Nanoethics -- The watchdog of a new technology?

The field of nanotechnology is broad and has the potential to be used in a wide range of industries and fields, but the question is whether it is a good investment. Will it solve fundamental social problems that assure a better future?

In an article just published in the debut issue of the journal NanoEthics entitled, “Ethics and Technology ‘in the Making’: An essay on the Challenge of Nanoethics,” an expert discusses how nanoethicists can be among the actors who shape the meaning and materiality of an emerging technology. The first issue of NanoEthics is available online free of charge at springerlink.com.

NanoEthics: Ethics for Technologies that Converge at the Nanoscale provides a multidisciplinary forum for exploration of ethical issues related to nanotechnology. It contains a philosophically and scientifically rigorous examination of both the ethical and societal considerations as well as the public and policy concerns inherent in nanotechnology research and development. The journal is of interest to researchers, scholars and students as well as scientific and technological policymakers and decision-makers in corporations involved in nanotechnology.

Editor-in-Chief John Weckert of the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, part of Charles Sturt University, ANU and the University of Melbourne, said, “Not only are the impacts or likely impacts of nanotechnologies the subject matter of this journal, but so are the uncertainties about nanoethics. Nanotechnologies encourage examination, or reexamination, of some basic issues in the ethics and philosophy of technology and science. This journal will help stimulate these discussions.”

Source: Springer