Synthesis philosophica, Vol. 39 No. 2, 2024.
Izvorni znanstveni članak
https://doi.org/10.21464/sp39205
Integrative Bioethics and the Establishment of a New Epoch
Ante Čović
; Poljička 6, HR–10000 Zagreb
Sažetak
The paper begins with establishing the distinction between “historia” (German: Historie) and history (German: Geschichte), defining “historia” as the already-happened part of history (res gestae), while taking history as a more comprehensive term which in the dimension of future also includes the not-yet-happened, ideal, utopian part. The author calls the wholes of the alreadyhappened history and the whole in the open course of history epochs. Following the initial thesis that knowledge constitutes history, the paper uses the dominant type of knowledge that constitutes a particular epoch as a criterion for distinguishing historical epochs. Modern science as a special form of science represents the dominant type of knowledge on which the Modern Age as a historical epoch was based. Modern science was created by the Great Instauration (instauratio magna) of old science. The instauration of science was inaugurated by Francis Bacon and René Descartes. They set the benefit of humankind as the general ethical goal of science, which the author refers to as “generic utilitarianism”. On the basis of such an ethical goal, the strategic goal of modern science was defined as the mastery of nature for the benefit of humans. The history of the Modern Age basically took place as a gradual separation of the strategic goal of modern science from its ethical pedestal until finally they found themselves in direct opposition. In concrete terms, this took place as a gradual transformation of the category of generic benefit into the category of generic danger until finally the danger became obvious and total. This also marked the collapse of the model of scientific and technical progress and the end of the Modern Age as a historical epoch. The paper then considers the period of the turn of the epochs, in which the Modern Age ends and a new epoch begins, and defines the time frame of this happening as well as the “locus of epochal change”, by which the author marks the key scientific achievements that determine the epochal change. In these achievements, humanity, instead of the announced benefit, received a likely possibility of total self-destruction. The new situation in which humanity found itself was made aware through the conceptual triad danger – future – responsibility, which forms the categorical backbone in the works of Hans Jonas and Van Rensselaer Potter. After analysing the conceptual triad, in the concluding part of the paper, the author postulates as a spiritual task of the time the creation of a “third science” which, as a dominant type of knowledge, in synergy with bioethical sensibility, would enable the emergence of a new historical epoch which the author calls – bioethical epoch.
Ključne riječi
integrative bioethics; pluriperspectivism; knowledge; end of the Modern Age; bioethical epoch; danger; future; responsibility; Hans Jonas; Van Rensselaer Potter
Hrčak ID:
342336
URI
Datum izdavanja:
29.12.2024.
Posjeta: 534 *