This article explores the transformation of ethics in a globalizing technological society. After describing some basic features of this society, particularly the primacy it gives to a special type of technical rationality, three specific influences on traditional ethics are examined: (1) a change concerning the notion of value, (2) the decreasing relevance of the concept of axiological hierarchy, and (3) the new internal architecture of ethics as a net of values. These three characteristics suggest a new pragmatic understanding of ethics. (...) From a pragmatic perspective, the process of introducing ethical values into contemporary society can be regarded as a beneficial Trojan horse, a metaphor that will be developed further. (shrink)

How does technical rationality influence, and eventually modify the general idea of scientific rationality as the epistemological paradigm of modernity? What could the future evolution of modern reason be before the unprecedented and growing presence of the technical factor in man's knowledge? The author refers to the ethical subsystem of humanistic or liberal arts as defined by Millán-Puelles.

El objetivo de este artículo es dar razón del itinerario popperiano en su primera fase de evolución, que conduce desde un punto de partida en la lógica de la ciencia hasta la justificación misma de las ideas metafísicas en las teorías científicas. Para ello se analizan las primeras aportaciones de Popper, mostrándose que, no obstante su inicial intencionalidad lógica, nunca estuvieron cerradas a una apertura especulativa desde los mismos contenidos científicos. Esta apertura desembocará más tarde en el Postcript a la (...) Lógica de la Investigación Científica, obra en donde desarrolla su metafísica propensivista de la realidad física y su concepción del universo abierto. Justamente el artículo pretende exponer las razones internas al propio pensamiento popperiano por las cuales se hace plausible y coherente esta evolución. (shrink)

This paper analyzes some issues derived from the social turn in the philosophy of science. The point of departure is the transformation of science into technoscience. If technoscience is conceived of as a system of human actions, then it requires the consideration of both epistemological and methodological parameters and the analysis of ethical, political, economic, and social aspects. This involves the necessity of assessing these parameters as a whole, by using a broad notion of value, namely, a pragmatic notion of (...) value. Accordingly, value will henceforth be a "pattern-guideline of solving problems." It leads to considering the philosophy of science as an axiology of technoscience. The following issues are developed: i) science as a value-laden enterprise; ii) value assessment as a task in the philosophy of science, which means justifying some special methodologies of assessment; iii) the proposal of specific criteria for establishing social policies of science and technology. (shrink)