Nanoethics : the ethical and social implications of nanotechnology /

This collection of 26 essays, many written specifically for this volume, provides a sound foundation for understanding the many ethical concerns that have arisen surrounding the development and use of nanotechnologies. The editors' useful organization of the essays by topic, although properly centered in ethics, includes religious, sociopolitical, pragmatic, and even metaphysical concerns. Beginning with overviews of aspects of nanotechnology and its applications that have raised cautions or alarms (including Bill Joy's consequential "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us"), the essays consider how society can predict, control, or adapt to consequences that can only be poorly predicted; whether life-extending applications threaten our humanity; how nanotechnologies might transform economics or education or the environment; and others. The editors have included authors with divergent viewpoints who nevertheless maintain, for the most part, a reasoned exposition and avoid the extremes of casting nanotechnology as the end of the world or as a panacea. This volume should be supplemented by readings covering debates of self-assembly advanced by Eric Drexler (author of Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation, CH, May'93, 30-5017; Unbounding the Future: The Nanotechnology Revolution, CH, Mar'92, 29-3855) and by expositions of current and near-term applications of nanotechnology in manufacturing new materials. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers; upper-division undergraduates through professionals. D. Bantz University of Alaska