The Role of the Natural Law Concept as an Argument in Con temporary Discussions on the Ethics of Technoscience

Convergent technologies, which are the most important component of technoscience, open up to the humankind the possibilities of evolution as a consciously guided process of human nature transformation. The issue of the posthuman future of civilization is being discussed under the influence of the NBIC technologies' achievements. The aim of the article is to draw attention to the fact that the natural law norms represent an important argument in the discussion of the most urgent problem of the preservation of human nature - an important aspect of technoscience's ethical discourse. Since knowledge in technoscience is not merely a theoretical product of intellectual activity, but also a form of social practices, the assessment of this knowledge requires a more holistic sociological understanding of knowledge as such. For example, human enhancement technologies potentially form the basis for the transformation of human biological nature, which is the ontological foundation of sociality and culture as an environment for human life. The transformation of biological nature will inevitably lead to a change or even destruction of traditional cultural values. By analogy with the principle of reverence for life, we propose to be guided by the principle of reverence for a human being, drawing on the natural right of every person, including representatives of future generations, to be born with the biological nature of a human being. Based on the idea of the intrinsic purpose of natural law to implement the principles of equality, freedom, and justice in society, which generally contributes to the humanization of social life, we consider natural law as a “meta-right”, which is not only a certain conceptual system and the most important mechanism of social interaction, but also a normative criterion for evaluating technoscience projects. The prohibition imposed by the natural right to alienate the biological nature of a person is the ability of a person to preserve their identity as a basis for their progressive development and humanization of social life in all its spheres. The article shows that the concept of natural law can be used as an important argument in discussing the problem of preserving human identity, actualized by the challenges of technoscience.

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