Some Pitfalls in the Philosophical Foundations of Nanoethics

Abstract

If such a thing as nanoethics is possible, it can only develop by confronting the great questions of moral philosophy, thus avoiding the pitfalls so common to regional ethics. We identify and analyze some of these pitfalls: the restriction of ethics to prudence understood as rational risk management; the reduction of ethics to cost/benefit analysis; the confusion of technique with technology and of human nature with the human condition. Once these points have been clarified, it is possible to take up some weighty philosophical and metaphysical questions which are not new, but which need to be raised anew with respect to nanotechnologies: the artificialization of nature; the question of limits; the role of religion; the finiteness of the human condition as something with a beginning and an end; the relationship between knowledge and know-how; the foundations of ethics.

Keywords:

• artificial nature
• human condition
• knowledge and know-how
• moral philosophy
• nanoethics

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My warm thanks go to an anonymous referee whose extremely judicious critical observations enabled me to significantly improve upon the initial version; and to Mark Anspach, whose linguistic as well as anthropological expertise is responsible for whatever vigor, clarity and fluidity this text may possess.

Notes

1. See, for instance, the NSF Report Converging Technologies for Human Performance: “While American science and technology benefit the entire world, it is vital to recognize that technological superiority is the fundamental basis of the economic prosperity and national security of the US…we must move forward if we are not to fall behind” (Roco & Bainbridge, 2002, p. 30).

2. The report adds, however: “Human identity and dignity must be preserved.”

3. “Man does metaphysics in the same way that he breathes, without intending it and most often without knowing it” (Meyerson, 1927, p. 20).

4. Cf: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Le_songe_de_la_raison.jpg.

5. Kurzweil & Grossman, 2004, dustjacket presentation. A serious study, the NSF report Converging Technologies, cites Kurzweil in a way that shows it takes him seriously.

6. A talk given on 14 September 1990 in Hanover, Germany, “Health as one's own responsibility? No, thank you!” Available on-line: http://www.pudel.unibremen.de/subjects/Expertenherrschaft/HEALTHPU.PDF

7. See the section “Concerns about ‘Playing God’” in the report Splicing Life (President's Commission, 1982, pp. 53 sq.).

8. Already today, in the case of biotechnologies, the distinction between discovery and invention, on which patent law rests, is proving increasingly tricky to maintain, as the debates about the patentability of life forms demonstrate.

9. The expression “thoughtless creatures” coupled with the notion of technologies turned “murderous” sends a chill down the spine. We know that three years later, Arendt would witness the trial of Eichmann in Jerusalem and could find but one personality trait able to help explain his responsibility for the horror: “thoughtlessness.”

10. Translated from the German: “Wir sehen uns mit den Augen des anderen. […] Als er aber erkannte, daß er blind war, da konnte er sehen!”

President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research (1982, November). Report on the Social and Ethical Issues of Genetic Engineering with Human Beings.