“Productive work on societal implications needs to be engaged with the research from the start. Ethicists need to go into the lab to understand what’s possible. Scientists and engineers need to engage with humanists to start thinking about this aspect of their work. Only thus, working together in dialog, will we make genuine progress on the societal and ethical issues that nanotechnology poses.”

Davis Baird, in testimony before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, May 1, 2003.

Davis Baird made this statement about societal implications of nanotechnology, but he could have been talking as well about other emerging technological frontiers that will potentially impact on the whole global economy and system. His remarks are even more applicable to convergent technologies, representing the potential connections among nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science [31]. Converging technologies hold the potential to dramatically change human capabilities. Consider how the integration of these four might benefit those with Alzheimer’s, perhaps supplying silicon connections to neurons that not only make up for the deficits caused by Alzheimer’s, but actually permit increased intelligence. Consider also the creation of supersoldiers, armed with battlefield sensors, bullet and weather-resistant garments and perhaps genetic modifications as well. Transhumanists see convergent technologies as possibly even changing what it means to be human, “for instance, removing aging, making humans immortal, or enhancing intelligence, sensibility, and perception far away from what we know—and have known as long as humans have expressed themselves about their lives—as human. Traditionally ethics has presupposed that the moral agent is a human being and thereby that we exist within the limits of humanity. With transhumanism, we will transgress the limits of humanity and thereby the limits of ethics” [6].

The emergent convergent technology frontier pushes ethics as well as technology into new areas. Therefore, we would argue, it is important to have some ethicists present at the point where the breakthroughs occur. The role of an ethicist is to ask normative questions: What is the value of this project? What are the possible positive and negative outcomes? Are there any possibilities that have not been explored? How will the success of the project contribute to human or even planetary well-being, and what are the possible dangers involved? Moreover, well-trained ethicists can often step back from the particular context to take a more disengaged perspective on the technology or technologies in question. This perspective is critical with the introduction of new technologies such as nanotechnology where we are not sure of all the risks arising from their development and where the outcomes of such development are not predictable with certainty. For example, the possibility of a technology that results in some form of transhumanism requires new thinking about moral agency and new sets of ethical principles to deal with this possibility. This is not to conclude that only ethicists can engage in this process, but it is to suggest that the ethical perspective is critical particularly when a new set of technologies is being developed where the outcomes cannot be predicted in advance.

“The most powerful point at which ethics can have an influence is while the sociotechnical systems of nanotechnology are being envisioned and constructed” [22]. The earlier the stage of development, the more degrees of freedom societies have to alter the direction of a new technology, and the less that is known about the possible impacts. Therefore, ethicists should play an especially important role at the earliest stage of the design of technological systems, particularly when the risks and outcomes are not clear. And, we would argue, ethicists will be most effective if they work alongside, and collaborate with, scientists and engineers, observing the technological breakthroughs as they occur and thinking through the ethical implications with researchers.

Johnson reminds us that there is a danger the ethicists will be co-opted, tacitly adopting the pro-nanotechnology perspective of many of the scientists and engineers. Anthropologists are familiar with this problem; they call it ‘going native,’ which means identifying so closely with the culture one is studying that one loses the ability to see it from another perspective [27].

One solution to this problem is to make sure the ethicist connects to other stakeholder groups, in addition to scientists. Van de Poel and his colleagues do this by conducting interviews and brainstorming sessions with those involved in research and design networks connected with nanotechnology [30]. This technique includes potential stakeholders and reveals differences in problem definitions and values among participants. The role of the ethicist in Van de Poel’s method is as an interviewer and facilitator in a session separated from the usual research environment and tasks [37].

In this paper, we will rely instead on the idea of a trading zone, which requires the ethicist to work with the engineers, scientists and other stakeholders involved in a research and development collaboration. Trading zones are useful whenever communication occurs across apparently incommensurable perspectives, and, we shall argue, the engagement in a trading zone, coupled with moral imagination—the ability to disengage from a particular point of view, (e.g., the mind sets operative in science and engineering) to examine these various operative mind sets, to engage in an imaginative dialogue pursuing the ethical dimensions of various possible outcomes, to normatively evaluate those outcomes, and make an often-fresh considered moral decision can result in rich value-laden thinking that often avoids unforeseen difficulties.

Trading Zones

Peter Galison used the metaphor of a trading zone to explain how scientists and engineers from different disciplinary cultures manage to collaborate across apparently incommensurable paradigms [8]. The notion of “incommensurable paradigms” comes from the seminal work of Thomas [26]. Kuhn proposed that scientific revolutions occur when a scientist or group of scientists discard old paradigms in favor of new ones. A paradigm is both a way of thinking and a way of doing. Practitioners in a particular domain know what the main problems are, and what the accepted methods are for solving them. During a paradigm shift, however, according to Kuhn, not all those who still operate in the old paradigm can understand key aspects of the new one. For example, Einstein’s special relativity created a new paradigm in which the sharp distinctions between space and time and mass and energy disappeared. This kind of revolution in physics made it hard for those in the old paradigm to understand Einstein’s universe—indeed, it took about 5 years for signs of acceptance to emerge in the relevant physics community. However, what the best physicists and mathematicians had trouble understanding in 1905 is now taught routinely to younger generations around the world [21].

In the case of paradigm shifts an insight is required, in which one person or group of people learns to see the whole problem situation from a different point of view, one that can be comprehended by those with whom one is communicating, in ways that may even reveal the original problem is not an issue at all, but raise a whole set of new problems and opportunities. Kuhn originally argued that unique paradigms were incommensurable because those operating from an older to paradigm could not understand the new. We will propose a weaker definition of incommensurability. Two views are incommensurable if one cannot hold both simultaneously—but it is possible to comprehend and switch back and forth between the views [36], and to thereby evolve new perspectives or theories.

Weak incommensurability is demonstrated by the existence of trading zones. To use one of Galiston’s examples, Galison noted that physicists and engineers working together on the development of radar and particle detectors during World War II worked together on the development of particle detectors and radar despite operating from apparently different paradigms. How was this possible? Galison realized the scientists and engineers were behaving like any cultures that meet: in order to exchange ideas and resources, they formed local trading zones among experimentalists, instrument makers and others who could exchange knowledge, time, resources and credit in order to achieve common goals.Footnote 1 Each community of practice in this zone may have attached a different significance to the goods traded and received, but these communities had to learn to communicate with each other sufficiently to reach a common goal. Different expertise communities do not have to completely understand each other’s paradigms in order to communicate and exchange ideas, but “[t]hey can come to a consensus about the procedure of exchange, about the mechanisms to determine when goods are ‘equal’ to one another. They can even both understand that the continuation of the exchange is a prerequisite to the survival of the larger community of which they are part,” ([8]:803). The key to the continued success of such a zone, in Galison’s view, is gradual evolution of a common language, from a shared jargon to a pidgin to a creole.

As an example of such an evolution, Galison describes the development of ‘Police Motu’ in what is now Papua, New Guinea. The Motu developed a simplified version of their language—a jargon—to facilitate trade across their extensive network. This reduced version of Motu became a pidgin when the British adapted it to colonial rule, introducing new terms and uses that stabilized. When the pidgin is elaborated sufficiently for children to grow up in it, so to speak, it becomes a creole.

In the radar case, physicists, engineers and the branches of the military that worked with them were developing a new technology for the highest possible stakes—the survival of their civilization. The members of MIT’s core RadLab team had an incentive to facilitate exchanges. This was accomplished by “hopping back and forth across organizational lines as needed and throwing out ideas to members of one group or another” [5]. This ‘hopping back and forth’ undoubtedly involved sharing elements of their different expertise. This knowledge exchange eventually led to a situation where scientists in this “trading zone” learned enough of a common language to acknowledge and even accommodate each others’ perspectives and methods [25]. And, as we know, the team did create radar detection devices that were invaluable in defeating the enemies in World War II.

Interactional Expertise

Interactional expertise is the ability to adopt the language and concepts of an expertise community sufficiently to pass as a member, without being able to conduct full-blown research [4]. An expert within a paradigm knows what problems are worth pursuing and also how to solve them in the paradigmatic way. According to Collins, an interactional expert can understand the former but not do the latter. Unlike the domain experts, Collins’ interactional expert can also take an outsiders’ view of the community, looking at it from the standpoint of another paradigm. Collins’ discovery of this kind of category emerges from his own experience as a sociologist of science, where he had to acquire sufficient expertise to study scientific expertise communities by interacting with the members [2, 3].

Similarly, participants in a nanoethics trading zone can achieve sufficient interactional expertise to exchange knowledge. The acquisition of this interactional expertise takes the ethicist more time than leading one of Van de Poel’s brainstorming sessions, and it only works if the ethicist maintains her or his distinct perspective. To investigate how this could be done, we will need to consider the role of mental models.

Mental Models

Minds are not merely receptacles for perceptions and experiences. Rather, human minds selectively, order, organize and frame their perceptions and experiences. These cognitive frames, or mental pictures of their experiences model the stimuli or data with which they are interacting, and these frameworks set up parameters though which experience is organized or filtered ([32] Ch. 10; [11]: 210–11; [36]). Participants in a trading zone could have mental models that are so different they interfere with all but the simplest forms of exchange. These are called “mental” models because they refer to the ways each of us experiences the world and often cannot be entirely described explicitly. Mental models might be hypothetical constructs of the experience in question or scientific theories; they might be schema that frame the experience, through which individuals process information, conduct experiments, and formulate theories. In whatever form, mental models function as selective mechanisms and filters for dealing with experience. In focusing, framing, organizing, and ordering what we experience, each of us brackets and leaves out data, and emotional and motivational foci taint or color experience. Nevertheless, the schema we employ are socially learned or socially constructed. They are altered through religion, socialization, culture, educational upbringing, and other experiences. Thus, they are shared ways of perceiving, organizing, and learning. Because they are socially constructed, they are not merely subjective. We can learn about, comprehend, understand operative mental models of others or of other disciplines, and, while sometimes difficult, we can change the way a situation is framed—that is, we can and do modify our own mental models. Because of the variety and diversity of mental models, none is complete, and “there are multiple possible framings of any given situation” [23, 36]. By that we mean that each of us can frame any situation, event, or phenomenon in more than one way, and that same data can also be socially constructed in a variety of ways. It will turn out that the way one frames a situation is critical to its outcome, because “[t]he are [often]…different moral consequences depending on the way we frame the situation,” [23]. To put this in the language of cognitive science, during a paradigm shift, there is a radical shift in a fundamental mental model that changes the way scientists look at problems across their domain. The cognitive scientist Edwin Hutchins had to go through such a shift to understand Micronesian navigation. According to Hutchins, “A fundamental conception in Caroline Island navigation is that when underway on course between islands, the canoe is stationary and the islands move by the canoe” [20] (196). The stars and the sun rise and set over the canoe in exactly the same position, but the canoe is moving towards its destination—and, to either side, distant islands are moving by, ones that cannot be seen, some of which are imaginary. The navigator knows the bearing of these real and imaginary reference islands at the beginning and end of each journey.

The voyage is divided into segments—called ETAKs—of unequal length, based on the movement of these reference islands under successive star bearings. When anthropologists asked the Micronesian navigators how an ETAK could have many different lengths, depending on which voyage one was on and where one was in the voyage, the navigators didn’t see the problem. Micronesian navigators segment the voyage temporally, and have rules of thumb for determining the rate of movement of their canoes which they check against the positions of stars. When close to the destination island, it is time to drop sail and look for birds at dawn or dusk that signal proximity to land.

Here is a classic indication of a potentially incommensurable difference in mental models: what was ordinary common-sense practice for the Micronesians was a conceptual puzzle for those studying them. The Micronesian frame of reference, based on a stationary canoe and islands moving by, was so alien it led at least one anthropologist to claim the Micronesians succeeded in spite of their navigational techniques. But their mental model and the heuristics, or rules of thumb, associated with it, allowed them to travel reliably without compasses, clocks or charts for centuries. Still, apparently incommensurable differences can be overcome, One successful attempt at translation occurred when a Micronesian navigator imagined himself simultaneously at the beginning and end of a voyage, and then was able to draw lines from the beginning and destination islands to the reference island—thereby satisfying a Western interlocutor.

Hutchins himself became an interactional expert in Micronesian navigation—he could understand the mental model, but could not get into a sailing canoe and implement it.

Hutchins does not say how Micronesians learn to navigate, but it is likely their mental models are acquired in an apprenticeship fashion, where the student learns to visualize how the boat is moving and where the reference islands are. Similarly, Kuhn’s paradigms are acquired partly through an apprenticeship process, where the student learns to recognize and solve canonical problems that serve as exemplars. Like a mental model, a paradigm has both explicit and tacit components: some aspects of the paradigm can be articulated by those in it, while other aspects unconsciously structure thought.

So why rely on mental models instead of paradigm in our framework? Because unlike the broad (and provocatively ambiguous) concept of a paradigm, the concept of mental model can be parsed into levels and types and has been empirically validated with experimental [24] and observational [29] studies.

Like paradigms, mental models can be shared. But unique mental models can be created and held by individuals, and we can study this process. A good example is Kepler’s abandonment of one of the accepted realities of his day: that the planets had to go in perfectly circular orbits because they were mounted on spheres. Kepler, using the best data and mathematics of his day, could not fit the orbit of Mars into a perfect circle. Instead of accepting the perfect circles as a reality, he was able to abandon this mental model, after a long and agonizing process, and fit the orbit of Mars to an ellipse [14].

Kepler’s initial spherical mental model was in three dimensions; he could imagine how it worked, running it in his mind and eventually building a model of it. In this case, a mental model was translated into a physical model that others could inspect. But Kepler kept other components of his model to himself, for example, his analog that a planet was like a ferryman connected by a rope to the sun and swept along in a circle by a combination of the sun’s rays and an imaginary rudder. This model was mental because it was incomplete, hard to explain explicitly—but helped Kepler imagine the kinds of forces that might hold a planet in place in the absence of spheres on which the planet rotated [14]. After a long struggle with the data and mathematics, Kepler realized that the orbit of Mars was an ellipse, and he was able to translate his new mental model of the solar system into his three laws of planetary motion.

Moreover, the notion of a mental model explains how allegedly incommensurable paradigms can be understood (although not held) simultaneously so that someone can adapt new paradigms within or out of the context of pervading ones. Kepler’s new universe was incommensurable with the perfect circle model, in that both ideas could not be held at the same time. But that did not mean that someone with a perfect circle mental model could not understand both paradigms and even make the switch to one involving ellipses—though that switch would involve throwing away a lot of assumptions about the universe, including the idea that bodies rotated on spheres.

Mental models can also explain differences in the approaches taken by scientists and engineers working on apparently similar problems. Alexander Graham Bell’s invention of the telephone depended on a mental model based on the human ear, whose function he understood intimately [12]. For Bell, this mental model suggested how to frame the problem of transmitting and receiving speech. He built a kind of simple electromechanical ear, with speaking tube, diaphragm, an armature that worked like the bones of the ear and finally an induction coil to turn the motions into current.

One of Bell’s rivals, Elisha Gray, also thought about using the ear as a model for a telephone, indicating that Bell’s insight about the ear was not a new paradigm, and that it did not move research in this area to fundamentally new ground. What Gray and other telegraph inventors lacked was Bell’s intimate understanding of the ear and how it translated the motion of the eardrum into a series of undulating waves. Bell wrote a patent covering all devices that transformed sounds into an undulating electric current, thereby claiming an enormous territory that no other telephone inventor would have considered worthwhile.

Mental models account not only for the advantages but also the limitations of a new approach or an existing one. The “ear” mental model is both the strength and weakness of Bell’s approach; it was great for building a receiver, but a poor design for a transmitter, because the ear itself functions only as a receiver. Other inventors like Edison quickly realized that his receiver design was sound, but huge improvements could be made on the transmitter.

Moral Imagination

What is involved in paradigm shifts and the emergence of new mental models is what we will call moral imagination. Moral imagination begins with the awareness of various dimensions of a particular context as well as the operative framework and narratives. Moral imagination entails the ability to understand that context or set of activities from a number of different perspectives, the evaluation of these activities from a normative point of view, the actualizing of new possibilities that are not context-dependent, and the instigation of the process of evaluating those outcomes, again from a moral point of view.([36]:5)

What does this have to do with ethicists in trading zones? The incommensurability between Bell and other telegraph inventors was small, but highly significant—Bell alone recognized the importance of transmitting speech, and understood the ear well enough to use it as a mental model. The incommensurability between Micronesian navigators and modern Western navigators was much larger and depended on radically different frames of references.

The ethicist in a trading zone might find her or himself facing a larger or smaller difference in mental models among the researchers involved. When fundamental values are at stake, the differences are largest and most likely to appear incommensurable. Kepler’s discoveries were follow-ups of the Copernican “threat” that the earth was not the center of the universe. The Copernican revolution was not merely an astronomical revolution, but itself a threat to some fundamental religious and values-based beliefs about the centrality of human existence and our planet. Similarly (although less dramatically), the tendency of some engineers to see their design activities as value-free is often in contrast in situations where it is apparent to an ethicist that there are implicit values involved, especially when one looks at the role the design plays in a larger system [18]. These values differences are likely to grow as the network of stakeholders grows.

Moral imagination holds promise for reflecting on and resolving apparently incommensurable values disputes. By engaging in morally imaginative thinking one can often arrive at new results that take into account conflicting mental models and how they might converge in a new way of thinking—a trading zone that brings differing points of view for common ends.

More specifically, moral imagination involves:

Becoming aware of one’s mental model in a situation that involves an ethical conflict. This awareness entails the recognition that other mental models are possible.

Imagining different mental models from which the situation could be viewed. One way to do this is to consult someone who has a different mental model. Another is to gather new data that cannot fit nicely into existing frames of understanding. Moral imagination does not assume that all views should be treated equally, just that each perspective is worth at least listening to—despite all the difficulties involved in understanding another perspective.Footnote 2 “Each person’s view [or every scientific or engineering perspective] is a unique perspective on a larger reality. If I can ‘look out’ through your view and you through mine, we will each see something we might not have seen alone.” ([32]: 248).

Evaluating the situation from the standpoint of both old and new mental models, envisioning alternate courses of research, explanation, and/or action.

The result could be a new mental model that showed how the situation could be resolved or a dialogue could begin. Or it could be the development or discovery of a common ground or a set of goals to which all those involved would agree, despite differing points of view.

This is the process by which Hutchins gained an understanding of Micronesian navigation and there might be other ways to frame navigation that actually was operative as well. He had to recognize his system of navigation was a viable but possibly limited mental model and therefore that other mental models were possible. This awareness created the possibility of understanding the Micronesian mental model. Note that awareness does not necessarily lead to relativism: one can understand the Micronesian mental model, appreciate how well it worked in a local system of real and imaginary islands, and also see clearly its shortcomings versus more modern methods

Hutchins was not fully engaging in moral imagination because he faced no values conflict—the Micronesian system of navigation was not mandated by a foundational ideology, nor did Hutchins need to reconcile their values with his, in order to ensure mutual survival. Convergent technologies, in contrast, potentially raise fundamental values conflicts, because they open the possibility of radically altering what it means to be human. Recall Galison’s radar example, where the trading zone was motivated by victory over an invading power. Convergent technologies could follow this route—could help one nation or culture gain enormous military and economic advantages over rivals. But such an advantage would likely be temporary, could even spur another arm’s race, and might threaten the survival of the species, rather than enhance it. Convergent technologies are being introduced into a world where conflict between groups and cultures is the norm.

Superordinate Goals and Moral Imagination

Galison focuses on examples like the development of radar and particle detectors where the motive for the trading zone is the development of new technologies that will solve problems. In the case of radar, the threat is the elimination of Great Britain by the Luftwaffe.

The social psychologist Muzafer Sherif grew up in Turkey during the decline of the Ottoman Empire and saw first-hand how members of groups would exhibit compassion towards their own and hostility toward members of other groups. He decided to devote a career to understanding this phenomenon [13]. He and his wife Carolyn created a summer camp for boys in Oklahoma in which each boy was randomly assigned to one of two groups, and competition between the groups was encouraged [33]. The Sherifs were surprised at how quickly intergroup hostility developed.

They found the best way to bring the groups together was to introduce what the Sherifs called a superordinate goal. He faked a problem with the camp’s water supply, one that the two groups had to work together to solve. Next, the groups had to work together to get their lunches after an active morning. These kinds of challenges were successful at ending hostilities between the two groups. Thus Sherif was able to bring these groups together despite their previous hostile feelings by forming a shared important project. Sherif thought a superordinate goal was superior to working together against a common enemy because having an enemy perpetuates the problem of intergroup hostility.

Trading zones that incorporate these kinds of superordinate goals require participants to exercise moral imagination. Imagining where convergent technologies ought to take us, requires explicit consideration of values—of what kind of world we ought to and how to frame those goals to be important for people operating from differing points of view. Therefore, decisions about which technological directions one should support, on any level, will involve the exercise of moral imagination. Here, obviously, is an important role for an ethicist.

Nanosilver as an Example of a Situation That Calls for Trading Zones

Research on the ethical implications of nanotechnology requires an interdisciplinary approach, because system-level interactions among nanomaterials released into the environment and the human body by multiple mechanisms cannot be anticipated from laboratory studies of isolated materials and devices. To illustrate the challenges, let us consider silver-based nanotechnology, which is present in over eight hundred products currently on the market. The antibacterial properties of bulk silver have been known for the last several decades. However, nanoscale silver particles offer some unique advantages and concerns. First, their presence as nanoparticles of definite shape, size and size distribution allows for the controlled and sustained release of silver ions, which in turn allows for the modulation and control of antibacterial action. A second advantage is that upon presenting tissues with low doses of silver ions, as would be the case with silver nanotechnologies, a scar-less wound healing is observed, presumably due to control of inflammatory response [34]. “Controlled release” of therapeutic agents at the implant-cell interface is crucial for integration of orthopedic implants with the cells of the body (osseointegration), especially since bacterial infections cause revision surgical interventions in approximately 30% of implants [35].Footnote 3 It also results in a reduction of overall drug toxicity to the rest of the body. Current antibiotic treatments administered by oral or intravenous means are usually absorbed elsewhere and hence do not usually reach the implant location at the appropriate dose level. Hence, the application of silver nanotechnologies for controlled release, at extremely low doses over a period of several weeks to a month, is a major topic of research [28].

This example illustrates several of the technical issues within chemistry (for nanoparticle synthesis), surface science (for control of silver ion release), materials science (for integrity nanoparticles within various media), engineering (for an appropriate feedback system for the control of silver ion release), orthopedics (for the integration of silver nanotechnologies within the implant), and toxicology (for the monitoring of toxicity to the rest of the body from silver ion release) that need to be considered.

The ethical implications of nano-silver implants are profound. One has to take care in using nanoscale particles because of the various reactions human bodies may have to this application. The complexity of system-level interactions of nano-silver with the human body are especially significant for susceptible populations, where the harmful effects of bio-accumulation, chronic exposure, reactive oxygen exposure, and the build-up of antibiotic resistance could be compounded for patients such as diabetics under conditions of oxidative stress or elderly patients with osteoporosis, who are the most likely recipients of such implants. In some cases one would have to weigh the consequences of using nano-silver when a patient’s life was at risk versus the possibility of other negative reactions to the substance. Analyzing the various dimensions of this issue would require scientists and bioethicists to create a way to dialogue about these dilemmas across the boundaries of the languages of medicine, engineering, science, and ethics. In other words, one would need to create a trading zone on issues like nano-silver particle uses and their risks and benefits with respect to human health and the ecosystem, issues that are important to all the scientists, physicians, and engineers involved in this research. These are superordinate goals that bring together differing mental models and approaches to the study of nano-silver particles in a trading zone to discuss these dilemmas. But it takes a great deal of moral imagination to bring together these different points of view without identifying with or succumbing to only one of them.

Two Trading Zones Involving Ethicists and Social Scientists

  1. 1.

    Introducing ethical and societal dimensions at the earliest stage of research

With support from the National Science Foundation (SES-0210452), Gorman created a trading zone with the goal of seeing what would happen if he and a material scientist (James Groves) worked to direct a graduate student’s project towards a nanotechnology that might make both a research and a societal contribution [16, 17]. Gorman was deliberately trying to play a role similar to the ethicist in this tiny trading zone, exploring whether he could acquire enough interactional expertise to participate in decisions about research direction and strategy. Would it be possible to integrate societal concerns with the design of an experiment that a graduate student could carry out?

In order to interact meaningfully, participants within this small zone had to develop a creole. Instead of developing new terms, they shared meanings for key terms used in their respective domains. Gorman had to learn what ‘guided self-assembly’ meant,Footnote 4 and why isoelectric points and lattice structures were important. Gorman decided that Groves and the graduate student had to learn what trading zones and moral imagination meant, while at the same time not letting abstract terminology interfere with the project and the values embedded in carrying out the project. Shared understanding of these concepts evolved through frequent explanations, collaborative poster sessions, and publications. Most of the explanations of terms and concepts were directed toward Gorman, but he in turn tried to keep the discussion focused as much on why as how. Gorman’s understanding of a term like ‘guided self-assembly’ was never as complete as Groves’ or the graduate student, because Gorman never conducted any experiments, though he observed laboratory work. Gorman gained enough interactional expertise to engage in thoughtful discussions about research strategy, and was rewarded by being included on a patent application.

To progress, the team developed a metaphoric language—perhaps not surprising, given that moral imagination is founded on metaphors and stories. All three participants in this zone liked hiking, which made that experience a good basis for metaphors all team members could understand. Distant mountains became major global problems and opportunities, like improving human health. Closer foothills represented specific aspects of these problems, like developing ‘labs on a chip’ that could detect a variety of harmful substances in the environment. The graduate student’s project would form a bridge towards a local mountains.

The team, after much discussion, decided to direct its efforts toward improving human health and added a bio-medical engineer to the tiny trading zone. He was focused on understanding the role of blood flow in artheriosclerosis [19]. Working with him, the team directed its efforts toward a nanodevice that would allow a blood cell to adhere to a surface, facilitating study of its adhesion characteristics. The graduate student was able to make a bridge towards this nano device by investigating combinations of metal oxides, ne of which could form a substrate onto which another could be deposited as nanodots. One biomaterial could adhere to the substrate, and another to the nanodots deposited on the surface. A cell, for example, could adhere to the nanodots and be fixed in place for research. The student did specific experimental work with Niobium dioxide (NbO2). The end result was a patent application for a sensor array system using metal oxides that would be suited to work with a wide range of biomaterials.

  1. 2.

    Introducing an ethicist into the middle of a research program

The Gorman-Groves trading zone involved highlighting societal dimensions at the outset of a research project. Erik Fisher, an ethicist working with nanoscientists, was embedded in a nanotechnology laboratory to introduce ethical and societal concerns in the middle of ongoing research projects [7]. Fisher was placed in the Mechanical Engineering department’s Thermal and Nanotechnology Laboratory (TNL) at the University of Colorado, Boulder by its Director, Roop Mahajan, who had learned the value of interdisciplinary inquiry and reflection at Bell Labs [38]. Therefore, Fisher had the support of management, but had to gain the confidence of the scientists with whom he was embedded. He and Mahajan and the researchers formed a trading zone around Mahajan’s idea of a research protocol that would seamlessly link humanities and engineering. Fisher’s desk was located in the laboratory, he attended meetings, participated in equipment training and met regularly with researchers; therefore, he was able to acquire interactional expertise in nanoscale fabrication and characterization, as evidence by the fact that outsiders often assumed he was an engineer. The goal of the trading zone shifted from developing a protocol to promoting reflection on the part of both the humanist and the nanoscientists.

In both the early stage Gorman-Groves trading zone and the middle stage Fisher-Mahajan trading zone, the end result, according to the participants, was that reflection on the potential societal benefits of the research actually led to improved science. One of Fisher’s researchers “noted on several occasions that discussing his research with Fisher helped to clarify his own thinking about the research” [38]. Groves contended that the societal dimensions emphasis improved the science by aiming the research at a bridge that could lead to a breakthrough. The use of metal oxides in this kind of adhesion or sensor application was truly innovative.

Conclusion

Not all, or even most, ethicists will need to be part of trading zones. There is still a place for the kind of general analysis of the nanotechnology frontier provided by philosophers like [22], who uses ethical principles derived from science-technology studies and [6], who relies on bio-medical ethics. There are also alternatives for exploring ethical issues with multiple stakeholders, including Berne’s interviews of nanoscientists and engineers [1] and van de Poel’s brainstorming session with members of R&D networks [30].

But Baird is right—some ethicists and social scientists should form trading zones with scientists, engineers and others on the research and development frontier. An ethicist can help the participants in such a trading zone engage in moral imagination by suggesting alternate mental models that evaluate possible, and even heretofore unimagined, outcomes as various breakthroughs occur. This in turn, might lead to different research goals and strategies. In order to play this role, an ethicist will have to gain interactional expertise in one or more of the scientific or technological areas involved in the trading zone; in parallel, the scientists and engineers will need to gain enough interactional expertise about ethics to transfer what they have learned to other trading zones.