Dónald P. O’Mathúna: Nanoethics: Big Ethical Issues with Small Technology

Excerpt

Nanotechnology might be a technology concerned with the small scale, but it has without doubt caused, as Dónald P. O’Mathúna rightly captures it in his book Nanoethics: Big Ethical Issues with Small Technology, big ethical issues. Today, ethicists, scientists, policy makers, governments, non-governmental organizations and technoprogressive groups all around the globe have being involved in shaping the debate regarding the ethical issues. Some explore the supposedly great benefits that this new technological revolution will bring. Others focus more on the dangers that nanotechnology poses to society and the individual. O’Mathúna’s project is somewhat different. For him, the ethical issues brought to the fore by nanotechnology are not only pressing but also, so he argues, issues that could be informed and move forwards by the morals we find in narratives, particularly in the genre of science fiction. As he mentions throughout his book the potent benefits, such as new therapies and diagnosis he also points out the ethical issues involved, such as privacy and playing with our own evolution. In doing so he uses various examples from narratives (books, films and myths) that have touched upon the same ethical issues involved in the current debates. He is not the only one that has tried to highlight the ethical, social and political dimensions involved in nanotechnology, but he remains one of a few in suggesting alternatives to move ethical thinking beyond the bookshelf. That project is at the centre of his Nanoethics. …