Technoscience and the Shift of Civic Ideals: Ethical and Cultural Dimension

Abstract

The impact of modern technological advances on the changing cultural, ethical and social ideals has been of interest in recent decades. The proponents of technological determinism are convinced that the essential basis of culture is technology as it shapes its semantic context and determines civic ideals. However, the developers of cultural constructivism state that technologies themselves are shaped by cultural values and practices, thus acting as an integral part of their functioning. The article demonstrates the one-sidedness of these approaches, showing that the relationship between technology, culture, and social ideals is neither linear nor uniquely determined. It rather involves the processes of adaptation, transformation, and mutual formation. With this in view, the method of analysis and the comparative method were used in the article. The conclusion about the ambiguity of this mutual influence and mutual creation has been made. The latest technologies, on the one hand, create favourable conditions for the revival of culture and ethics. On the other, they pose a serious challenge to the very foundations of our humanity. It has been stated that for the ‘survival’ of a human and the culture in the conditions of a new technological reality, a new rationality is required, that is, a clear understanding of who we are, where we are going and why. This, in its turn, necessitates the ethics, aimed at developing clear moral norms regarding the creation of new technological and scientific opportunities and their controlled use to minimise negative impacts on humans, their values and ideals.