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This art-science-interaction article focuses on moral implications of a recent science announcement. Against the background of literary and cultural theories, it compares a YouTube story with narratives employed in fictional stories.

This paper aims to review different discourses within the emerging field of ethical reflection on nanotechnology. I will start by analysing the early stages of this debate, showing how it has been focused on searching for legitimacy for this sphere of moral inquiry. I will then characterise an ethical approach, common to many authors, which frames ethical issues in terms of risks and benefits. This approach identifies normative issues where there are conflicts of interest or where challenges to the fundamental values of our society arise. In response to the limitations of this approach, other commentators have called for more profound analysis of the limits of our knowledge, and have appealed to values, such as sustainability or responsibility, which should, they suggest, inform nanotechnological development (I will define this approach as a “sophisticated form of prudence”). After showing the ways in which these frameworks are limited, I will examine more recent developments in debates on nanoethics which call for the contextualisation of ethical discourse in its ontological, epistemic and socio-economic and political reflections. Such contextualisation thus involves inquiry into the ‘metaphysical research program’ (MRP) of nanotechnology/ies and analysis of the socio-economic, political and historical reality of nano. These ideas offer genuinely new insights into the kind of approach required for nanoethical reflection: they recover a sense of the present alongside the need to engage with the past, while avoiding speculation on the future.

The purpose of the present paper is: (1) to outline a conceptual framework useful for the analysis of ethical issues raised by goal-directed activities, (2) to apply this framework to nanoscale research, (3) identify some of the main challenges in the evaluation of such research, and (4) exemplify what is needed for a positive answer to the question “How can nanoscale research improve the quality of life?” A basic idea of the paper is that nanoscale research can improve the conditions and quality of life of large groups in society, provided that: (a) this research is directed at certain generally accepted goals, (b) at least some of the opportunities are exploited for the good of mankind, (c) the key obstacles on the road are eliminated, reduced or circumvented, and (d) this is done in ethically acceptable ways.

The principles of responsible bioentrepreneurship are a call for multiple stakeholders to engage in a manifold discourse driving a solution-oriented innovation process.

This paper develops a philosophical account of moral disruption. According to Robert Baker, moral disruption is a process in which technological innovations undermine established moral norms without clearly leading to a new set of norms. Here I analyze this process in terms of moral uncertainty, formulating a philosophical account with two variants. On the harm account, such uncertainty is always harmful because it blocks our knowledge of our own and others’ moral obligations. On the qualified harm account, there is no harm in cases where moral uncertainty is related to innovation that is “for the best” in historical perspective or where uncertainty is the expression of a deliberative virtue. The two accounts are compared by applying them to Baker’s historical case of the introduction of mechanical ventilation and organ transplantation technologies, as well as the present-day case of mass data practices in the health domain.