Can Ethics Govern Technology? Bioethics in the Age of Tecnoscience

One of the premises behind bioethics is the conviction that ethics can govern technology. But is this conviction still tenable? In trying to answer this question, we cannot evade the line of thinking inspired by Heidegger that continues to be wholeheartedly skeptical about the chances of ethics steering technology. Battling against this skepticism, the aim of this chapter is to demonstrate that a different relationship between ethics and technology is feasible. This is done by referring on the one hand to Habermas, to debunk the theory that the powerlessness of ethics is a natural necessity, and on the other to Ladrière, to identify the conditions for technology to become an element of moral creativity.