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Anticipatory Ethics and Governance (AEG): Towards a Future Care Orientation Around Nanotechnology

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Abstract

Nanotechnology (NT) presents significant challenges in terms of developing a regulatory framework. This is due to a lack of scientific knowledge about the behaviour of the technology in its interactions with biological and ecological processes, the environment and other technologies. Crucially, there is a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the potential environmental and human health and safety impacts of NT. Consequently, the development of NT is a potential test case for framing new models of ‘soft law’ voluntary governance as a substitute for traditional command and control type regulation. Driven by ‘new science governance,’ an approach based on a combination of ideas in anticipatory ethics, future-oriented responsibility, upstream public engagement and deliberation and theories of justice may offer a solution. The uniqueness of the approach can be found in the incorporation of anticipatory approaches via public participation and deliberation as the input into procedural justice approaches with distributional justice as the output. The overarching objective of this work is to contribute to the discussion in relation to the internalisation of responsibility and the building of intellectual and societal capacity to anticipate negative consequences before they arise in the hope that such an approach could be the antithesis of the retrospective imposition of responsibility and liability after the harm is done, which is the outcome of traditional regulatory and ethical approaches. Ultimately, the purpose is to contribute to the long-term sustainability of NT.

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Notes

  1. David Collingridge [14] articulated the fundamental dilemma of technological governance: when a technology is at a stage where its development can be directed, the SEI are not yet known or are opaque; by the time the issues become well defined, the technology has developed pathologies or path dependencies to the extent that the ability to steer its development is significantly reduced as it has embedded in society and results in technological lock-in, closure and entrenchment. Croy used a similar explanation [15]—either a technology is in a relatively early stage of development when it is unknown what changes should be made or a technology is in a relatively late stage of development when change is expensive, difficult and time consuming. If the former, then control is not possible. If the latter, then control is not feasible. Therefore, either controlling technology is not possible or controlling technology is not feasible.

  2. The challenge of designing legal, regulatory/governance and ethical mechanisms that can keep pace with the development of NT [2].

  3. Anticipatory ethics and governance refers to engagement with the ethical implications of a technology while the technology is still in a pre-revolutionary or introductory stage of development. It is an ongoing, evolutionary process, the ultimate goal of which is to institutionalise reflexivity in decision making. The objective is to identify as many of the real-world contextual ethical issues as possible at the introductory stage and then to guide the development of the technology towards desired societal outcomes

  4. ‘Engagement …. refers to encouraging the substantive exchange of ideas among lay publics and between them and those who traditionally frame and set the agenda for, as well as conduct, scientific research’ ([5] cited in [30]).

  5. Promulgation of new regulations is slowed down to such an extent that the result is ineffective and outdated regulation.

  6. Distributive justice is concerned with the division of shares in social benefits and burdens [66].

    Pure procedural justice concerns the fairness and the transparency of the processes by which decisions are made. The idea of the participation model is that a fair procedure is one that affords those who are affected by an opportunity or risk to participate in decision making.

  7. The PP was constituted following the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development 1992 at the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit. Precaution involves preventing serious or irreversible deteriorations of the environment by a modification of the production, sale or use of products, services or types of business. In the EU, it not only forms part of environmental protection policy but also aims to impose precautionary decision making in other situations—consumer policy, EU food legislation and legislation concerning human, animal and plant health. It applies in situations which have two principal features: scientific uncertainty and the possibility of serious and irreversible harm.

    (Article 191 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union 2008) The Lisbon Treaty.

    • A lack of full scientific knowledge shall not be used as a reason to postpone measures to prevent harm for legally protected interests if there are threats of serious or irreversible damage. Risks shall be prevented from materialising. Regulatory action, however, is permitted only if a comprehensive assessment of the risk based on the most reliable scientific data available has been conducted.

  8. NEST—New and Emerging Science and Technology

  9. For example, the consultation conducted by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council in ‘Grand Challenge: Nanotechnology for Health Care’ used qualitative research methods on public aspirations and concerns about NT healthcare innovation including web consultations, town meetings and public dialogue. A similar process was carried out on stem cell research.

  10. For our purposes, ‘the public’ should incorporate all stakeholders from lab researchers and scientists to employees and members of the lay public. For legitimacy, it should incorporate non-vested scientists, engineers and professional ethicists who play an objective knowledge transfer role.

  11. Deliberative democracy is based on the idea that deliberation is an inclusive and non-coercive process that takes place between free and equal participants. The participants commit to established rules of rational discourse including an agreement to provide reasons for one’s assertions [21].

    Deliberative democracy requires ‘governments’ or decision makers to provide public regarding reasons concerning the common good for their actions and prohibits them from furthering only the ‘naked preferences’ of private groups or individuals—to avoid regulatory capture.

    Deliberative democracy has four core commitments:

    1. 1.

      A belief in deliberation with decisions reflecting public regarding reasons

    2. 2.

      A true commitment to citizenship and wide spread participation by the public

    3. 3.

      A commitment to the idea of agreement as a tool for regulation/governance—that is, agreement among equal citizens through deliberation concerning public regarding reasons as opposed to conclusions which note the different perspectives of disagreeable people

    Political equality which prohibits disparities in influence by different social groups.

  12. The participation model of procedural justice holds that procedural fairness requires that those affected by a decision have the option to participate in the process by which the decision is made. There is a deep, constitutive connection between participatory process, correct outcomes and distributive justice.

  13. Prediction to say that an event or action will happen in the future, based on knowledge or experience. Scientific speculation develops early ideas that are not yet robust enough to be a testable, falsifiable or worthy of being a more formal “hypothesis” and generally go beyond what is defensible.

    Foresight refers to a set of methodologies and practices that are pluralist, plausible future oriented and aim to generate intellectual capacity about possible futures in a way that highlights both desirable and undesirable pathways. For example, scenario planning is used to evoke conversation and add contextual reality and awareness to problematic situations rather than predict the future [30, 65].

  14. Von Schomberg identified four types of irresponsibility – technology push, neglect of ethical principles, policy pull, lack of precaution and foresight.

  15. Chicago World Fair 1933 motto cited in [30]

  16. The ECITA approach to ethical analysis identified two stages to ethical analysis: (1) ethical issues are identified, and (2) identified ethical issues are evaluated (http://www.etica-project.eu/).

  17. See footnote 12.

  18. 1. The maximisation of liberty (here liberty refers to the right to participate in deliberation) subject only to such constraints as are essential for the protection of liberty itself

    2. Equality of the basic liberties of social life and the distribution of social goods, subject only to the exception that inequalities may be permitted if they if they produce the greatest possible benefit for those least well off in a given scheme of inequality—‘the difference principle’ (for our purposes equality places all stakeholders on an equal footing via their representative)

    3. Fair equality of opportunity and the elimination of all inequalities of opportunity based on birth or wealth

  19. To achieve overlapping consensus, Rawls posits a three-stage sequential approach whereby the two principles of justice—liberty and equality—are incorporated into the institutions and policies of a constitutional democracy which would translate into institutional democracy. The outcome is that despite conflicting ethical values and concerns, participants do not need to be in unanimous agreement and that decisions can be made as long as participants share a moral/ethical commitment to a fair, responsible and just society rather than what is in their own interest.

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Acknowledgments

The research leading to this article has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme FP7 under grant agreement no. 604305, SUN (www.sun-fp7.eu/)

Conflict of Interest

The authors do not have a financial relationship with the organisation that sponsored the research and accordingly declare that they do not have a conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Accounting and Finance, Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland

    Karena Hester, Martin Mullins & Finbarr Murphy

  2. Department of Physics and Energy, and Materials and Surface Science Institute (MSSI), University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland

    Syed A. M. Tofail

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  1. Karena Hester
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Correspondence to Karena Hester.

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Hester, K., Mullins, M., Murphy, F. et al. Anticipatory Ethics and Governance (AEG): Towards a Future Care Orientation Around Nanotechnology. Nanoethics 9, 123–136 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-015-0229-y

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