ABSTRACT
The 21st-century technologies—genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics—are so powerful that they can spawn whole new classes of accidents and abuses. The link between nanotechnology and biotechnology is fascinating: Although the former works with intrinsically inert materials, it is seeking to turn them into a perfect analogue of a biological. This chapter begins with the question raised by Reiner Grundmann and Nico Stehr, as to whether "knowledge policy" may include "the aim of limiting, directing into certain paths, or forbidding the application and further development of knowledge." It explores this theme with reference to contemporary developments in biotechnology and nanotechnology, where the objective of knowledge is to enable reader to create and modify at will biological entities, as well as self-assembling mechanical entities, ab initio through recombinant DNA techniques. The chapter argues that a new category of risks is created by the promised technological applications of these forms of knowledge, called "moral risks.".
