What can the philosophy of science contribute to the ethics of science and technology?

Abstract

Born to enable its creators to fulfill their needs, scientific technique has always played a significant role in human civilization. This is the context in which we glimpse the advent of modern technoscience, which has significantly contributed to the increment of human control over nature. This study aims to analyze, under the focus of bioethics, reflections on the philosophy of science as they relate to the neutrality of science and converge with epistemic rationality, as well as to relate those reflections to the process of making decisions in the administration of technoscience. The study has raised doubts about the capacity of technoscientific knowledge to legitimize and justify the decisions within the ambit of the national science and technology systems, thus signaling the need for promoting a link between technoscientific self-regulation and bioethic hetero-regulation.