Ethical concerns are ones which concern how to decide what “the right thing to do” is in a given situation. But “right” here has a very specific meaning, which philosophers typically distinguish from two other senses in which one could use the word. For example, you might be concerned with the right way to act meaning something like “what is the best way of achieving my chosen goal here?” “Right” here means efficacious, efficient, or just “most likely to be successful”. Thinking about how to act in this way is nothing to do with ethics – it is about what moral philosophers like to call prudence, or prudential action. Ultimately, trying to figure out how best to realise a goal aims to make a judgement on the means one should use to reach a given end, not on the value of the ends themselves. Alternatively, one might think about how to act in relation to what “feels” right to someone in a given situation. In other words, right here refers to the force of an emotional motivation to do one thing rather than another, like donate to a charity that works in developing countries. Here, the ends that one thinks are important are presented to one as emotional attachments. Ethics, however, typically understands “right” as referring to actions that could be judged as such by anyone who can be considered rational. In other words, it refers to a standard of action that is independent of criteria like efficiency and effectiveness, and is independent of how we feel about some end or purpose. There can be actions which are effective – like ethnic cleansing as a means of securing resources for a community – and purposes that are for some people emotionally appealing – such as executing burglars – which we may argue are not morally right, for example.

If ethics deals with a very specific meaning of the word “right”, then we might also expect that when moral philosophers disagree over an ethical issue, they disagree for very specific reasons. Ethical disagreements are not about factual concerns, in the sense of facts about how the external world works which can be established with reasonable certainty through the testing of theory via experiment and observation. On the contrary, they are about basic principles and values which people rely on in assessing whether they should act in a particular way. Many apparently ethical disagreements actually concern facts about the external world, and are thus not really ethical at all. Where disagreements are genuinely ethical in nature, they will typically concern issues like the relative priority of different values or principles.

Among these principles and values are the following Rights Duties The good Utility Harm Justice The question is therefore: which of these principles might be the most important in any given case – but also, to whom does it apply? For example: who has rights (all humans, all non-foetal humans, humans and primates, all animals, all living creatures etc)? Who can be harmed (can dead people be harmed? Future people?). These are the kinds of issues that give rise to genuine ethical debates.

So if we take ethics as a field of inquiry which looks at what kinds of actions are right and wrong in this sense, then we can identify certain kinds of actions that are associated with technology which might raise these kinds of questions, and which could be treated as forming a subfield: technological ethics. Questions like, for example, whether a given technological innovation – like a genetically modified food, a contraceptive drug, a bioweapon, or a device which enhances standard human cognitive abilities – should be produced because of the new ethical problems it creates. Or: whether a given innovation will affect how we deal with familiar ethical questions, because of – for example – the ways in which it extends or impairs the capabilities of individuals, or fulfils or fails to fulfil the needs of deprived social classes or developed countries.

Looking at the ethics literature and indeed journalistic interest in nanotechnology over the last few years, there are two cases of new ethical issues which have been associated with nanotechnology., along with a number of examples of how specific potential nanotech innovations may change the way we think about existing ethical problems. Even the two new issues, however, might be said to be examples of established - or even quite old - worries about technology. We will look first at the “new issues”.

The new issues are, firstly, the prospect of what has been called “grey goo”, i.e. the results of out-of-control advanced nanotech. This scenario is a result of speculation based on the assumption that it may one day be possible to engineer tiny robotic systems utilising nanoscience which are capable not only of self-movement and some degree of artificial intelligence, but of self-replication based on the consumption of some form of widely available feedstock (e.g. carbon). Some have argued that there is therefore a remote possibility of (should this technology be developed) nano-engineered robots replicating out of control and consuming the biosphere in the process as their numbers grow exponentially – global ecophagy. This scenario originated with K. Eric Drexler, one of the originators of the concept of molecular nanotechnology (MNT), the use of nanoscale scientific techniques to achieve precise enough control over chemical reactions to build complex micro and even macroscale structures “from the bottom up”, from the atomic level. Given that this outcome is a possible outgrowth of nanoscale science, then – some have suggested – it is morally impermissible to continue with nanoscale science.

Does this make sense as an ethical argument? This is arguably one case of an apparently ethical disagreement which is actually not ethical at all, because it is in reality an argument over a certain set of facts concerning what nanotechnology is and might be in the future. As such, it is a classic example of a “slippery slope argument”. A slippery slope argument is something with which we’re all probably familiar; basically, it states that if we allow A (which may be relatively innocuous), then this will lead to B, and then this to C – which will inevitably lead all the way to Z, which none of us want. The problem with an argument of this kind is that it isn’t really about principle.s or values If it were, then it would be all about whether D is bad and if so, on what grounds. The slippery slope only exists if each of its premises and their relationships A > B > C > D – which, taken independently may be unlikely, and if taken together, the possibility of which may be highly remote – can be factually established. If the facts do not hold up, then there is no slippery slope. In the case of grey goo, there are very many intermediate steps that must be realised before it could even be a possibility: before you can build runaway, self-replicating, nanomachines, you first have to build any nanomachine at all, and then have to build nanomachines that can self-replicate under carefully controlled conditions, and so on. Most nanoscience now is arguably a continuation and refinement of forms of chemistry which have been around for a long time – it is a long way from the kind of precise atomic control and manipulation that people such as Drexler had in mind. So, the grey goo argument is really about what nanotechnology can factually accomplish, not about whether pursuing one innovation is morally right or not.

But does this mean there is not really an ethical issue contained within the grey goo scenario? As I said, if a possible (but highly unlikely) future scenario for the use of nanotechnology were ethically troubling, this would have to be because it has implications for ethical principles. Suppose one were committed to the principle that suffering is the worst thing that can happen to human beings and is morally wrong. Taking this to the extreme, it would be possible to argue that anything that eliminates suffering is good, and that given that life is unimaginable without some degree of suffering (the death of people one loves and so on), the elimination of all life could be a good thing. So let’s do our best to create self-replicating nanobots in the hope that they will destroy all life! OK, so this is extreme and perhaps absurd. But we don’t have to go this far to get to a real ethical problem contained within the grey goo scenario. We saw that grey goo is really about a set of facts, which have to do with the present and future of nanotechnology. But we could reformulate the argument that we shouldn’t pursue advanced nanotechnology research in case it leads to grey goo in more general terms. If a given path of technological innovation carries great risks, including risks so great that if they come to pass they entail the destruction of the world, should we pursue this path at all? Here the argument becomes: if doing A risks Z, and Z is serious enough to infringe fundamental moral principles, then it doesn’t matter about the intervening steps – taking the risk is itself bad enough. This is the root of what has been called the precautionary principle, a rule for judging right and wrong actions which has been incorporated in European Union law, and via EU law, into UK government technology policy. Basically, this states that scientific uncertainty about the outcomes of an action does not give us an excuse for going ahead and doing it, should there be suspicion that it may have very serious consequences. This means that no proof of risk at present should not be taken as proof of no risk, and that there is a burden of proof on those who want to use a particular technology to show that it can be developed without leading to serious negative outcomes.

This concept of precautionary development gets us to the second of the new ethical problems which I said some have associated with nanotech – that of nanopollution. This differs from grey goo in that it doesn’t concern some postulated future technology which may or may not evolve. Rather, it concerns scientific uncertainties which surround nanomaterials that are being developed and commercialised now. Many nanomaterials (for example, nanoscale silica used in the electronics industry for polishing circuit boards) are considered to be essentially no different in terms of their properties to their larger scale equivalents, and are safe or at least easily controlled. However, some nanoscale materials (particularly particulate metal oxides, carbon nanotubes, fullerenes and so on) have unusual properties which raise the suspicion that they may have serious effects on human health or on the natural environment, should there be any chance of uncontrolled exposure at some point in their lifecycle. For example, recent studies by toxicologists at Edinburgh University have suggested that some kinds of carbon nanotubes may, if inhaled, cause damage to the lungs comparable to the mesothilioma caused by asbestos fibres. Similarly, there have been suspicions that nanoscale silver particles incorporated in clothing such as socks and other textiles for their antimicrobial properties may, through repeated washing, pollute water sources and eventually cause harm to essential aquatic microbes. If such effects are a possibility, they may take a long time to appear, after a long cumulative series of exposures or pollution incidents. This makes them hard to test for, and increases uncertainty. So given these possibilities, would it be morally wrong to avoid taking adequate measures to avoid exposing people (especially workers in labs and factories) to carbon nanotubes? Would it be morally wrong to keep adding nanosilver to socks just to stop them getting smelly?

Turning now to existing ethical issues on which nanotechnology may have an impact – some of these concern nanotech as it is currently being developed, while others are more speculative.

The ethical consequences of nanotech in surveillance equipment are potentially significant, and will probably intensify debates about the “surveillance society”. As nanotechnology makes computing devices smaller and more powerful, collecting, storing, sharing and processing large amounts of information will become easier and cheaper. Surveillance devices will probably become smaller, thus making it harder to detect them. With more powerful and smaller computing will come more ubiquitous networking of information-gathering systems, which will make it difficult to control who has access to information and how secure data is. Here, the relevant ethical principles might be individual rights – the right to consent to having data collected about me, the right to access this data (by the person whose data it is and by others), and the right to limit how it is used. But it is not just surveillance technology that comes into question – improved medical diagnostics might mean that it is easier to detect dispositions to certain genetic disorders by checking DNA, or to monitor chronic health conditions. Once such data is available, however, who owns it and who can access it is once again of supreme importance. Certainly, we might imagine wanting one’s doctor to have access to this information, but what if health insurance companies want access? These issues are established ones which are already being discussed with respect to biotechnology.

When it comes to future uses of nanotech in the military, it may well lead to new advanced materials for incorporation in body armour, vehicle armour and so on, as well as new electronic devices for use on the battlefield But nanotech may also make it easier to design biological weaponry, as a result of enhanced control of chemical and biological processes at the nanoscale. Microorganisms with particular, specialised characteristics could be easily produced – such as the capacity to overcome immune systems, produce selective reactions with specific genetic patterns, the capacity to enter the body and cross tissues such as the blood-brain barrier more easily, and so on. The question of the ethics of risk arises here too – what if such microoganisms were released from a research environment? How could they be tested? Traditionally, ethical approaches to war such as just war theory have distinguished between moral and immoral ways of fighting, based on for example the distinction between combatants and non-combatants. It is held to be inherently immoral to target non-combatants. Just as it is often argued that nuclear, chemical and existing biological weapons are inherently less moral than conventional weaponry because of the way they make it harder to honour this distinction, so it could be argued that nanotech weaponry may lead us further down this route.

In considering the ethical significance of a technology, it’s important to understand that we have to look further than just the applications it produces. Technologies are always developed in a social context, and can have indirect effects which ripple out across the globe. The growth of use of mobile phones across the developing world is one instance, with some research suggesting that there is , for example, a small but significanctlink between the greater availability of communications technology and economic growth. The multitude of environmental, medical and energy production and storage applications for nanoscience is widely expected to have an enormous effect on the global economy. But how the gains from investment in nanotech will be distributed is another question. The gap between standards of living within the developed and developing world remains deep and rooted in structural factors. It is often pointed out that around two thirds of the human race live on less than US$2 per day; or that the healthy life expectancy of adults in countries like Zimbabwe or Zambia is less than half that in European countries or in Japan. Should we ensure that development of new technologies like nanotech is geared to achieve the most benefits for the poorest in the world? This kind of argument has to do with the ethical principles of justice, or of the common good. These state that one should always act so as to maximise the justice or fairness of the outcomes of what you do (in this context, avoid reinforcing existing economic inequalities or creating new ones). Or, act so as to promote a certain positive idea of the good life, in which essential human needs and all aspects of human life that are most conducive to well-being are enhanced. Health, shelter, a non-polluted and biodiverse environment, access to education, political freedom, creativity – all these might be elements of such a vision.

It’s evident that, without explicit efforts to reflect on the ethical significance of our technological priorities and to do something with the results of our reflections, development will continue to – so to speak- “follow the money”. The Woodrow Wilson Institute in the US maintains an online directory of consumer products which are based on (or are claimed to be based on) nanotechnology. The majority of these fall into the category of luxury goods, aimed at consumers in well-off countries, with sports goods, cosmetics and consumer electronics being particularly well represented. Similarly, when it comes to health issues and medical applications, a lot of resources are being poured into developing new treatments for cancer which rely on advances in nanoscience, including new forms of targeted drug delivery. But cancers tend to afflict well-off populations more than poor ones. The money is in fulfilling consumer preferences and needs which are located in the developed world, and among elites in the developing world. The potential of nanotech as a means of for example, developing new forms of solar power generation or cheap means of filtering drinking water to prevent the water-borne diseases which kill so many people in developing countries may ultimately be developed much more slowly. This may change over time – countries like India and China are investing heavily in nanotech research.

Human enhancement refers to the use of technologies to change, adapt or improve the basic capacities of human beings. The applications of biotechnology and nanotechnology have often been seen as the means of overcoming what some see as the “limitations” of human minds and bodies – from the limits on speed and accuracy of human cognition, to ageing and dying. Like grey goo, much speculation about the human enhancement possibilities of nanotech stems from a particular vision of what nanotech could be in the future (rather than facts about what it is in the present). Advanced manufacturing capabilities at the atomic and molecular level may (it is postulated) lead to the construction of (for example) artificially intelligent microscopic robots which are capable of repairing cell and tissue damage, thus extending the human lifespan. Nano-enabled electronics may make possible implants which could be introduced to the brain to improve memory, reasoning capability and access to information. Nano-enhanced Bionics may improve physical performance to superhero levels. And so on. – collectively, often referred to as transhumanism – see H+ magazine online for commentary. We could argue about whether any of this is or might be possible – which - if we remember the distinction between ethical and factual concerns - takes us out of the ethical realm proper and back to arguments about empirical facts. But if it were possible, would it be right? Some argue that it would be wrong to use technology to make fundamental alterations to human beings because there is something inherently worthwhile about being human, with all its limitations, and that humans make their lives meaningful by striving to overcome or deal with these limitations through their own efforts. Using technology to simply remove these limitations is therefore cheating – it lessens the significance of human efforts, and treats humans as one more technical device whose worth has to be measured in terms of how far it achieves optimal performance. This view therefore rests on the principle that humans should not be treated as mere means to an end, but rather as an end in themselves. This specialness of human beings is typically referred to notions of human dignity. But one problem which defenders of this view have to deal with is that it is difficult to specify what dignity means independently of some concept of what normality is. For example, we might say that normal humans are not very good at digging holes with their natural endowments – unlike your average mole, for example. So is a spade a form of human enhancement? It is possible to see all forms of technology as human enhancements? Further, what about forms of technology which have a therapeutic function? Someone who develops cancer has, in a sense, lost their “normality”. But we would not say that, if a technology existed which cured their cancer, that they should not receive it out of respect for their dignity? What if someone was born blind, and a technology could restore something like 20:20 vision? We can see where this is going: if one wants to defend the “human dignity” view, one has to defend a distinction between therapy and enhancement – but to do this, one has to define what means by normality, or normal performance, which given that technology (from spades to computers) is already ubiquitous in human societies, is not easy to do.

Perhaps the key ethical concept to focus on in thinking about all these issues might be “duty”, or “responsibility”. The way science is done in industrialized societies has changed. It used to be thought that scientists worked on basic research, and somewhere down the line, technological applications were found which exploited some of the insights they came up with, and these were developed perhaps with the assistance of government or within industry. However, since the Second World War, it has increasingly become the case that science – whether done in industry, in government labs or in academic institutions – is surrounded by external priorities which shape what research gets done. Public funding and private capital come together in consortia of universities and private companies, with the aim of developing technologies that are assessed by private and public bodies (like the Department of Business, Industry and Skills in the UK and associated bodies like the Technology Strategy Board) as having importance in the future for tackling major social priorities and problems. In other words, the contract between society and science has shifted: rather than simply letting scientists do basic research and then seeing what comes of the results, society now supports scientific research financially with certain priorities in mind. Even basic research is shaped by these expectations in ways that were not common even fifty years ago. Expectations about how far science should be accountable to society, and in what ways, differ considerably now from in the past. As a result, we need to be careful how we approach debates concerning issues like those we have covered thus far. The extent of speculation over what nanotechnology might be able to accomplish in the future often appears irrational, based on fundamental misunderstandings of the science behind the technology and of the risks which may be implicated in its use. But as the debates over Genetically Modified Food in the 1990s showed, when the public have negative feelings about a technology, it is often because they are not convinced that its benefits either for them or for society in general will be great enough to offset any uncertainties or risks which surround it. One of the main reasons for this is that people tend to distrust the capacity of scientific research and the public institutions which make promises on its behalf to deliver on assurances about the future of technologies and to safeguard against risks. This is reflected in the positions of key NGOs like Greenpeace on nanotech. They are not against nanotech as such, but they demand that its use be guided more by public discussion of social priorities, rather than what applications may generate the most profit. The problem of global justice and how nanotech could support the good life, which we discussed earlier, is a prime example of an issue where the question of responsibility and accountability comes to the fore.

Ethics and Nanotechnology Dr Chris Groves ESRC Centre for Business Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability and Society (BRASS)

What is ethics? How do we do the “right thing”? “Right” here has a very specific sense: Nothing to do with getting the job done Nothing to do with emotion A standard which is true in and of itself

What is ethical disagreement? Many seemingly ethical disagreements are really factual disagreements Ethical disagreement has a specific focus: The relative priority of different values and/or principles

Some key ethical principles

Ethics and technology

Nanotechand ethical issues: two classes New Issues (?) Ecophagy – grey goo, “green goo”, out-of-control nano scenario Irreversible, chronic nano-pollution Effect of nanotech on existing ethical issues Tracking and surveillance: effect on personal liberty Military uses: new forms of destructive capability Global justice and development (the “nanodivide”) Human enhancement

Global ecophagy Prince sparks row over nanotechnology The Guardian, Monday April 28, 2003 “The Prince of Wales, who is to meet leading scientists to discuss concerns about nanotechnology, was warned today against giving credence to "scare stories". The new technology has already created tiny machines such as transistors the size of a single molecule. But there is a growing debate on how it will be used, with optimists pointing to the prospect of pollution-free energy production and pessimists worried about nano-terrorism. The Prince, who also played a high profile role in raising fears over genetically modified foods, has warned of the potentially "enormous environmental and social risks" from nanotechnologies. The so-called "grey goo" catastrophe feared by some scientists involves millions of tiny molecular nano-robots replicating themselves and rapidly annihilating life on earth.”

Grey goo and slippery slopes Grey goo = typical slippery slope argument (Relatively innocuous) activity A will inevitably lead to B and thence to C…and so on to Z which is very bad But this is not an ethical argument

Risk and precaution Is there a real ethical problem contained in the grey goo scenario? The problem of risk If doing A risks leading to Z (and Z is sufficiently bad) then do not do A The precautionary principle Lack of proof of risk  proof that there is no risk The burden of proof falls on those who want to use technology

Nano-pollution and precaution Nano-pollution is a concern here and now Might some nanomaterials have serious negative effects on human health or the environment? E.g. nanotubes and pulmonary disease Nanosilver and aquatic life Such effects may be latent for a long time Difficult to test for them – increases uncertainty So: is it morally wrong to risk causing them?

Nanotechand ethical issues: two classes New Issues (?) Ecophagy – grey goo, “green goo”, out-of-control nano scenario Irreversible, chronic nano-pollution Effect of nanotech on existing ethical issues Tracking and surveillance: effect on personal liberty Military uses: new forms of destructive capability Global justice and development (the “nanodivide”) Human enhancement

Nanotechnology and privacy Takes further current concerns about the “surveillance society” Questions of rights: consent, access and control over information Not just surveillance – medical diagnostics also important Better screening for genetic diseases and monitoring chronic conditions But who will have access to data?

Military nanotech New battlefield electronic devices, improved body armour etc. being developed But may have other applications in the future, such as bioweaponry. This raises serious issues: Risk of release “Just war” theory: the differences between combatants and non-combatants Future Warrior, a design incorporating communications/ information, chem/bio protection, power, climate control, strength augmentation, and physiological monitoring. (Source: MIT's Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies)

Global justice and development Due to their social context, technologies have indirect “ripple effects” Example of mobile phones Who will gain from nanotechnology? Will there be a “nanodivide”? Should we ensure that the priorities of the developed world are met before others? Relevant ethical principles: Justice or fairness; The common good or the good life

A question of priorities Will technological innovation “follow the money”? Emphasis on sports good, cosmetics, consumer electronics… Medical applications currently focused on cancer

Human enhancement Adapting, changing, or improving human beings’ basic capacities Nanotech as a means of overcoming the “limitations” of being human Nanorobotics and life-extension Cognitive enhancement Bionics, etc. etc. Transhumanism (http://www.hplusmagazine.com/) Some or none of this might be possible one day – but would it be right?

Technology and accountability In reflecting on all these issues, concepts of responsibility are important In industrialised societies, the “contract” between science and society has changed For example, when science is supported by public money, people believe scientists should be more accountable to wider society Conflicts over technologies often arise because people don’t believe benefits are great enough to offset potential risks NGOs like Greenpeace ask what priorities should drive research in nanotech?

Summing up Ethics: how do we do the right thing? Technological ethics: what is responsible innovation? Does nanotechnology bring new ethical problems, or simply re-awaken old ones? When these problems are discussed in public forums, the question of how science should be accountable to society often underlies debate.