Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy

Volume 3, 2018

Bioethics

Maya Rakhimova
Pages 91-97

A Move from Pluripotency of Cell to Pluripotency of Mind
A Bioethical Challenge of the Second Promethean Epoch

The scientific and technocratic world of today normally takes more than gives back: on the one hand, we’ve got some determinable standards of culture as terms of living in modern culture matrix (modern ‘musts’ and ‘shoulds’ of an average society member, such as the categories of success, career and welfare (material wealth), some huge opportunities in science); on the other hand, we’ve lost our spiritual identity as the way one conceives his/her place and role in the life space given. How could we know what would really be better for us today, what sort of happiness should we get in order to feel ourselves full and calm? It’s complicated to know and feel the direction for the development of our inner world. At the same time this development, having no relation to the technocratic progress, is the only means to reach a harmonic state of mind and soul and is the key to happiness in everyday life of a man. The article is devoted to an issue of a bioethical challenge of modern sci-tech epoch, evidencing disparity of active rise of scientific discoveries in separate sciences (e.g., in molecular biology) and of philosophical learning and apprehension of the results of such rise. Under analysis stands a philosophy’s peril about possible modification of a human conscience caused, in particular, by a bioethical revolution and gene engineering. It is suggested that the phenomenon of pluripotency of cell material discovered by scientists may consequently cause pluripotency of a human mind, which in its turn shall make real a threat of waste by a human being of a need and desire to stay a human being, shall cause degrading of a human need of spiritual growth.