Assessing the Social Acceptability of New Technologies: Gaps and Tensions Between Science and Regulation

Abstract

Ethical considerations regarding the development of technologies are now a standard part of the field of bioethics, focused in large part on the interactions between science and government in establishing the social good. Since the advent of different forms of biotechnology, scientific risk analysis has been subject to various lines of questioning relative to the role that quantitative science plays in government oversight. This is even more significant in the present debate on the acceptability of nanotechnology. In this article, we first specify the strengths and limitations of the scientific analysis of the social acceptability of risks in nanotechnology. Next, we demonstrate the limitations of taking an empirical approach in the social sciences and the humanities to predicting the social acceptability of a technology. We argue that recognizing the assumptions underlying these two quantitative approaches should open up a road to more reflective approaches by the social sciences and the humanities.