Dilemmas Of Nanoethics And Their Possible Solution

With the rise of nanotechnology research and development in the world, the ethical issues of nanotechnology have led to the attention in the academic circles and have become a hot problem at home and abroad. Though "nanoethics" has been put forward for ten years, there are still many disputes about nanoethics, such as is nanoethics an independent branch of applied ethics, what’s the object of nanoethics, what’s the method of nanoethics, what is the relationship between the development of nanotechnology and nanoethical study, what kind of role nanoethics can play, what’s the inspiration for the ethics of high technology, etc.. The answers to these questions depend on the considerations for the present situations, problems and prospects of nanoethics.The paper mainly unfolds around methodological problems of nanoethics. Firstly, it gives out a historical review of the development of nanotechnology and nanoethics, and briefly analyzes the new features of nanotechnology and the new problems of nanoethics; Then, it examines several current approaches of nanoethical research, evaluates their reasonable parts and limitations from the view of the ethical methodology; In the end, it analyzes the crisis of modern ethics, and the problems of the traditional normative ethics, applied ethics, ethics of technology, STS theories etc. in the high technology era, namely the problems of uncertainty, including normative uncertainty, factual uncertainty, principle uncertainty and so on. On this basis, it analyzes the uncertainty in the course of nanotechnology development, the ethical dilemma confronted with nanoethics and the deficiency of the present theories in application, and then attempts to construct a feasible action framework from the substantial, dynamic and procedural perspectives.Finally, the paper proposes a feasible decision-making process based on acceptability, analyzes the feasibility and acceptability and their substantial and procedural significance for the analysis of ethical issues of nanotechnology, and then points out that nanoethics can play a significant role in the process of technology policy. Nanoethics can play a role of "enlightment" in the early stages of nanotechnology development and engages in the process of social shaping of nanotechnology, and contributes to the human welfare in the process of nanotechnology development.