The article analyses the foundations and principles of global bioethics in the European ethical, legal and philosophical contexts. An analysis of European bioethics shows that there are at least three modern models of European bioethics: bioethics as metaethics; bioethics as biolaw; bioethics as applied biomedical ethics. European bioethics originates in the global bioethics of V.R. Potter and F. Jahr, and encompasses not only moral issues of medicine and public health, but also global environmental and social problems. In this context, the (...) convergence of the natural and the human is seen as a rehabilitation of practical philosophy, a further study and development of the principles of practical reason, understood by analogy with the objective laws of nature. The study of constitutions, legislative and legal regulations of European countries has revealed a variety of bioethical principles in the field of biomedicine. However, at the level of legislation in biomedicine, there is a certain influence of the American model of bioethics, biomedical ethics, which is manifested in the principlism methodology and the weak connection between medical and environmental issues. Global bioethics in the European context is characterized by an intensification of bioethical reflection, social relationships and legislative activity in biomedicine within pan-European structures, such as the European Council and the European Union. The defining feature of global bioethics as a phenomenon of European culture and ethos is that its principles can be “activated” only as a semantic and logical integrity. Bioethical principles serve as a kind of harmonising factor of European biopolitics. (shrink)

Nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, information technologies and cognitive sciences (NBIC) have gradually gained traction in the United States of America (USA), subsequently expanding to Europe, and are now proliferating worldwide. Scientists are trying with more success to remove the causes of death by “repairing” humans, or even by “increasing” their physical and cognitive capacities. NBICs not only can help researchers promote “one health” by improving environmental conditions, human and animal health, but also, they can lead humanity towards transhumanism through eugenics. Thanks to (...) the principle of totality, the intentional modification of the human body for therapeutic purposes through surgery has always been seen as a source of medical progress. But how far can the living human body be modified at will? Gilbert Hottois and Jean-François Mattei have deciphered transhumanism to question its alleged “humanism” and study its impact on our humanity. Today, science has gone further thanks to the possibilities offered by converging NBIC technologies and especially with the advent of human genome editing! The objective of this article is to highlight the hopes and fears of Homo sapiens following the applications of NBICs, and to propose ethical reflections on the invading transhumanist and posthumanist doctrines that tend to become spiritual movements, even religions. A summary study, based on a scientific bibliography, linked to NBICs and including ethical aspects, will present the ethical issues of the convergence of nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, information technologies and cognitive sciences, which could become a springboard for transhumanism and posthumanism. (shrink)