Nanoethics: Giving orientation to societal reflection

We are now looking back at over 20 years of social reflection on nanotechnology. Gaining legitimate trust is vital for the nanotechnology community. That is why nanotechnologists engage in public discussions, social engagement, and interdisciplinary nanoethical research. Ensuring safety is an important element in ensuring trust. The transformative potential of nanotechnology, however, becomes apparent in its convergence with other emerging technologies. The notion of converging technologies helps to explore this potential. It opens a new perspective for nanoethics and helps to identify societal challenges that need to be on the agenda of societies. The ethical issues raised by nanobiology, nanomedicine, and nanoelectronics illustrate these challenges: from nanobiology to the discussion on synthetic biology, from nanomedicine to the discussion on human enhancement, and from nanoelectronics to the discussion on artificial intelligence (AI). In all three fields, we will show a similar structure: (1) development in these fields is impossible without nanotechnology, (2) these fields raise fundamental and relevant normative issues, and (3) a nanoethics cannot confine itself to the direct and strict impact of nanotechnology itself, but needs to open up to the broader questions raised by the interaction between nanotechnology and other emerging technological fields. This shows us the challenge for nanoethics: it needs to orient societal reflection on the impact of nanotechnology, and in doing so it cannot confine itself to the direct consequences of specific nanotechnologies. Nanoethics needs to orient the societal reflections and discussions on where to go (direction), what to protect, and whom to empower in order to protect themselves (protection), and on practical ways to govern these developments (organization).