伦理学与纳米制药:新药的价值敏感设计

尽管纳米药物的应用正在进一步发展并已经走向市场,但迄今为止,纳米制药仍然被视为一项新兴技术,它的概念并不明了。纳米制药也可以解释为一种会聚技术,它结合多种技术特征,范围从纳米技术波及到医学和信息通信技术。它的特征是否会引起新的伦理问题,或者这些相关纳米制药的伦理问题仅仅是基础领域现存问题的延伸至今仍在争论之中。我们认为,不管关联的伦理问题新奇还是技术进步引致的发展,都影响纳米制药领域的利益相关者发挥这样的作用,即要求以不同的方式负责任地创新。关联纳米制药的特有特征和会聚技术引进的特征在要求以不同方式负责的利益相关者中引起角色转换。我们提出,价值敏感设计是利益相关者在新纳米药物开发的早期阶段负责任地参与解决道德问题的一个适宜框架。

Ethics and nanopharmacy:value sensitive design of new drugs

Although applications are being developed and have reached the market, nanopharmacy to date is generally still conceived as an emerging technology. Its concept is ill-defined. Nanopharmacy can also be construed as a converging technology, which combines features of multiple technologies, ranging from nanotechnology to medicine and ICT. It is still debated whether its features give rise to new ethical issues or that issues associated with nanopharma are merely an extension of existing issues in the underlying fields. We argue here that, regardless of the alleged newness of the ethical issues involved, developments occasioned by technological advances affect the roles played by stakeholders in the field of nanopharmacy to such an extent that this calls for a different approach to responsible innovation in this field. Specific features associated with nanopharmacy itself and features introduced to the associated converging technologies bring about a shift in the roles of stakeholders that call for a different approach to responsibility. We suggest that value sensitive design is a suitable framework to involve stakeholders in addressing moral issues responsibly at an early stage of development of new nanopharmaceuticals.