Ethical and Axiological Problems of Involving the Public in a Social and Humanitarian Assessment of the Risks and Consequences of Modern Science

Abstract

This article focuses on the urgent philosophical and methodological issue of organizing effective social control over the development and implementation of modern technoscience. The relevance of the topic is caused by the fundamental transformation of science associated with the strengthening of its production and its technological and socio-administrative functions to the detriment of its humanistic components. The intensive expansion of technoscience into all spheres of human existence inevitably increases its risky nature, which necessitates a transdisciplinary understanding and orientation towards traditional human values: truth and good. An effective mechanism of social reflection on the achievements of technoscience is a socio-humanitarian examination, which attracts not only the elite scientific community but also social institutions, public organizations, and many volunteers — non-professional examiners who realize the ability of creative self-organization and insights in order to improve its adequacy. Various world practices of involving the public in the discussion of the ethical acceptability of research in modern technoscience were studied. Ethical and axiological problems associated with the participation of society in the development and humanization of modern science were thereby identified.
 Keywords: philosophy of science and technology, modern science and society, socio-humanitarian examination