Forecasting ethics and the ethics of forecasting: the case of nanotechnology

This paper argues that social foresight and technological forecasting are essentially fraudulent activities which at best are temporarily delusive but at worst may constitute a waste of valuable resources. Futurists conceive of forecasting as a contribution to ethical debate about the future impacts of technology. This paper makes forecasting itself the focus of ethical attention. I use nanotechnology as a paradigm case of a technology about which many and often conflicting claims are made regarding its future impacts. Nanotechnology follows in a long tradition of technologies which are claimed to be fundamentally transformative being described as ‘revolutionary’ in their social, economic and political implications. It is suggested that we ought to anticipate the kinds of moral problems and dilemmas that such transformations may produce. I challenge the view that there can be any such moral obligation to foresee such transformations. I argue that given that we cannot in fact know the eventual outcomes of current social and technological changes then we cannot be under any such obligation to anticipate them. Those who make large scale claims about the future can have no reasonable warrant for doing so. I reinforce my position by arguing the essential unknowability of the kinds of values and choices future generations will make.