Is beneficent regulation the new better regulation? Nano-regulation in the wake of the ‘new better regulation’ movement

Law, Innovation and Technology

Volumn 2, Issue 1, 2010, Pages 115-149

  Demissie, Hailemichael Teshome ^a  

^a KING'S COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 84923699743     PISSN: 17579961     EISSN: 1757997X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5235/175799610791935416     Document Type: Article

References (198)

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6. Lloyd Weinreb, ‘The Complete Idea of Justice’ (1984) 51(3) University of Chicago Law Review 756;
7. Tamara Garcia and Roland Sandler, ‘Enhancing Justice?M’ (2008) 2 NanoEthics 278.
8. Department of the Treasury, Financial Regulatory Reform. A New Foundation: Rebuilding Financial Supervision and Regulation (2009), www.financialstability.gov/docs/regs/FinalReport_web.pdf (emphasis added).
9. Andrew Pierce, ‘The Queen Asks Why No One Saw the Credit Crunch Coming’ Daily Telegraph, 5 November 2008, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/theroyalfamily/3386353/The-Queen-asks-why-no-one-sawthe-credit-crunch-coming.html.
10. Martin Lodge, ‘Towards a New Age of Regulation?' (2008) Risk & Regulation, Financial Crisis Special (December) 13.
11. Anthony Ogus, ‘Regulation Revisited’ [2009] Public Law 332.
12. Hutter et al of the Centre for the Analysis of Risk and Regulation (CARR) at the London School of Economics (LSE) openly acknowledge the financial market crisis as a crisis of the regulation scholarship too and refuse to regard the scholarship as ‘innocent onlookers’.
13. Bridget Hutter et al, ‘CARR on Crisis’ (2008) Risk & Regulation, ibid, 3.
14. Frank Vibert, ‘A New Bretton Woods: Risk Regulation Stripped Bare’ (2008) Risk & Regulation (n 5) 14.
15. Will Hutton, ‘A Short History of Capitalism’s Rise and Fall’ The Observer, 5 October 2008, 5.
16. The ‘pilgrimage’ metaphor is Stephen Weatherill’s: ‘The Challenge of Better Regulation’ in Stephen Weatherill (ed), Better Regulation (Hart Publishing, 2007) 4. 118 Law, Innovation and Technology
17. Gordon Brown called for a ‘global new deal’ and ‘better regulation’ of the world’s financial systems. See ‘Brown Takes Gift to Obama and Hopes for Finance Pact’ The Independent, 3 March 2009, www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/brown-takes-gift-to-obama-and-hopes-for-finance-pact-1635891.html.
18. CNN reported that the reason for President Sarkozy’s ‘la chaise vide’ threat ahead of the London G20 summit was the demand for ‘better rules, stronger rules’. ‘Sarkozy Walkout Threat at G-20, Reports Say’ CNN, http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/03/31/g-20.sarkozy.
19. Hans Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age (University of Chicago Press, 1984) 174.
20. Alan Lacey, A Dictionary of Philosophy (Routledge, 1996) 32.
21. Robert Baldwin, ‘Is Better Regulation Smarter Regulation?' [2005] Public Law 12.
22. Lodge (n 5) 12.
23. The Chair, Lord Adair Turner, is invoked in Bridget Hutter and Niger Dodd, ‘Social Systems Failure? Trust and the Credit Crunch’ (2008) Risk & Regulation (n 5) 4.
24. Robert Baldwin and Martin Cave, Understanding Regulation: Theory, Strategy and Practice (Oxford University Press, 1999) 76 ff.
25. Better Regulation Task Force, Principles of Good Regulation (Cabinet Office, London, 2003), http://archive.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/brc/upload/assets/www.brc.gov.uk/principlesleaflet.pdf.
26. Graeme Hodge, ‘Evaluating What Will Work in Nanotechnology Regulation: In Pursuit of the Public Interest’ in Graeme Hodge et al (eds), New Global Frontiers in Regulation: The Age of Nanotechnology (Edward Elgar, 2007) 116.
27. ‘FSA Argues for “Radical Change”' (n 1).
28. Frédéric Lordon, ‘Après la crise financière: « réguler » ou refondre? Les insuffisances des stratégies prudentielles’ (2009) 5(1) Revue de la regulation 8.
29. ‘PM Seeks EU Action on Bonuses’ Reuters, http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE5B90B720091210?rpc=28.
30. Michael Power, ‘The Risk Management of Nothing’ (2008) Risk & Regulation (n 5) 11.
31. Is Beneficent Regulation the New Better Regulation? 121
32. Carlota Perez, ‘The Double Bubble at the Turn of the Century: Technological Roots and Structural ImplicationsM’ (2009) 33 Cambridge Journal of Economics 780.
33. Carlota Perez, ‘The Double Bubble at the Turn of the Century: Technological Roots and Structural ImplicationsM’ (2009) 33 Cambridge Journal of Economics, 791.
34. Carlota Perez, ‘The Double Bubble at the Turn of the Century: Technological Roots and Structural ImplicationsM’ (2009) 33 Cambridge Journal of Economics, 803.
35. Bill Clinton, interview with John Stewart, The Daily Show, 23 September 2008, www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-september-23-2008/bill-clinton-pt-2.
36. Perez (n 20) 781.
37. Jarunee Wonglimpyarat, ‘The Nano-Revolution of Schumpeter’s Kondratieff Cycle’ (2005) 25 Technovation 1350;
38. Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age (Bantam Books, 1995).
39. Wonglimpyarat (n 25).
40. Clinton (n 23).
41. Perez (n 20) 790.
42. Sheldon Leader, ‘Collateralism’ in Roger Brownsword (ed), Human Rights (Vol 4 Global Governance and the Quest for Justice) (Hart Publishing, 2004) 59.
43. Julia Black, ‘Constructing and Contesting Legitimacy and Accountability in Polycentric Regulatory RegimesM’ (2008) 2 Regulation and Governance 141;
44. Stefan Gammel, Andreas Losch and Alfred Nordmann, ‘Embedding Nanotechnological Developments in Society’, paper presented to the TILT Conference, Tilting Perspectives on Regulating Technologies, Tilburg University, The Netherlands, 10-11 December 2008.
45. See also the politicians’ and regulators’ take on expanding the notion of regulation in the context of the current financial market turmoil (n 1).
46. Tony Prosser, ‘Regulation and Social SolidarityM’ (2006) 33 Journal of Law and Society 370.
47. David Koepsell, ‘Let’s Get Small: An Introduction to Transitional Issues in Nanotech and Intellectual PropertyM’ (2009) 3 NanoEthics 163.
48. Geoffrey Hunt, ‘The Global Ethics of Nanotechnology’;
49. Michael Mehta and Geoffrey Hunt, ‘What Makes Nanotechnologies Special?' in Geoffrey Hunt and Michael Mehta (eds), Nanotechnology: Risk, Ethics and Law (Earthscan, 2006) 183 and 280.
50. National Bioethics Committee, Nanosciences and Nanotechnologies, Plenary Meeting, 9 June 2006, www.governo.it/bioetica/eng/opinions/Nanosciences_9_06_206.pdf.
51. See eg Ulrik B Nissen, ‘Justice in Nanotechnological Development (Symposium Introduction)M’ (2009) 3 NanoEthics 119.
52. Ronald Sandler, ‘Nanotechnology and Social ContextM’ (2007) 27 Bulletin of Science and Technology Society 451.
53. Michael Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge University Press, 2nd edn 1998) 32.
54. Elizabeth Wolgast, ‘The Grammar of Justice’ in Robert Solomon and Mark Murphy (eds), What is Justice? Classic and Contemporary Readings (Oxford University Press, 1990) 349.
55. See also Sandel (n 35) 35.
56. Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (Duckworth, 2nd edn 1985) 252.
57. Bernard Gert et al, Bioethics: A Systematic Approach (Oxford University Press, 2nd edn 2006) 111.
58. David Miller, Principles of Social Justice (Harvard University Press, 1999) 220.
59. David Miller, Social Justice (Oxford University Press, 1976) 122-3.
60. David Miller, ‘The Ideological Backgrounds to the Conceptions of Social Justice’ (1974) 22(4) Political Studies 388.
61. Allen Buchanan, ‘Justice and Charity’ (1987) 97(3) Ethics 575;
62. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: see the entry under ‘Beneficence’, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/principle-beneficence.
63. St Augustine quoted in Miller (n 40) 285.
64. Weinreb (n 2) 756.
65. Charles Jones, Global Justice: Defending Cosmopolitanism (Oxford University Press, 1999) 13;
66. Miller (n 40) 124.
67. Brian Barry, ‘Humanity and Justice in Global Perspective’ in Robert Goodin and Philip Pettit (eds), Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Anthology (Blackwell, 1997) 536.
68. See also MacIntyre’s comment on this point: ‘Modern academic philosophy turns out by and large to provide means for a more accurate and informed definition of disagreement rather than for progress toward its resolution.' Alasdair MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Duckworth, 1988) 3;
69. Jones (n 44) 4.
70. As quoted in Sandel (n 35) 32.
71. Paul Litton, '“Nanoethics”? What’s New?' (2007) 37(1) Hastings Centre Report 24.
72. Alfred Nordmann, ‘Nanotechnology’s Worldview: New Space for Old Cosmologies’ (2004) IEEE Technology and Society Magazine 53.
73. Carl Batt, ‘Thinking Small is Not EasyM’ (2008) 3 Nature Nanotechnology 121.
74. George Taylor (ed), Paul Ricoeur Lectures on Ideology and Utopia (Columbia University Press, 1986) 309.
75. James Rachels, ‘Morality, Parents, and Children’ in Hugh LaFollette (ed), Ethics in Practice: An Anthology (Blackwell, 1997) 203.
76. Fritz Allhoff and Patrick Lin, ‘Introduction: Nanotechnology, Society and Ethics’ in Fritz Allhoff and Patrick Lin (eds), Nanotechnology and Society: Current and Emerging Ethical Issues (Springer, 2008) xxxi.
77. Taylor (n 50) 309.
78. Jonas (n 11) 24.
79. Peter Singer, ‘What Should a Billionaire Give-and What Should You?' New York Times, 17 December 2006;
80. Dr John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, observed on the flipside of the current financial crisis that poverty eradication goals are ‘utterly achievable’, and this is irrefutably adduced by the availability of resources for the massive bailout. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7634641.stm.
81. James Sterba, ‘World Justice’ (2005) 36(2) Journal of Social Philosophy 159.
82. Thomas Nagel, ‘The Problem of Global Justice’ (2005) 33(2) Philosophy & Public Affairs 118.
83. Peter Singer, ‘Famine, Affluence, and Morality’ in LaFollette (n 51) 593.
84. Julian Saurin, ‘Organising Hunger: The Global Organisation of Famines and Feasts’ in Caroline Thomas and Peter Wilkin (eds), Globalisation and the South (Macmillan, 1997) 113.
85. Eric Posner and Cass Sunstein, ‘Climate Change Justice (2008) 96 Georgetown Law Journal 1591.
86. Upendra Baxi, ‘Biotechnologies and International Human Rights: Book Review’ (2008) 18(2) Law and Politics 119.
87. Nagel (n 56) 122.
88. For the application of WRE in computer ethics and bioethics see Jeroen van de Hoven, ‘Computer Ethics and Moral Methodology’ (1997) 28(3) Metaphilosophy 234;
89. Mette Ebbesen and Birthe Pedersen, ‘Empirical Investigation of the Ethical Reasoning of Physicians and Molecular Biologists-The Importance of the Four Principles of Biomedical EthicsM’ (2007) 2 Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine, www.peh-med.com/content/2/1/23.
90. Rawls as cited in Sandel (n 35) 15;
91. Onora O’Neill, Faces of Hunger: An Essay on Poverty, Justice and Development (Allen & Unwin, 1986) 142.
92. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (n 42).
93. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (n 42).
94. Adam Smith is invoked in Deepak Lal, ‘Private Morality and Capitalism: Learning from the Past’ in John Dunning (ed), Making Globalisation Good: The Moral Challenges of Global Capitalism (Oxford University Press, 2003) 51.
95. Onora O’Neill, Constructions of Reason: Exploration of Kant’s Practical Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 1989) 233;
96. Yuval Livnat, ‘On the Nature of Benevolence’ (2004) 35(2) Journal of Social Philosophy 316.
97. Yuval Livnat, ‘Benevolence and JusticeM’ (2003) 37 Journal of Value Inquiry 507.
98. Sandel (n 35) 45;
99. See a similar conclusion in Buchanan (n 42) 575.
100. O’Neill (n 64) 230.
101. William Frankena, ‘Beneficence/Benevolence’ (1987) 4(2) Social Philosophy & Policy 14.
102. James Rachels, ‘Morality, Parents, and Children’;
103. Singer (n 57);
104. John Arthur, ‘Rights and the Duty to Bring Aid’ in LaFollette (n 51) 195, 594 and 596 respectively. Livnat, who defines the difference between the two terms establishing their distinctive meanings, nevertheless uses both words almost interchangeably.
105. Livnat (n 64) 316;
106. Livnat (n 65) 510-12.
107. Kant is cited using both words interchangeably with some qualifiers. See the cluster of words ‘active, practical benevolence (beneficence)' quoted in O’Neill (n 64) 115. Frankena simply preferred to use both separated or rather joined by a stroke: ‘Benevolence/Beneficence’.
108. Frankena (n 68) 5;
109. Livnat (n 65) 508.
110. Miller (n 40) 162.
111. Livnat (n 65) 513.
112. Frankena (n 68) 5;
113. Livnat (n 65) 508.
114. Livnat (n 64) 304.
115. O’Neill (n 64) 116.
116. O’Neill (n 64) 116.
117. O’Neill (n 64), 115.
118. Barry (n 45) 525.
119. Koepsell (n 32) 163.
120. Livnat (n 64) 310.
121. Alfred Nordmann, ‘If and Then: A Critique of Speculative Nanoethics’ (2007) 1 NanoEthics 34
122. Alfred Nordmann, ‘Knots and Strands: An Argument for Productive DisillusionmentM’ (2007) 32 Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 226, 232. A useful analogy can readily be made here with Posner and Sunstein’s argument about distributive justice as discussed in the text at n 58 above.
123. Roger Riddell, Does Foreign Aid Really Work? (Oxford University Press, 2007) 137;
124. Jones (n 44) 13-14.
125. Tom Beauchamp and James Childress, Principles of Biomedical Ethics (Oxford University Press, 6th edn 2009) 200.
126. Tom Beauchamp and James Childress, Principles of Biomedical Ethics (Oxford University Press, 6th edn 2009), 201.
127. Gert et al (n 38) 115.
128. Gert et al (n 38), 119.
129. Alan Gewirth, Community of Rights (University of Chicago Press, 1996) 80.
130. Alan Gewirth, Community of Rights (University of Chicago Press, 1996), 81
131. Buchanan (n 42) 569.
132. Barry (n 45) 528;
133. Amartya Sen, ‘Elements of a Theory of Human Rights’ (2004) 32(4) Philosophy & Public Affairs 341.
134. Amartya Sen, ‘Symposium on Amartya Sen’s Philosophy: ReplyM’ (2001) 117 Economics and Philosophy 62.
135. Amartya Sen, ‘Symposium on Amartya Sen’s Philosophy: ReplyM’ (2001) 117 Economics and Philosophy, 60.
136. Frankena (n 68) 15.
137. O’Neill (n 64) 101.
138. Stephen Wood et al, Nanotechnology: From the Science to the Social (ESRC, 2007) 14.
139. Phil MacNaghten et al, ‘Nanotechnology, Governance and Public Deliberation: What Role for Social Sciences?' (2005) 27(2) Science Communication 281.
140. Baldwin and Cave (n 16) 9.
141. Prosser (n 31) 366.
142. Prosser (n 31) 366.
143. Bronwen Morgan, Social Citizenship in the Shadow of Competition: The Bureaucratic Politics of Regulatory Justification (Ashgate, 2003) 31.
144. Karinne Ludlow, ‘More than Science: Ethical and Socio-Legal Concerns in Nanotechnology Regulation in Australia’ in Hodge et al (n 16) 169.
145. Roger Brownsword, ‘Regulating Nanomedicine: The Smallest of Our Concerns?' (2008) 2(1) NanoEthics 73.
146. Geoffrey Hunt, ‘Negotiating Global Priorities for Technologies’ (2008) 12(3) Journal of Industrial Ecology 277.
147. Ronald Sandler and W Kay, ‘The National Nanotechnology Initiative and the Social GoodM’ (2006) 34 Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 675.
148. See also Ludlow on Australian regulation (n 100) 169.
149. Ulrich Beck, Risk Society (Sage, 1992) 49;
150. Harald Throne-Holst and Eivind Stø, ‘Who should be Precautionary? Governance of Nanotechnology in the Risk Society’ (2008) 20(1) Technology Analysis & Strategic Management 103.
151. Han Somsen, ‘Cloning Trojan Horses: Precautionary Regulation of Reproductive Technologies’ in Roger Brownsword and Karen Yeung (eds), Regulating Technologies: Legal Futures, Regulatory Frames and Technological Fixes (Hart Publishing, 2008) 222.
152. Roger Brownsword and Han Somsen, ‘Law, Innovation and Technology: Before we Fast Forward-A Forum for DebateM’ (2009) 1 Law, Innovation and Technology 38.
153. See Bronwen Morgan and Karen Yeung, An Introduction to Law and Regulation (Cambridge University Press, 2007) 13.
154. Bridget Hutter, ‘Why Organizations Need to be Regulated-Lessons from History’, www.qfinance.com/financial-regulation-bestpractice/why-organizations-need-to-be-regulatedlessons-from-history?full.
155. Roland Clift, ‘Risk Management and Regulation in an Emerging Technology’ in Hunt and Mehta (n 33) 140.
156. Michael Power evoked in MacNaghten (n 95) 283.
157. Somsen (n 105) 226.
158. Jeremy Rifkin, ‘This Crop Revolution May Succeed where GM Failed’ The Guardian, 26 October 2006, 38;
159. Jay Rayner, ‘The War over GM is Back: Is the Truth any Clearer?' The Observer, 5 October 2008; ‘Prince “Must Prove Anti-GM Claim”' BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7566012.stm.
160. Marie-Claire Segger and Ashfaq Khalfan, ‘Principles of International Law Relating to Sustainable Development’ in Marie-Claire Segger and Ashfaq Khalfan (eds), Sustainable Development Law (Oxford University Press, 2004) 144.
161. Stephen Gammel, ‘Values’ in Stephen Gammel (ed), Ethics Portfolio (Office for Interdisciplinary Nanotechnology Studies, Darmstadt Technical University, 2009), www.nanocap.eu/Flex/Site/Download.aspx?ID=3982.
162. Hutter (n 107).
163. Somsen (n 105) 222.
164. Elsewhere, I have discussed the negative spillover effect of the GM fiasco on nanotechnology, termed the ‘biotechnology syndrome’.
165. Hailemichael Demissie, ‘Taming Matter for the Welfare of Humanity: Regulating Nanotechnology’ in Brownsword and Yeung (n 105) 350-1.
166. Rifkin (n 111).
167. ETC Group, Patenting the ‘Climate Genes’ … and Capturing the Climate Agenda, Communiqué Issue # 99, May/June 2008, www.etcgroup.org/upload/publication/687/03/etcgroupclimategenesfinal05_08.pdf.
168. David Souter, Whose Summit? Whose Information Society (APC Association for Progressive Communication, 2007) 9 and 24, www.apc.org/en/system/files/whose_summit_EN.pdf.
169. Jean-Pierre Dupuy, ‘Some Pitfalls in the Philosophical Foundations of NanoethicsM’ (2008) 32 Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 238.
170. Brownsword and Somsen (n 106) 49.
171. Hunt (n 33) 184;
172. Armin Grunwald, Book Reviews (2008) 14(1) HYLE-International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry, 56.
173. Grunwald (n 122) 56.
174. Roger Brownsword, ‘Nanoethics: Old Wine, New Bottles?M’ (2009) 32 Journal of Consumer Policy 356.
175. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, entry ‘Distributive Justice’, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justicedistributive/#Methodology. Distributive justice is about what to do now, not just what to think about truth in the abstract.
176. Richard Miller, ‘Beneficence, Duty and Distance’ (2004) 32(4) Philosophy & Public Affairs 368;
177. Chris Meyers, ‘Wrongful Beneficence: Exploitation and Third World Sweatshops’ (2004) 35(3) Journal of Social Philosophy 325.
178. Nordmann (n 48) 53.
179. Bill McKibben, Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age (Henry Holt, 2003) 109.
180. Is Beneficent Regulation the New Better Regulation? 143
181. Stephenson (n 25) 31.
182. Mike Treder and Chris Phoenix, ‘Challenges and Pitfalls in Exponential Manufacturing’ in Fritz Allhoff et al (eds), Nanoethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Nanotechnology (Wiley, 2007) 316.
183. Koepsell (n 32) 166.
184. Roger Brownsword, ‘So What Does the World Need Now? Reflections on Regulating Technologies’ in Brownsword and Yeung (n 105) 36.
185. John Rawls, ‘Distributive Justice: Some Addenda’ in Samuel Freeman (ed), John Rawls: Collected Papers (Harvard University Press, 1999) 163.
186. Nigel Cameron, ‘Nanotechnology and the Human Future: Policy, Ethics, and RiskM’ (2006) 1093 Annals of New York Academy of Sciences 284.
187. Rob Sparrow, ‘Negotiating the Nanodivides’ in Hodge et al (n 16) 96.
188. The ‘better regulation movement’ as used in Baldwin (n 13).
189. Koepsell (n 32) 163.
190. The phrase ‘reverse adaptation’ is from political philosopher Langdon Winner’s, cited in Richard Spinello, Cyberethics: Morality and Law in Cyberspace (Jones and Bartlet, 3rd edn 2006) 8.
191. See Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (Penguin Putnam, 2005) 103.
192. Treder and Phoenix (n 123) 316.
193. Deryck Beyleveld and Roger Brownsword, ‘Principle, Proceduralism, and Precaution in a Community of Rights’ (2006) 19(2) Ratio Juris 141, 166-7.
194. Pierre-Marie Dupuy, ‘State Responsibility for Violations of Basic Principles of Bioethics’ in Francesco Francioni (ed), Biotechnologies and International Human Rights (Hart Publishing, 2007) 34.
195. Edmund Pellegrino, ‘Toward a Virtue-Based Normative Ethics for the Health Professions’ (1995) 5(3) Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 274.
196. John Rawls, ‘The Idea of Public Reason Revisited’ in Freeman (n 133) 589.
197. Ogus (n 6) 344.
198. Roger Brownsword, Rights, Regulation and the Technological Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2008) 264.