Scientists’ Ethical Obligations and Social Responsibility for Nanotechnology Research

Corley, Elizabeth A.; Kim, Young-Jae; Scheufele, Dietram A.

doi:10.1007/s11948-015-9637-1

Cited by 20 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 59 publications

(61 reference statements)

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“…Yet we face fundamental problems in governing such emerging technologies. Green nanotechnology is now being developed as a way to make nanomaterials safer through rational design, but nanotechnologists do not uniformly recognize any obligation to attend to societal concerns and only limited obligations to address environmental health and safety issues (Corley, Kim, and Scheufele, 2015;Johansson and Boholm, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Materials sovereignty: Pathways for shaping nanotechnology design

Kokai

Iles

2020

Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene

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People in contemporary industrial societies encounter countless novel materials that did not exist previously, many of which present risks to health and environment. In this article, we build on the concept of “materials sovereignty” as the right of people to use and be surrounded by environmentally benign, non-toxic, and renewing materials in their everyday lives. As a rights-based approach, materials sovereignty may help change the politics of governing materials. We suggest that social movements that explicitly base interventions into design on materials sovereignty may be better able to gain traction in changing industrial production. We consider the case of nanotechnology as a particularly challenging field for social movement intervention. We review several pathways that have been used by social movement organizations in attempts to influence the development of nanomaterials, but which have met with limited success. We more closely examine three participatory pathways through which social movements could intervene more directly into material design: participatory technology assessment, collaboration with industry, and co-design. We identify three key elements of materials sovereignty: participatory knowledge systems, which create multi-directional flows of knowledge and agency; the embedding of citizen voices into design processes; and building accountability systems. Of the pathways we examine here, co-design appears to be the most promising from a theoretical and ethical perspective, but there remain significant institutional and organizational challenges for bringing it into practice.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Materials sovereignty: Pathways for shaping nanotechnology design

Kokai

Iles

2020

Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene

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“…The question relevant for this paper was “Do you see any risks with graphene or in the manufacturing process?” Other questions were also asked during interviews but are not considered here. All in all, 15 people were interviewed, 12 males and 3 females, which reflects the current male bias among researchers active in the field of nanoscience [ 36 – 39 , 44 ].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The concequences of these ideas for RRI are then discussed. A number of previous studies have investigated whether nanoscientists believe that nanomaterials require regulation, and if so, what type of regulation [ 36 – 39 ]. We here ask the more fundamental question of whether the actors consider graphene to be a risk, which is a similar research question to that of Bertoldo et al [ 40 ], Johansson and Boholm [ 41 ], and Powell [ 42 ] who, however, studied scientists’ views of the risks of nanomaterials more generally.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Just Carbon”: Ideas About Graphene Risks by Graphene Researchers and Innovation Advisors

et al. 2018

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Graphene is a nanomaterial with many promising and innovative applications, yet early studies indicate that graphene may pose risks to humans and the environment. According to ideas of responsible research and innovation, all relevant actors should strive to reduce risks related to technological innovations. Through semi-structured interviews, we investigated the idea of graphene as a risk (or not) held by two types of key actors: graphene researchers and innovation advisors at universities, where the latter are facilitating the movement of graphene from the laboratory to the marketplace. The most common idea found is that graphene is not a risk due to, e.g., low toxicity, low amounts produced/used, and its similarity to harmless materials (being “just carbon”). However, some researchers and advisors also say that graphene is a risk, e.g., under certain conditions or due to a lack of risk-related information. We explain the co-existence of these seemingly contradictory ideas through (1) the semantic ambiguity of the word risk and (2) a risk/no-risk rhetoric, where risks are mentioned rhetorically only to be disregarded as manageable or negligible. We suggest that some of the ideas held by the researchers and innovation advisors constitute a challenge to responsible research and innovation regarding graphene. At the same time, we acknowledge the dilemma that the discourse of responsible innovation creates for the actors: denying graphene risks makes them irresponsible due to a lack of risk awareness, while affirming graphene risks makes them irresponsible due to their everyday engagement in graphene development. We therefore recommend more research into what researchers and innovation advisors should do in practice in order to qualify as responsible.

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“…They had no drive to organize and they lacked expertise in political matters. However, over the past 50 years their journey has been focused, evolutionary, and revolutionary (Corley, Kim, & Scheufele, 2016;Kateb, 2017;Miller & Adams, 2015;Mulkay, 1976;Zucker & Darby, 1996). These "new intellectuals," through practical applications of science, technology, and the businesses they birthed, have become the revolutionary class, i.e., Bezos, Buterin, Gates, Jobs, Musk, Zuckerberg, etc.…”

Section: Social Platforms and Cyber Subversionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hannah Arendt’s Prognostication of Political Animus in America: Social Platforms, Asymmetric Conflict, and an Offset Strategy

Papadimos¹,

Stawicki²

2021

OJPP

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In her book, On Violence, Hannah Arendt addresses the events she was witness to in the 1960s. Arendt presents theories on violence through a historical context and explores the links between power, war, politics and violence. She informs the reader that power and violence are not the same; where one is absolute, the other cannot exist. Our research aim was to demonstrate how prescient her views were regarding the prognostication of the political animus that has occurred in America, especially through the evolution of technology. Our method in the the evaluation of this discourse was a line by line examination of the text of On Violence and assessing this evaluation against how the increasing attacks utilizing social platforms and cyber capabilities by U.S. competitors (foreign or domestic) are resulting in political vulnerability of the U.S. and the generally defined Western world. The public health security of American democracy is at risk through an inability, as individuals, to properly evaluate information, propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation from bad actors at home and abroad. Here we develop a perspective in which the political animus that started in the late 1960s becomes the foundation for our competitors' development of sophisticated methods of cyber subversion, and effective use of asymmetric conflict through manipulation of our own social media platforms in order to divide Americans and subvert effective government.

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Scientists’ Ethical Obligations and Social Responsibility for Nanotechnology Research

Cited by 20 publications

References 59 publications

Materials sovereignty: Pathways for shaping nanotechnology design

Materials sovereignty: Pathways for shaping nanotechnology design

“Just Carbon”: Ideas About Graphene Risks by Graphene Researchers and Innovation Advisors

Hannah Arendt’s Prognostication of Political Animus in America: Social Platforms, Asymmetric Conflict, and an Offset Strategy

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