Ethical challenges of technoscience – information technologies

Abstract

Science and technology frequently contribute to one another: scientific advances lead to the development of new technologies, and new technologies broaden the experimental potential of science, enabling advancement of research. This is a motivation behind introduction of the concept of technoscience addressing the integration of science and technology – the process progressing from the beginning of the twentieth century, which has been the source of extraordinary achievements of our civilisation, but – at the same time – has engendered global socioeconomic transformations whose negative side effects may endanger humanity. This paper is devoted to an outline of ethical challenges implied by the development of technoscience, with special emphasis of those which are rooted in the development of information technologies. It is suggested that those challenges should be met by people of technoscience in a concerted effort undertaken with philosophers and educators.