Vol 22, No 3 (2018)

Tsvyk V.A., Tsvyk I.V.
The article analyzes the features of the formation and development of new ethical principles in the conditions of scientific and technological development of modern society. It is noted that the new technological realities of human existence require appropriate reflection in ethical concepts, introducing certain changes in them, the degree of novelty of which allows us to talk about the formation of a new ethics of the scientific, technological and information society. Scientific and technological development is understood as qualitative changes in the technological balance of the economy, leading to economic growth, through the development of science, the creation and use of advanced technologies. These processes need a moral assessment, since from the beginning of the industrial and, subsequently, information revolution, science, technology and new technologies brought not only a positive but also a serious negative contribution to the social and economic process. In the course of this assessment, it is necessary to resolve the contradiction between the need to realize the creative element of a person expressed in the creation of technology and the preservation of the humanistic orientation of scientific and technological development. By directing scientific and technical progress to ethical imperatives and the goals of sustainable development, mankind will be able to turn technology and technologies from morally neutral into value-weighted ones, thereby providing the future generation with the necessary moral imperatives for the humanization of science and technology. Scientific and technological activity is aimed at the development of mankind, has as its goal the good of man, therefore it is humane in nature, and its ethical principles are largely determined by an understanding of the foundations of humanism. For the modern, and even more for the future of the world scientific community, the further development of the tendency for the humanization of science and technology, the ever more complete subordination to the goals of mankind, the combination of research and value approaches, the development of their ethical foundations becomes particularly important.
RUDN Journal of Philosophy. 2018;22(3):281-290
Prokofiev A.V.

The purpose of the article is threefold. The first objective is to determine the general normative context where the problem of precaution arises. The second objective is to establish main factors turning it into a contemporary problem of the utmost importance. The third objective is to analyze alternative articulations of the precautionary normative logic and to assess their potential for implementation in practice. A moral agent faces the problem of precaution trying to fulfill basic moral requirement to prevent harm. He/she is anxious not to be accused of carelessness and negligence and thereby makes efforts to find some operational rules of proper precaution. In the recent condition of civilization the growing importance of the precautionary problem is connected with an increasing capacity of contemporary science and technology to cause a huge amount of harm that can not be compensated. The compensation is impossible in the case of rapidly developing global catastrophes. Beyond the catastrophic perspective irreversible harm is pervasive in the sphere where ongoing scientific, economic, and military activities have negative impact on natural environment and future generations. The precautionary normative logic is articulated in many different formulae of the precautionary principle. To implement it in practice, decision-makers should draw clear boundaries between the scope of precaution and the scope of cost-benefit analysis.

RUDN Journal of Philosophy. 2018;22(3):291-300
Mukhametzhanova V.S.
The article considers the notion of science ethics as well as the issue of responsibility of scientists in the modern society. The author discovers such key notions as the ethics of science, the ethos of science, determines the issues of professional and social responsibility of the scientists. Rapid development of scientific and technical progress has resulted in emergence of new problems and moral situations related to ethics. Today’s problem of scientists’ responsibility for results of his/her activities and meaningful elaboration of scientific product is of particular interest for the society. In this article the author separates the notion of the responsibility into two types: external and internal one. The external responsibility is implemented in relationships between science and the society; it is therefore commonly referred to as social one, while the internal one is represented as scientist’s professional responsibility within scientific community. As the author says, the problem of the responsibility of the scientists is closely linked to issues of personal freedom and moral choice. The article establishes basic standards of professional ethics of the scientist, such as prohibition of plagiarism, distortion of the results of scientific research, unselfish search and defense of truth, the problem of freedom of scientific research and social responsibility of the researcher etc. The problem of moral assessment of scientist’s cognitive activities themselves, the used term for which is ethos of science is of special interest for scientific ethics. Robert Merton’s concept determined ethic standards serving for approval and defense of specific scientific values, including unselfish search and defense of truth. Social norms codified in scientific ethos by R. Merton into so-called CODUS are presented by four basic principles - Universalism, Communism, Disinterestedness and the Organized Skepticism. The article also touches the aspects of the scientific responsibility of the researcher. Problems of scientific morality are especially acute for scientists working in the applied research fields, such as gene engineering, biotechnologies, biomedical and gene research of the human etc. As a result of scientific discoveries and the experiments the new “products” of researchers’ activities are created, which consequences are sometimes irreversible not only for the whole mankind but for the science itself. Reinforcement of the accountability of scientists towards the society is also associated with social changes in science itself. Today, scientific and technological revolution changes the orientation of science, shifting it towards learning of social nature of the human. It is important for the scientific community to recognize the professional responsibility not only for the application of obtained results of the activities but for social consequences of it. A special attention should also be drawn to the improvement of monitoring of the activities of modern scientists and the scientific community in total by the public.
RUDN Journal of Philosophy. 2018;22(3):301-309
Popova O.V., Savvina O.V.
The aim of the article is to consider practices of biotechnology that require gamete donation (cloning, human assisted reproduction technologies) and ethical and philosophical questions caused by these biotechnologies. The study is interdisciplinary and it is based on the research in philosophy, humanities, social and medical sciences. All of the sources in the study analyses gamete donation practices in different scientific fields. The study emphasizes social impact on familiar moral notions and the ability of these practices pose new ones. In the study the authors have come to conclusion that gamete donation causes new moral dilemmas and made us revisit the familiar notions of family, parental rights and obligations, family relations. At the same time gamete donation contributes to commodification of body and body parts, developing a new market where people make money. Commodification of body causes a set of ethical questions, such as permissibility of usage and exploitation of human bodies. The article describes current and possible future ethical and philosophical challenges, posed by practices of gamete donation. Many of these practices transcend familiar moral judgments and make people reconsider their attitudes toward family and family relations. Gamete donation practices are able to create new forms of family and body commodification practices.
RUDN Journal of Philosophy. 2018;22(3):310-318
Maylenova F.G.

The development of modern medicine directly depends today on biomedical technologies, thanks to which it is possible to overcome many diseases previously considered incurable. However, death or disability as a result of severe injuries is still inevitable, and the search for opportunities to save and heal people caught in such a situation is extremely relevant for modern medicine. The purpose of this study is to analyze various scenarios of what human of the future will become. The dreams of transhumanists about the future human, who will be able to change the damaged parts of the body like the details of the mechanism, begin to find their embodiment in the development of cyborgization and biohacking. At the same time, the dream of mankind about the acquisition by human ability to rejuvenate and self-healing begins to come true little by little. The material for this article was the result of research of the regeneration ability in some living organisms. For a long time, biologists believed that only the lower living organisms possess this ability, but then it was discovered that under certain conditions some warm-blooded animals are capable of regeneration. Bear in mind that the evolution of species moved from lower to higher forms, scientists believe that as species evolved, the ability of living beings to regenerate organs was gradually lost, and so one can assume that this human feature appeared to be “turned off” at some historical stage. However, the genes necessary for regeneration working for amphibians are also present in mammals, but their work is suppressed by T cells. So it is the immune system that protects warm-blooded people from wounds and infections, has proved to be the inhibitory factor that “keeps locked up” the mechanism of regeneration that occurs in the cold-blooded due to the blastema. Thus, while amphibians developed the ability to regenerate, for us nature “chose” immunity and T cells. However, the human body has an amazing resource - its stem cells, the research and use of which in medicine offers unprecedented opportunities. Perhaps, with their help it will be possible to expand the possibilities of the human body to self-regeneration and self-healing.

RUDN Journal of Philosophy. 2018;22(3):319-329
Zorin A.V.

This paper deals with the issue of classification and genre definitions of Buddhist sacral formulas known as dhāraṇī , mantra , hṛdaya , etc. The analysis is based on, first, the exploration of religious-philosophical background of the Buddhist approach to the texts of this kind (often called magical invocations, spells, etc.), second, the study of concrete textual data where such formulas are contained along with their denotations. Dealing with the first aspect, the author reconsiders an early but fruitful interpretation of dhāraṇī provided by V.P. Vasil’yev in the middle of the 19th century and not distinguished enough in the academic literature published in English. Most important for this paper is Vasilyev’s idea on the tight connection between dhāraṇī and the name considered as the essence of an object or a person so that its knowledge makes possible to grasp directly what is signified by the name. This idea, however, requires a certain clarification: the concept of emptiness of all dharmas and their sameness from the standpoint of the Ultimate Truth causes fundamental uncertainty in terminology when various definitions can be applied to the same sacral formulas being nothing but marks of different modes of their apprehension. This phenomenon is explored in the second part of the paper that analyzes concrete textual data extracted from the Tibetan Gzungs bsdus collection compiled by Tāranātha in the early 17th century. In spite of the attempts made by some Buddhist theorists to define criteria for the exact classification of the sacral formulas, the texts of dhāraṇī-sūtras show explicitly that the names of the genres can be loosely mixed and applied simultaneously to the same formulas.

RUDN Journal of Philosophy. 2018;22(3):330-340
Tashchian A.A.

Augustine’s idea of dialectic combines basic ancient traditions: Aristotelian, Stoic and Neoplatonic ones. But its subject-matter should be viewed not only empirically as a mixture of historical elements, but also properly philosophically, i.e. as dependent on its own concept. In the case of this logical approach every particular historical form of dialectic is a stage in the consciousness of its concept, so the elements of Augustine’s conception constitute a hierarchy. The highest level of this hierarchy is Neoplatonic, and on this stage the concept of dialectic in Augustine’s thought reaches its universally self-conscious, or absolute, form. And yet, although dialectic in Augustine’s work acquires the title of “true truth”, it is not posited as a concrete unity of subject and substance , which is its concept in itself. It will take fourteen centuries of development of thought to acknowledge the processuality of the thinking subject to be a background of the substantial realm of metaphysic, which will take place at the end of modernity in Hegel’s dialectic.

RUDN Journal of Philosophy. 2018;22(3):341-352
Berdnikova A.Y.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the concept “Consciousness of God” in the system of personalistic views of German philosopher Gustav Teichmüller (1832-1888). The difference between this concept and the similar concepts of “religious feeling” (“Gefühl”) and “knowledge of God” («Gotteserkenntniss») is shown. The evolution of representations of individual religious experience in Teichmüller’s thought in the article is traced in two contexts: in early, or “German” period of his work (the question of the immortality of the soul and the concept of “parousia” in Plato’s thought) and late, “Dorpatian” period, which was mainly devoted to the construction of its own original personalistic and Neo-Leibnizian system of views. The important part of that system was the project of “Philosophy of Religion” («Religionsphilosophie», 1886), which was planned as a part of a more general and un-released project of “Theologica”. The specific of Teichmüller’s thought of individual religious experience is disclosed upon the analysis of his system of “ontological epistemology” and also on the basis of methods of projectivism and perspectivism. On the basis of this methodology also Teichmüller’s distinction between “true” (Christianity as a true God-man religion) and “untrue” (pantheism, materialism, atheism, Buddhism, Brahmanism, etc.) religious and philosophical systems are analyzed. The close connection between Teichmüller’s ideas of individual religious experience and the previous tradition (A. Trendelenburg, R.G. Lotze, German liberal theology, F. Schleiermacher, A. Ritschl, D.F. Strauß, etc.) is demonstrated. Also is shown Teichmüller’s influence on both western (A. von Harnack, R. Eucken, W. Stern) and Russian (“Yuriev's philosophical school”, Ye.A. Bobrov, V.F. Liutoslavsky, V.S. Scilkarsky, A.A. Kozlov, etc.) philosophical and religious thought.

RUDN Journal of Philosophy. 2018;22(3):353-364
Lvov A.A.

The historians of philosophy in Russia and abroad have become frequently challenged with the demand for rethinking and reconsideration the traditionally accepted views on their trade, the very possibility of different traditions of philosophical thought to interact, and as a result - to revisit the very definition of philosophy. The topical historical and philosophical discussions deal with a whole combination of issues, that concern fruitful and constructive dialogue between different cultures, the possibility of mutual enrichment with values and ideas among formerly distinguished schools, tendencies and movements in the certain regional philosophies. The trend to integrate oriental and western styles of thinking is at the cutting edge of the historical and philosophical investigations, especially of comparative and intercultural philosophies, as well as the philosophy of language. However, there are those who keep doubting both about the adequate and correct correlation between the western scientific philosophy and oriental type of wisdom, and the consistency of the history of western philosophy as such, and they are not few. In these terms, in historical and philosophical discussions one may reveal both historical and epistemological arguments for the positions of the scholars. The paper observes the opinions of the investigators and historians of oriental and western styles of philosophy, considers their positions and watches the consistency of their logic and argumentation they develop. Besides, it is of a high importance to demonstrate that they are the historians of philosophy who possess the efficient apparatus to found the possibility of constructive and meaningful dialogue between different cultures of philosophizing. From this perspective, the historian of philosophy becomes a kind of a selectionist of thought, who analyzes the ability of this or that philosophical culture to grow in a foreign breeding ground.

RUDN Journal of Philosophy. 2018;22(3):365-376
Scientific reports
Kostiuk A.A.

This article is devoted to the problem of creativity’s analysis in the context of modern society. Creativity is understood in a broad sense, as a productive activity of man. Creative activity - complex phenomenon of human existence - includes all the transformations which take place in society in passing to the information stage. The author makes an attempt to reveal the essence of creativity of the information era, considering the crisis of self-identification, the transformation of communication and the changing of man’s way of being in the world. The problem of self-identification refers to the image which is created by the person and evaluated by the Other, who acts as a judge for us. Along with this, a person loses his former status, a man turns from a free creator into a functional performer. In that context, the author comes to the conclusion that it is necessary to study the phenomenon of simulative creativity, which he defines as alienated creativity. An emphasis is placed on the communicative aspect of the creative activity’s transformation, which is illuminating the importance of dialogue as theсreativity’s immanent foundation. The process of creative activity’s transformation is associated with the problem of simulativeness, which determines the nature and the content of this activity. The author notes that creative activity, acquiring a simulative nature, gives this simulativity to all the components that make up its structure. The problem of simulative creativity turns into the alienation of creativity as a special way of human’s being. The author describes the new way of being in the conditions of the information society’s simulative reality in termsof “alienation of creativity”. Based on the analysis of simulative creativity, the author concludes that it is possible to construct a universal theory of alienation - the theory of creativity’s alienation.

RUDN Journal of Philosophy. 2018;22(3):377-385
Criticism and bibliography
CHALLENGING PROBLEM OF ETHICS IN HIGHER EDUCATION: Review of Tsvyk V.A. (ed.), Ethics of Higher Education. Moscow: RUDN University; 2016. 210 p. (In Russ)
Kryanev V.Y., Pavlova T.P.


RUDN Journal of Philosophy. 2018;22(3):386-390

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