La bioética ante las nuevas antropotecnias

In the recent years, some technologies have begun to be applied directly on the human being. These technologies have thus become anthropotechnics (Section 1). The development and implementation of these anthropotechnics raises several bioethical problems. Too often, these problems have been structured into the form of a dilemma in which we are forced to choose between the uncritical acceptance of the new anthropotechnics and a complete rejection of them. The poles of this dilemma are usually put in connection with the directions of time, so that the rejection of all anthropotechnics would be synonymous with attachment to the past, while the plain acceptance would cast us into a future marked by human enhancement (Section 2). This article tries to explain and criticise this approach, as well as to present a criterion and an attitude that will allow us to guide the development and implementation of new anthropotechnics (Section 3). In oreder to identify the criterion, some ideas by Hans Jonas will be used. To identify the attitude, inspiration will be found in some texts by Kierkegaard and Heidegger.