Development Ethical and Societal Issues Satyen Baindur PhD

Stewardship in Nanotechnology Development:
Ethical and Societal Issues
SATYEN BAINDUR, PHD
Ottawa Policy Research Associates, Inc.
OPRA Report 2006-4-1 Issued April 2006
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The enhancement to human capacities that may result from nanotechnology will
probably not happen all at once; a steady progress in that direction appears more likely.
However, even incremental technological progress can lead to dramatic social and ethical
issues coming to the fore. Ethical issues such as how equitable access to these kinds of
interventions will be ensured will then become especially salient. Though similar issues
about access are present in different health care settings today, they largely revolve
around access to therapies. It is likely that when enhancements do become available, they
might initially look a lot like therapeutic advances, introducing another complication. The
other major ethical issue that will arise in the context of enhancements is the definition of
what it means to be human, and a significant impediment in resolving this would be
conceptually distinguishing: 1) enhancements that arise from evolutionary forces and 2)
enhancements that arise through technology. Since technology is itself a product of the
human mind, some will argue that the two kinds of enhancements lie on a continuum,
while others will see a disjuncture.
As an example, reversal of blindness from age-related macular degeneration (if
successful) may be seen as therapeutic, but a reversal of congenital blindness, although it
may be perceived as ethically correct - could be seen as an enhancement, especially if
carried out in later life. Extending the example, it is conceivable that developments in
nanotechnology would someday allow vision to be extended to the infrared spectrum,
enabling natural night vision. However, since deterioration of night vision is also agerelated,
the initial beneficiaries might be older people, who will likely see it as a
therapeutic advance. A virtually identical product, or even the same product, might,
however, provide an enhancement to younger people with ‘normal’ human night vision.
Such developments will introduce complex new regulatory and ethical issues. Some of
these types of issues have begun to come up already in the context of gene therapy,
where the boundary between therapeutic advances and enhancement is no longer clearcut.
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