17. Societal Approach to Nanoscience and Nanotechnology: When Technology Reflects and Shapes Society

Through its convergence with a whole range of technologies developed in information science, biology, and cognitive science, nanotechnology reflects and shapes society. Because it has a tremendous capacity to transform our perceptions, practices, and representations of the future, it has political as well as economic and social impacts. Making the nanoworld more accessible by informing the public and introducing appropriate laws is an ethical imperative. Apart from education and incorporation in industrial processes and professions, this broadened access is a precondition for a proper public debate on the uses and also the limits of innovation, whenever the latter does not correspond to the general principles of responsibility and precaution. One aim here is to reflect upon the potential of nanotechnology in the context of the transhumanist agenda. It is essential to go beyond the traditional cost–benefit approach to an assessment based on the systemic nature of the risks induced by nanotechnology. The main goal of this chapter is to introduce the reader to this perspective.