Nanotechnology
The Social and Ethical Issues

The Opportunity

Many of the social and ethical issues associated with emerging nanotechnologies are determinate, immediate, distinct, significant and actionable. Consideration of and responsiveness to them are needed now in order to anticipate and proactively address, as far as possible, potential negative aspects of emerging nanotechnologies, as well as to identify and promote opportunities for nanotechnology to contribute to human flourishing in just and sustainable ways. This is precisely the justification for including responsible development as an objective within the NNI.

However, the anticipatory model for responsible development sought by the NNI does not yet fully exist. As with nanoscale science and technology, there are some pieces in place, some resources from which to draw (e.g., experiences with previous emerging technologies and expertise in relevant areas), dedicated and capable researchers (in academia, government, non-governmental organizations and elsewhere) and ambitious and laudable goals. This is true of all aspects of responsible development—education and outreach, EHS and other social, ethical and legal issues—and it is a reason why nanotechnology is as exciting and challenging from a humanities and social science perspective as it is from a science and engineering perspective. Thus far, the effort to develop effective responses to social and ethical issues associated with emerging nanotechnologies has been inadequate—stymied by misconception of what the issues are, why they are crucial to responsible development and how to proactively address them.

It is possible to do better, and the NNI affords as good an opportunity to address many of the issues as is likely to present itself. First, within the NNI there is a substantial and apparently genuine commitment to promoting nanotechnology as a social good, as well as recognition that considerable efforts in support of responsible development are necessary to do so. Second, there is some recognition within the NNI that there are significant social and ethical issues above and beyond public outreach, infrastructure and workforce development and EHS that need to be addressed. Social and ethical issues do at least find mention in core NNI documents, and there has been some effort within the NNI to identify them (Roco and Bainbridge 2001, 2005). Third, there is recognition within the NNI that significant policy and regulatory changes may be needed to build adequate government capacity for achieving responsible development. It is not often that the federal government openly encourages and supports rethinking the organization, authority, resources, mandates and approaches of its frontline regulatory and policy agencies, many of which intersect with or are implicated in social and ethical issues. Fourth, the NNI is a comprehensive research program along several dimensions—e.g., the number of government agencies involved, the number of disciplines involved and the types of research (basic, applied, social, scientific) being pursued. The NNI has already developed intra- and interagency coordination (e.g., the Interagency Working Group on Nanotechnology Environmental and Health Implications) and coordinators (e.g., the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office) to help avoid redundancy, define research needs and share data, for example.

Taken together, these factors suggest that the NNI affords a unique opportunity to take a broad, critical and constructive perspective on the relationship between technology, government, environment and society; while emerging nanotechnologies offer a unique opportunity to make social (not just technological) progress through broad, innovative, forward-looking responsible development. These are opportunities not to be missed.