Fritz Allhoff and Patrick Lin (eds): Nanotechnology and Society: Current and Emerging Ethical Issues

Jaipreet Virdi* Nanotechnology & Society is the second anthology published by The Nanoethics Group (www.nanoethics.org) and is a welcome addition to the emerging field of nanoethics. Editors Fritz Allhoff (Western Michigan University) and Patrick Lin (California Polytechnic State) are among the leading philosophers in nanoethics and founders of The Nanoethics Group. While their first anthology, Nanoethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Nanotechnology (2007, with editors James Moor and John Weckert), presented a general introduction to critical issues in nanoethics, in this new book Allhoff and Lin recognize nanotechnology’s “strange schizophrenia”—as a brave new science filled with unlimited futuristic vision contrasted with the exaggerated hype of research progress—and strive to foster a solid foundation for nanoethics (p. xxi). Between nanotechnology’s speculative futuristic vision and its current research progress, there exists an epistemological gap that leaves plenty of room for ethical and social issues to be considered. Both the foreword by Jean‐Pierre Dupuy and the editors’ introduction emphasize the importance of scientific responsibility: science must be “forced to abandon its splendid isolation” (p. xi) from the community, and scientific uncertainty cannot relieve us from any moral obligation to investigate relevant issues. These themes and the need for a distinct disciplinary identity for nanotechnology and nanoethics echo throughout the anthology through a systematic collection of fifteen papers (original and reprinted) written by prominent scientists, philosophers, policy‐makers, lawyers, and other scholars in the nanotech field, addressing some of the most relevant current and near‐term issues facing nanotechnology. The anthology is divided into five sections: Foundational Issues (Fritz Allhoff, Paul B. Thompson, Arthur Zucker); Risk and Regulation (Commission de l’Éthique de la Science et de la Technologie, David M. Berube, Thomas M. Powers); Industry and Policy (Ashley Shew, Jeroen van den Hoven, Drew L.