierre Dupuy and Alexei Grinbaum — which have already become key references in the academic consideration of the societal and ethical dimensions of nanotechnology. As such the volume stands to make a valuable contribution to this young field, and to the development of nanotechnology itself. At the heart of the book Bruce Lewenstein asks a tantalising question: ‘What counts as a ‘‘Social and Ethical Issue’’ in nanotechnology?’. He goes on to suggest that: To say that there are social and ethical issues is to say that science and technology exist only in a social context, and that we cannot understand how science and technology develop without understanding both the social conditions that produce them and the simultaneous scientific and technological conditions that produce society. (p. 202)

Lewenstein therefore argues that science and technology do not simply have ‘implications’ to which society mutely responds. Rather science and technology are enacted in thoroughly social, moral, ethical and political contexts such that it is impossible to speak of asocial or ‘pure’ science.

This is particularly the case given the fact that, as noted by a number of authors in the volume, nanotechnology is a relatively young field and therefore presents an unstable object for social science and philosophical analysis. Indeed, nanotechnology is characterised as much by competing claims as to its societal ‘impacts’ than its technical promise. As Schummer notes in the final chapter of the volume, notions of societal and ethical implications of nanotechnology have been articulated, over the last few years, by a diverse set of actors and interest groups with a stake in the future development of nanotechnology.

That is that notions of the ‘implications’ of nanotechnology are embroiled in strategic arguments about what nanotechnology itself constitutes. Ideas of the implications of nanoscience and technology — both opportunities and risks — are articulated in order to legitimate particular versions of nanoscience the particular social futures that nanotechnology is cast as enabling. What counts as a social and ethical issue in nanotechnology is also therefore intimately tied to political and strategic questions of what counts as nanoscience.

Lewenstein’s question recalls Latour’s distinction between matters of concern and matters of fact. In a challenge to critical inquiry Latour suggests that: The critical mind, if it is to renew itself and be relevant again, is to be found in the cultivation of a stubbornly realist attitude — to speak like William James — but a realism dealing with what I will call matters of concern, not matters of fact. The mistake we made, the mistake I made, was to believe that there was no efficient way to criticize matters of fact except by moving away from them and directing one’s attention toward the conditions that made them possible. But this meant accepting much too uncritically what matters of fact were (2004, p. 231).

Latour’s suggestion is that we move from critical appraisals of what are issues to an enlarged and affirmative assessment of what counts as issues. That is to effect a reorientation of social, political and philosophical scholarship in which the question of what counts as an issue is not taken to be simply a product of ‘the science’. Rather social, political and philosophical scholarship is, in Latour’s view, to be more proactive in widening the scope of what counts as an issue of concern. That is to add vocabularies and repertoires to current articulations of the social and ethical implications of nanotechnology that widen the frames of reference and legitimate socially robust forms of nanotechnology development. Given the breadth and imagination of its scholarship, Nanotechnology Challenges stands to make an important contribution to this ambitious project.

Nanotechnology: Risk, Ethics and Law. Book Review

This book joins a growing number of publications exploring the opportunities, risks and implications of nanotechnologies. The question of what constitutes nanotechnologies, the extent to which they will disrupt or converge with existing technologies, and how best to reap the benefits of applications, while minimizing the risks have been major themes in recent discussions in the scientific community in the UK, US, Europe, Australia, and elsewhere. Further, the issue of how best to engage ‘the public’ before technologies become established, to ensure consent and legitimacy for developments, has preoccupied science groups and science policymakers, particularly in the UK, where a number of recent public engagement initiatives have been undertaken. The 2004 report, Nanoscience and Nanotechnologies: Opportunities and Uncertainties, published jointly by the UK’s Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering, has served as a focal point in debates about the implications of nanotechnologies and reflects concerns about public responses to this emergent field in the wake of the GM controversy of the late nineteen nineties. However, although highlighting a number of pertinent issues, this publication is science-focused and gives relatively scant attention to the socio-political, ethical, legal and global dimensions of nanotechnologies. The wide-ranging discussion of these issues in Nanotechnology (which claims to be ‘one of the first comprehensive books on the impacts of nanotechnology’ – p. 273) is therefore welcome.

The book, part of Earthscan’s Science in Society Series, includes contributions focusing on the development of scientific ideas about nanotechnologies, regional developments, the benefits and risks of nanotechnologies and public understanding of related issues, and the legal and ethical implications of innovations. The contributors represent a range of disciplines and fields, including molecular science, electrical and computing engineering, communication studies, oncology, sociology, health policy, law and environmental improvement. This is an impressive cast of contributors who, from their different perspectives, help advance understanding of the multi-dimensional character of the nanotech landscape. The chapters are, in the main, well written and provide useful summaries of a field, which is both contentious as to its boundaries and rapidly advancing as a consequence of huge investment, particularly in the United States under the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), launched in 2000.

The early chapters (comprising Part 1) emphasise the history of the ideas and the contending definitions of nanotechnology, as well as the expectations for the field. They offer a useful orientation to the science and its potential applications for those who are unfamiliar with the issues. Novel properties are seen to emerge at the nano (billionth of a metre) level. Nano-size structures and processes are believed to offer new possibilities in diverse fields, including the manufacture of super-hard materials, the minituarization of electronic components and medical devices, new means of environmental management and of imaging, and novel sensing, monitoring and intelligence devices. However, these novel properties are seen to also present risks, particularly those arising from the manufacture of nanoparticles which may affect ecosystems and human health. Consequently, like other emergent technologies, such as medical genetics and GMOs, nanotechnologies have been greeted with a mixture of both fascination and fear. Taking responses to earlier technologies as a cue, Kulinowski argues (Chapter 2), one may predict a likely trajectory for the controversy surrounding this new field to follow from ‘wow’ to ‘yuk’. Uncertainties and fears are in particular associated with the predicted convergence or the synergistic combination of multiple technologies (e.g. Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology and Cognitive Science) (NBIC), which are likely to present new possibilities of human performance enhancement, manipulation, surveillance and control. The trajectory for controversy, however, is likely to play out somewhat differently in different national contexts. The book’s discussion of nanotech developments in Japan, the United States, Europe, and Canada (in Part 2) therefore is interesting in highlighting both commonalities and divergences in the path of technology development. Like biotechnologies, nanotechnologies are seen by policymakers in a number of countries as having applications in numerous fields and as potentially delivering major economic benefits. International competitiveness is a major driver of policies. However, the trajectory of innovations is shaped by local politics, history and culture. In Japan and the United States, the political-industrial elite are less welcoming of the precautionary criticism of nanotechnologies than in Europe where the emphasis has been on the policy of ‘better safe than sorry’ and on ‘upstream’ public engagement as early in technology development as possible. The chapters comprising this Part provide a useful description of these trends, although are limited in terms of their analysis and critique of issues and policies and assessment of potential longer-term impacts.

Other Parts (3, 4 and 5) include chapters on the benefits and risks and risk management of nanotechnologies, the global ethics of nanotechnologies, risk, trust and public understandings of nanotechnology, toxicological issues, the future of nanotechnology in food science and nutrition, the lessons from the biotechnology field, nanotechnology and the law of patents, matters of civil and corporate criminal liability and the ethical conduct of research involving human subjects. These chapters offer both a useful summary of some recent debates about the regulatory challenges posed by innovations and serve as a source of information on current policies and legislation. Finally, the concluding chapter (‘What makes nanotechnology special?) (Part 6) emphasises the importance for nanotechnology of gaining the support of users of nanotechnology products and ‘the public at large’ if it is to become a ‘mature and sustainable technology’. Here, the potential for a ‘nano-divide’ is raised, and the reader is offered the pessimistic prediction that ‘Nanotechnology will reinforce global inequalities by fostering a nano-divide’. The chapter concludes with a recommendation that the United Nations or a similar body convenes an international conference oriented to the creation of ‘a permanent international multi-stakeholder body (for example, International Nanotechnology Agency) to review, monitor and regulate developments in nanotechnology’.

Like many edited collections, this one lacks a coherent theoretical argument and clear normative position. Further, the book makes little reference to the significance of the media in framing debates and to the politics of the public representations of emergent issues. This is a field full of expectation and competing claims about applications, benefits and risks, with much at stake in how issues are defined and communicated. Depictions of fact and fiction compete and blur in the me? lange of the numerous claims and counter-claims about the technologies’ possibilities and risks. As Vaidhyanathan (Chapter 18) points out, ‘Despite current nanotechnology claims being more relevant to science fiction than science, billions of dollars have gone into firms – all of which hope against hope that they will be among first-movers in this field and marshal the great proportion of what some claim will be a ‘US$1 trillion prize’. Nothwithstanding its limitations, however, the book can be recommended for its coverage of a broad range of topics, its inclusion of many disciplinary perspectives and its focus on the social, ethical and legal implications of developments which has been missing from many discussions thus far. This will make it an invaluable resource for science and technology scholars and students, science policymakers and funders, and indeed anyone wishing to learn more about this rapidly developing field.