TY - JOUR
T1 - Practitioners' Views on Responsibility
T2 - Applying Nanoethics
AU - Foley, Rider W.
AU - Bennett, Ira
AU - Wetmore, Jameson
N1 - Funding Information:
support through the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University (CNS-ASU), funded by the National Science Foundation (Award No. 0937591). The findings and observations are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. All human subjects research was performed in accordance with the Arizona State University – Institutional Review Board (ASU-IRB). The authors would like to thank Dr. Guston and Dr. Wiek for providing the space for this research and thank the two anonymous reviewers – both of whom provided poignant feedback.
Funding Information:
For illustrative purposes our next example is the responsibility stated as academic researchers are responsible for “proceeding with early technology development and becoming entrepreneurs” [1, 18, 27] as reported in table 1. This responsibility can be held by both individuals (as entrepreneurship is often an individual act) and by professional societies (with larger organizations supporting or constraining this claim). This rationale led the research team to categorize this responsibility as the individual/professional society level (assigned an i/s in Table 1). Moving to the characterization of this responsibility by the dimension we considered that actors with different interests agree and disagree with this statement. Evidence of this contestation is seen within official documents published by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The NSF explicitly states, in their charter, that they are the support mechanism for basic research in academic enterprises [29]. However, NSF uses entrepreneurship as a metric of success for grants issued to academic researchers [26]. This evidence supports the fact that currently the role of academic researchers is contested between the claim expressed, the funding mechanism embodied in the NSF, and the success metrics used. This type of negotiation reflects a discourse about a contested moral claim and closely aligns with Berne’s second dimension. By that rationale this responsibility was characterized as a second dimension moral claim that is negotiable (assigned a 2 in Table 1).
PY - 2012/12
Y1 - 2012/12
N2 - Significant efforts have been made to define ethical responsibilities for professionals engaged in nanotechnology innovation. Rosalyn Berne delineated three ethical dimensions of nanotechnological innovation: non-negotiable concerns, negotiable socio-cultural claims, and tacitly ingrained norms. Braden Allenby demarcated three levels of responsibility: the individual, professional societies (e. g. engineering codes), and the macro-ethical. This article will explore how these definitions of responsibility map onto practitioners' understanding of their responsibilities and the responsibilities of others using the nanotechnology innovation community of the greater Phoenix area, which includes academic researchers, investors, entrepreneurs, manufacturers, insurers, attorneys, buyers, and media. To do this we develop a three-by-three matrix that combines Berne's three dimensions and Allenby's three levels. We then categorize the ethical responsibilities expressed by forty-five practitioners in semi-structured interviews using these published dimensions and levels. Two questions guide the research: (i) what responsibilities do actors express as theirs and/or assign to other actors and; (ii) can those responsibilities be mapped to the presented ethical frameworks? We found that most of the responsibilities outlined by our respondents concentrate at the professional society + non-negotiable and professional + negotiable intersections. The study moves from a philosophical exploration of ethics to an empirical analysis, exploring strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in the existing nanotechnology innovation network. This opens the door for new practitioners to be introduced in an effort to address responsibilities that are not currently recognized.
AB - Significant efforts have been made to define ethical responsibilities for professionals engaged in nanotechnology innovation. Rosalyn Berne delineated three ethical dimensions of nanotechnological innovation: non-negotiable concerns, negotiable socio-cultural claims, and tacitly ingrained norms. Braden Allenby demarcated three levels of responsibility: the individual, professional societies (e. g. engineering codes), and the macro-ethical. This article will explore how these definitions of responsibility map onto practitioners' understanding of their responsibilities and the responsibilities of others using the nanotechnology innovation community of the greater Phoenix area, which includes academic researchers, investors, entrepreneurs, manufacturers, insurers, attorneys, buyers, and media. To do this we develop a three-by-three matrix that combines Berne's three dimensions and Allenby's three levels. We then categorize the ethical responsibilities expressed by forty-five practitioners in semi-structured interviews using these published dimensions and levels. Two questions guide the research: (i) what responsibilities do actors express as theirs and/or assign to other actors and; (ii) can those responsibilities be mapped to the presented ethical frameworks? We found that most of the responsibilities outlined by our respondents concentrate at the professional society + non-negotiable and professional + negotiable intersections. The study moves from a philosophical exploration of ethics to an empirical analysis, exploring strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in the existing nanotechnology innovation network. This opens the door for new practitioners to be introduced in an effort to address responsibilities that are not currently recognized.
KW - Applied ethics
KW - Nanotechnology
KW - Practitioner
KW - Responsibility
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84870456097&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84870456097&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s11569-012-0154-2
DO - 10.1007/s11569-012-0154-2
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84870456097
SN - 1871-4757
VL - 6
SP - 231
EP - 241
JO - NanoEthics
JF - NanoEthics
IS - 3
ER -