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"Philosophy of Education"

2014 year, number 2

Construction of the human being as an important problem of ecological education

T. N. Ketova
First Pavlov State Medical University of St. Petersburg, Leо Tolstoy st., 6/8, St. Petersburg, 197022, Russia
Keywords: ecological education, anthropological transformation, identity, transhumanism, post-human, bioethics

Abstract

The problem of transformations of the human being in relation to real possibilities of changes in the human biological nature is studied in the article. In the XX-XXI centuries the human being becomes an object of technological, biochemical and genetic design and faces the danger of losing identity. The aim of ecological education and upbringing is to form a value-based attitude to human being as a biosocial unity. Human needs have a tendency to dynamical development and that’s why the problem of boundaries of existence becomes especially topical. In the XX-XXI centuries the idea of transformation of the human being moves to the sphere of practical implementation, which leads to development of various anthropological-technical strategies. In the second half of XX century, the tendency of medicalization of Western society has become obvious, which gave birth to another tendency - weakening of natural human health. The human becomes an object of medical policy. Ethical values are being reconsidered and there is an emerging necessity of different positioning of these values in the process of biomedical development. The emergence of bioethics could be considered as an answer to challenges of technogenic civilization. The necessity of understanding the achievements in scientific-technical progress in biomedical sphere and extensions of human rights movement are reasons of dynamical development of bioethics. The basic principles of bioethics reveal its ecological content. In the age of anthropological transformations there are different attitudes to materiality. Firstly, this is an abandonment of substational paradigm and acceptance of the functional one instead, which is most clearly expressed in the position of transhumanism. The state of post-human is characterized by artificial intelligence, constant pursuit of modifications and immortality. Another tendency is expressed in understanding life as a gift, which should be cared for and developed, avoiding destructions, as a result of which the humans can lose control over the flow of radical transformations. The pursuit of spiritual and material unity of the human being does not exclude, in the ecological perspective, a need to preserve physical and mental health by using scientific achievements and technics. The goal of bioethics is not only in the rational analysis of moral problems in biomedicine, but also in stimulating broad discussion of all value-related aspects of existence of living nature. The bioethics acquires the status of a social institute in modern society, which determines the importance of not only its teaching in medical universities, but also the inclusion of its elements into the system of higher humanitarian education.