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Mind the gap revisited

Nature Nanotechnology volume 4, pages 273–274 (2009)Cite this article

It is important to consider the ethical aspects of nanotechnology, but it is equally important to ensure that these considerations do not end up as 'speculative ethics'.

In 2003, Anisa Mnyusiwalla, Abdallah Daar and Peter Singer of the University of Toronto issued their famous call to “mind the gap”1. The only way to avoid a moratorium on the deployment of nanomaterials, they claimed, was to “immediately close the gap between the science and ethics of nanotechnology”. Noting a shortage of serious publications on the ethical, legal and social implications of nanotechnology, they argued that “as the science leaps ahead, the ethics lags behind”. Six years later, there is a welter of activity — a dedicated journal called NanoEthics, at least ten monographs and volumes of collected papers, more than 100 papers and reports (see ref. 2 for a review), and a wide variety of networks and other projects concerned with the ethical and societal dimensions of nanotechnology (refs 3,4,5 are good examples) — but a new gap has opened up because most nanoethics is too futuristic, focusing on nano-enabled devices that can read our thoughts, for example, at the expense of ongoing incremental developments that are more ethically significant.

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References

  1. Mnyusiwalla, A., Daar, A. & Singer, P. Nanotechnology 14, R9–R13 (2003).

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  2. Kjølberg, K. & Wickson, F. NanoEthics 1, 89–104 (2007).

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  3. http://www.geography.dur.ac.uk/projects/deepen

  4. http://www.teo.au.dk/cfb/forskning/omraader/nanoethics

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  6. Nordmann, A. NanoEthics 1, 31–46 (2007).

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  8. Allhof, P F., Lin, P., Moor, J. & Weckert, J. (eds), Nanoethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Nanotechnology 12 (Wiley, 2007).

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  9. Berger, F., Gevers, S., Siep, L. & Weltring, K.-M. NanoEthics 2, 241–249 (2008).

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  10. NanoBio-RAISE in Nanobiotechnology, Nanomedicine and Human Enhancement (eds Ach, J. & Lüttenberg, B.) 187–197 (Lit, 2008); available at <http://tinyurl.com/crv9gk>.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Alfred Nordmann is in the Institute for Philosophy, Technical University of Darmstadt, Darmstadt 64283, Germany. nordmann@phil.tu-darmstadt.de,

    Alfred Nordmann

  2. Arie Rip is in the Department of Science, Technology, and Policy Studies, University of Twente, AE Enschede 7500, Netherlands. a.rip@utwente.nl,

    Arie Rip

Authors
  1. Alfred Nordmann
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  2. Arie Rip
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Nordmann, A., Rip, A. Mind the gap revisited. Nature Nanotech 4, 273–274 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2009.26

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