Bioetički osvrt na filozofiju Nikolaja A. Berdjajeva - Promišljanje degradacije duhovnosti i bîti tehnike u prijelomu epoha
A Bioethical Review of Nikolay A. Berdyayev’s Philosophy Rethinking the Degradation of Spirituality and the Essence of Technology at the Turn of the

Summary/Abstract: The problem of the turn of epochs is debated once more nowadays. Contemporary discussions on bioethics once again pose this very question. Bioethics as such was created as a moral and civilisational response to the new historical situation. In that context one needs to analyze, on the one hand, both the problem of the turn of epochs and the prediction of the new Middle Ages proposed by Russian philosopher N. A. Berdyayev and, on the other hand, the emergence of bioethics which raised the question of the turn of epochs for the second time. Will we really reach the new epoch, what will it look like, what and in which form shall we transmit from the present epoch? These questions ultimately depend on the state of the human spirit which can be deciphered from man’s relation to technology, taking into account the strong interactive role which technology plays in our daily lives. Bearing in mind that the relation between the man and the machine is one of the crucial bioethical issues, this question of technology should be analyzed from Berdyayev’s relation between the man and the machine, but also within Heidegger’s analysis of the essence of technology. Similarly to Berdyayev, Heidegger states that technology must not be contradicted or denied, but rather, changed in a way to serve the human spirit – which is entrusted with the task of understanding the saving elements. The spirit of the modern man is the spirit of the divine-like creature (in the sense of the power of creation). It is the spirit of a man who, with the help of a developed machine can challenge nature (Heidegger), but this same machine, which serves him as a means, has evolved to the point that it can challenge the man. In this context it seems essential to turn to bioethics. It is precisely bioethics which, thanks to its pluri-perspective methodology, takes credit for covering different systems of values to direct the present system in the right way and protect the future system and the future in general. However, the questions remain whether bioethics will stay the only positive example among the multitude of negative signs and predictions, whether it will lead us to a new, yet unknown, epoch and whether we will take seriously the principle of responsibility which leads us to the threshold of the bioethical epoch and whether the change in the spirit of the present-day man, triggered by the bioethical thinking, can change technology to make it subordinate to the human spirit.

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