This book disentangles the complex meanings of responsibilityby focusing on the both the theoretical and empirical meaning of responsibility in nanotechnology development. The notion of responsibility is extremely diversified in the public discourse of nano scale technologies. Addressed are all the major different scientific disciplines working on nanotechnology, i.e. law, philosophy, sociology and political science, as well as to the major multidisciplinary areas relevant to the innovation process, e.g. technology assessment and bioethics. Furthermore, the interplay between such expertises,...

The present volume elucidates the scope of responsibility in science and technology governance by way of assimilating insights gleaned from sociological theory and STS and by investigating the ways in which responsibility unfolds in social processes. Drawing on these theoretical perspectives, the volume goes on to review a heuristic model of responsibility. Such a model provides a simple, tentative, though no less coherent analytical framework for further examining the idea of responsibility, its transformations, configurations and contradictions.

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This book disentangles the complex meanings of responsibility in nanotechnology development by focusing on its theoretical and empirical dimensions. Furthermore, the interplay between such expertises, disciplines, and research programmes in providing a multidisciplinary understanding of responsibility is emphasized.