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Fritz Allhoff and Patrick Lin (eds): Nanotechnology and Society: Current and Emerging Ethical Issues

Springer, 2008. 300 pp, (ISBN: 1402062087), $119

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Notes

  1. If you include the introductory chapter, then there are 16 chapters total, 5 of which are complete reprints, and one of which (Paul Thompson’s essay, ch. 2) is largely reprinted.

  2. Berube’s essay is chapter 5 in the collection, but the ideas are central to a current, 4-year NSF project entitled, “NIRT: Intuitive Toxicology and Public Engagement,” which investigates how public perceptions of risks differ from that of experts, and what implications this might have for nanotoxicology regulation.

  3. Chapter 14 in this collection, but originally printed as [6].

  4. Indeed, even where an entire essay hasn’t been reprinted, there is one example of an essay from another sub-field being massaged into a new essay for this field. This is Paul Thompson’s contribution on ‘The Presumptive Case for Nanotechnology,’ large pieces of which were directly copied from an earlier book chapter of his on ‘The Presumptive Case for Food Biotechnology’ in [7]. Although Thompson’s essay was quite good, and still interesting in its application to nanoethics, the transfer from food bioethics didn’t always fit very well, and there was evidence of forcing old material into a new mold.

  5. This way of thinking seems to be in line with Allhoff’s ‘pragmatic justification’ of nanoethics in ch. 1.

References

  1. Allhoff F, Lin P, Moor J, Weckert J (2007) Nanoethics: The ethical and societal implications of nanotechnology. Wiley, NJ

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  2. Drexler E, Smalley R (2003) Nanotechnology: drexler and smalley make the case for and against ‘Molecular Assemblers’. Chemical and Engineering News 81(48):37–42 December

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  3. Joy B (2000) Why the future doesn’t need us. Wired Magazine April 4

  4. Kurzweil R (2003) Testimony of Ray Kurzweil on the societal implications of nanotechnology,” presented at the committee on science, US House of Representatives, April 9. Text at www.kurzweilAI.net

  5. Nordmann A (2007) If and then: a critique of speculative nanoethics, nanoethics: ethics for technologies that converge at the nanoscale, 1: 1. March 31–46

  6. Schummer J (2006) Cultural diversity in nanotechnology ethics. Interdiscip Sci Rev 31:217–230. doi:10.1179/030801806X113757

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  7. Thompson P (2007) Food biotechnology in ethical perspective. Springer

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Davis Baird, Kevin Elliott, Ann Johnson and Leah McClimans for helpful discussion during the writing of this review.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA

    Travis N. Rieder

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Rieder, T.N. Fritz Allhoff and Patrick Lin (eds): Nanotechnology and Society: Current and Emerging Ethical Issues. Nanoethics 2, 329–331 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-008-0051-x

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