Steve Fuller
Knowledge politics and new converging technologies: a social epistemological perspective
Abstract
The “new converging technologies” refers to the prospect of advancing the human condition by the integrated study and application of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and the cognitive sciences - or “NBIC”. In recent years, it has loomed large, albeit with somewhat different emphases, in national science policy agendas throughout the world. This article considers the political and intellectual sources - both historical and contemporary - of the converging technologies agenda. Underlying it is a fluid conception of humanity that is captured by the ethically challenging notion of “enhancing evolution”.
Adam Briggle
The US President's Council on Bioethics: modeling a thicker knowledge politics
Abstract
This article argues that the “thicker” moral inquiry modeled by the US President's Council on Bioethics is a significant and valuable innovation in knowledge politics. It first distinguishes two kinds of knowledge politics - active deciding vs. thinking and talking. The focus here is on the latter. The article then introduces some relevant historical background. Next, it indicates how prior bioethics committees in the US practised a “thin” version of knowledge politics that both reflected and consolidated typical ways of thinking and talking about biomedical technology. The article then argues that, because of the non-neutrality of technology, a thin knowledge politics is neither sufficient nor necessary for liberal democratic governments concerned to understand and manage emerging technologies. The last section uses a Council report to illustrate the benefits of a thicker knowledge politics.
Franc Mali
Bringing converging technologies closer to civil society: the role of the precautionary principle
Abstract
Advances in converging technologies (CTs) will certainly bring many economic and social benefits. Nevertheless, the uncontrolled development of CTs could also produce many types of risks. Even though all of the threats arising from the uncontrolled development of CTs for society may not yet be apparent today, we are already at the point where we must design suitable policy approaches in order to avoid possible risks. In this article it is argued that the precautionary principle is becoming an increasingly important forum for the inclusion of the lay public in R&D policy decision-making processes. A more active role of citizens in risk assessment and risk governance of CTs is also important due to the many ethical and social dilemmas arising from the new emerging technologies. In this article special attention is paid to the increasing processes of the commodification and commercialization of CTs. Disputes over intellectual property rights, perhaps more than any other CT-connected topic, have recently been touching on basic ethical dilemmas.
Karen Kastenhofer
Debating the risks and ethics of emerging technosciences
Abstract
Controversies on emerging technosciences, such as agri-biotechnology and medical biotechnology, have been a formative aspect of the public response to technoscientific innovations for the last decades. Within these controversies, the problematization of technoscience has not always been framed in the same way. Debates on agri-biotechnological applications focus mostly on issues of risk and safety and on questions about evidence and uncertainty. In contrast, debates on medical biotechnologies center primarily on differences of opinion about the ascribed ontological status of the related objects and the ethical acceptability of the technoscientific interventions. The first controversy can be described as mainly risk-focused, the second controversy as mainly ethically framed. These two different modes of framing agri-biotechnology and medical biotechnology are compared and discussed, addressing public and regulatory discourse, the related polity systems and modes of governance. Empirical examples stem from Germany and Great Britain.
Piotr Stankiewicz
The role of risks and uncertainties in technological conflicts: three strategies of constructing ignorance
Abstract
How are the conflicts over the use of certain technologies - such as biotechnology, nuclear energy or nanotechnologies - being solved? What are the methods used by conflicting parties to assert their definitions of reality? What role do uncertainties and risks play in these conflicts? How are they treated? What strategies are used by proponents and opponents of a controversial technology to persuade the public and decision-makers? This article aims at finding answers to these questions by looking at technological conflicts from the perspective of the reduction of risks and uncertainty. The lesson drawn from the study of ongoing and past conflicts over controversies in technological development should help to better understand the dynamics of conflicts focused on converging technologies. The reduction of uncertainty is analyzed from the perspective of the sociology of non-knowledge and ignorance. It is argued that new areas of non-knowledge are being created by reducing uncertainty and risks in technological conflicts
Johan Evers and Joel D'Silva
Knowledge transfer from citizens’ panels to regulatory bodies in the domain of nano-enabled medical applications
Abstract
Science and technology policy is increasingly becoming subject to public scrutiny and to the mechanisms of public participation and debate. New and emerging techniques in the domain of nano-enabled technologies for medical applications are no exception to this trend. Public commitment initiatives are valuable in terms of advancing communication, yet democratic deliberation and reflection exercises are challenging also from an ethical and a regulatory perspective, as it is not immediately clear how actors in these fields may proceed from them. The outcomes of a citizens' panel, held in the Flemish participatory technology assessment project “Nanotechnologies for Tomorrow's Society”, illustrate that citizens' reflections express enthusiasm, scepticism and anxiety - and thus ambivalence - towards nano-enabled developments in future health care. The authors first demonstrate these ambivalent responses by means of a contextual ethical analysis based on a limited set of principles and on typologies of differing value perspectives. They then analyze the attempts by regulatory agents and law-makers to limit the possibilities of inconsistent interpretations and to create a climate of “certainty” in which technological innovation can thrive. The article concludes by exploring potential venues of more effective and inspirational knowledge transfer from public participation exercises to regulatory bodies and law-makers. Knowledge transfer, the authors argue, should build on interdisciplinary rather than on multidisciplinary knowledge production and participation.
