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Abstract
The contention and politicization of knowledge is nothing new but an inherent part of the scientific endeavour. What is new today is that this practice has been institutionalized and transformed into generally accepted practices for monitoring or regulating the production and/or dissemination of novel knowledge. These practices, which include Bioethics Councils or Committees, citizen dialogues or juries, ethical checklists, ex ante risk assessments or ELSA-type accompanying research, have grown exponentially over the last years and have slowly replaced traditional bottom-up forms of mobilization, even within social movements or civil society organizations. Converging technologies presents both old and new challenges for knowledge politics – in view of its uncertain development and inherent risks but also in view of its philosophical agenda and ethical implications. The article reflects on the future effect of discourse and knowledge politics on convergence technologies by considering developments in Austria
Notes
1. These are the terms used by the American National Science Foundation (Citation2002) and the European Commission (2004) respectively regarding NBIC. See also the following discussion.
2. ELSA stands for research on ethical, legal and social aspects and is often used as an acronym to refer to social science research in traditional scientific fields.
3. This is a project on knowledge politics and converging technologies. The project involved mapping the CT discourse in various countries through document analysis and expert interviews with relevant stakeholders, i.e. policy administrators and politicians involved in research programming, scientists active in CT-relevant research (in physics, chemistry, nanotechnology, IT, biotech or cognitive science), ethicists, risk analysts and social scientists studying the politicization processes in science and technology. The interview guide used for the interviews included questions on the meaning and prospects of convergence, the implications for research trajectories and scientific education, the role of scientific citizenship and citizen deliberation as well as the outlook and need for new regulatory frameworks for converging technologies.
4. That same year, Raoul Kneucker of the Ministry of Science and Research, representing Austria at the High Level Group, organized a workshop on converging technologies entitled “Communicating Science: NBIC, A European Debate on Converging Technologies” with the participation of Mihali Roco, Eric Drexler and Harry Kroto.
5. ITA (2006), Zum europäischen Stand der Nanotechnologie-Begleitforschung, im Auftrag vom BMVIT; NanoNet Styria (2006), NanoGesund – Gesundheitsrisiken der Nanotechnologies, im Auftrag vom BMVIT.
6. The full title of the directive is “Directive on the deliberate release into the environment of genetically modified organisms”. This was first proposed in 1990, but a moratorium on its application was effected in 1993, following widespread civil society opposition spilling over from one European country into another.
7. Opinions expressed by R5 (physicist) and R12 (biologist).
8. Interviews with R1 (policy-maker and lawyer), R2 (policy-maker) and R11 (chemist and medical research).
9. Respondents R1 (policy-maker and lawyer), R7 (physicist and research manager).
10. Respondents R1 and R2 (policy-makers), R5, R6 and R7 (physicists) and R8 (cognitive scientist).
11. Respondent R2 (policy-maker).
12. Respondents R1 (policy-maker), R5 and R6 (physicists).
13. The “language” metaphor was used by R2 (policy-maker) and R9 (cognitive scientist), albeit with different value judgements. The former thought it a positive development, the latter a negative trend.
14. The exception was R4, a physicist with research management experience in basic research. All other policy-makers were actively involved in the promotion of applied research involving industrial collaboration.
15. This was also a recurrent complaint voiced by the scientific community at the first European Forum on Nanosciences, organized by COST and the European Science Foundation in October 2006. Partly in response to these complaints, but also as a result of the realization on the part of public research administration at the European level that major projects only rarely produce high-quality output, not least due to administrative overload, the European Commission has reduced the number of calls for big, so-called “Integrated Projects” or “Networks of Excellence” in the 7th Framework Programme launched in 2007.
16. Respondents R4, R5 and R6.
17. The first of these comments was raised by various respondents, the latter only by R4 (physicist and research program director).
18. Only three of the eight scientists interviewed expressed positive views on dissemination and all three were in their mid-forties (respondents R9, R10 and R11).
19. These points were also repeatedly underlined by all STS and ethics specialists interviewed in the project, more specifically respondents R13 (medicine, STS, politics), R14 (STS), R15 (biology, STS), R16 (ethics), R17 (STS) and R18 (ethics).
20. Pistorius eventually did not participate in the Beijing Olympics, having failed to qualify for the South African team by a narrow margin.
21. This case of non-use is considered in a different way by those strongly in favor of the enhancement agenda of converging technologies. Bostrom and Ord (Citation2006), for instance, argue against prudence in (bio)ethics by proposing the application of the so-called “reversal test”. In the case of a technology that would contribute to the enhancement of our intelligence, the reversal test would be to ask not whether one is in favor of such an enhancement or not, but rather whether one would be in favor of an intervention that would lower our intelligence. This approach is based on psychological tests that have shown that individuals, often irrespective of their education, can be manipulated into answering questions on morality in a specific way, depending on whether the questions are positively or negatively phrased. One is significantly more likely to be in favor of a policy to fight a disease, for instance, if one knows that this will lead to saving 400 lives (out of 600) than if one is told the policy will lead to the death of 200 persons (out of 600). According to Bostrom and Ord, such reversal tests can be used to reveal and, eventually, remove status-quo bias in applied ethics.
22. I am grateful to respondent R18 for this example.
23. See www.transhumanism.org. The World Transhumanist Association advocates the ethical use of technology to extend human capabilities, defined as “better minds, better bodies and better lives”.
24. As a cognitive scientist, Pinker draws attention to the way our understanding of human dignity is intrinsically bound to our perception senses. The latter will tend to rely on either physical traits or symbolic representations. These are, however, as contested and relative as the original problem of ethics, which human dignity attempts to resolve. This does not mean that the concept of dignity is useless as such, but it does mean that, in any discussion on bioethics or ethics of science and technology more generally, it, too, runs the risk of being used as an excuse to impose a specific view of morality on society through regulation. Ulrich CitationKörtner, a member of the Austrian Bioethics Commission, argues along similar lines from a theological perspective: “Linguistically, the words ‘good’ and ‘evil’ do not describe any objective facts but, rather, a subjective value judgement … Morality is not conducive to making these boundaries [between good and evil] clearer. At best it only indicates where we can expect to observe uncertain consequences. In any case, morality is a means of communication about human dignity. Where dignity comes into play, there is bound to be conflict … But even when ethics assumes a critical position vis-à-vis morality, it remains normative, hence also morally determined. That is why we must be cautious about calls for more ethics in either science, economy or politics – or even in education. This is two-edged. The ethics of science is the result of the scienticization of ethics just as moral politics is the result of the politicization of morals” (Die Presse – Spectrum, 22 August 2008).
25. This was the perspective adopted without exception by all ethics experts interviewed for this study in Austria (respondents R14, R16 and R18). It should be added that, despite repeated attempts, it was not possible directly to interview representatives of religious communities, who either referred us to their published opinions on specific issues or indicated that their views were religious and, as such, applicable to members of their religious communities.
26. Respondent R19.
27. See www.srtp.org.uk as well as Donald Bruce's contribution to the second edition of the magazine Nano Now for the ethics of nanotechnologies.
28. The Department of Social Studies of Science of the University of Vienna plans to organize a citizen deliberation exercise on the future of nanotechnology within the framework of a research project funded by the Austrian Fund for Basic Research FWF. This is expected to commence in the autumn of 2008. The results of a recently completed deliberation exercise on genome research will be published in Science and Public Policy, vol. 35 (forthcoming).
29. Nanodialogues was organized jointly by the University of Lancaster and the think-tank DEMOS and involved various UK agencies and industry. It was designed as an experiment in “upstream public engagement” comprising four citizen dialogues on NST. The four themes are: (a) nanoparticles, risk and regulation; (b) bio-nanotechnology and the implications of convergence; (c) globalization and nano diffusion; (d) public engagement in the corporate innovation cycle. See http://www.demos.co.uk//projects/thenanodialogues/overview and www.nanodialogues.org. Other ongoing deliberative exercises in the UK include Small Talk (see www.smalltalk.org.uk) and the Nanotechnology Engagement Group (see www.involve.org.uk/neg).
30. VivAgora is a French association seeking to promote active citizenship in the field of S&T. It arranges debates and public inquiries on contested issues relating to technology. In 2006, it organized two public forums on NS&T, in Grenoble and in Paris. See www.vivagora.org.
31. The Consumer Conference on Nanotechnology, modeled on the pattern of the Danish consensus conference, was piloted by the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) in November 2006 and produced recommendations on the labelling of nano products. See www.bfr.bund.de/cmw5w/sixcms/detail.php/8601.
32. Meeting of Minds – European Citizens’ Deliberation on Brain Sciences was organized by the King Baudoin Foundation in 2005–2006; this consultation brought together citizens from nine European countries to debate on the social, ethical and legal implications of advances in brain sciences. See www.meetingmindseurope.org.
33. Respondents R14, R15 and R17.
34. This was an opinion shared by all respondents dealing with ethics (R14, R16 and R18) and those with an STS background (see fn33). Ethics education was not a key issue among discourses between scientists.