Ethical reflection on nanotechnology; but what does «being nanotechnological» mean? A contribution from an epistemically realist point of view

Nanotechnologies are considered to be one of the spearheads of emerging technologies. They are qualified by some as a new technological revolution, in the sense that they can change the way humans perceive ourselves and relate to our natural and social environments. If a human activity is thought to cause such revolutionary changes, it should be accompanied by a reflection. In order to give such a reflection an ethical dimension we need to fix a framework, a set of commonly accepted definitions of concepts and terminology. Questions like: “what does being nanotechnological mean?” do not seem satisfactorily answered, or the answers given to date do not seem to satisfy all stakeholders. We analyze the gaps in some of the definitions found in available literature. From this analysis, and taking as a basis the philosophical paradigm of epistemic realism, which we claim it could be adequate for ethics purposes, we go on to propose an approach which, we argue, could motivate further thinking on definitions that could serve ethics reflection on nanotechnologies.