Resumen de Ecology and bioethics: When limits are not enough

José Miguel Serrano Ruiz-Calderón

• Ecology and bioethics as new disciplines appear during the twen- tieth century as a result of the horror produced by industrial and technological abuses. Therefore, as is generally conceded, they have a common and positive origin, Critics comprised mainly of writers, however, have observed that bioethics has led to a com- placent attitude that ultimately serves to provide moral alibis for much of the abuses made in the name of science. All that is tech- nically possible winds up being done finding justification in the edi- fices of expert bioethical analytics. You may suspect that the same is true in the field of ecology. This is definitely a betrayal of the claims of the founders of the new sciences, but it is not new in human history, where Man’s most valuable understanding and higher values have routinely been manipulated. Part of the current problem is the deification of Man, both as an individual life and with regard to the concept of humanity. Paradoxically, this deifica- tion causes the loss of the notion of dignity and promotes the con- version of concrete man into a mere instrument of technological action. Nonetheless, our times still have grounds for optimism.

  The fundamental answer lies in the notion of “limit” or “frame,” which puts man in his proper place within the universe, which is a distinct place from the purely natural world and is closely linked di- vinity.

  Humanae Vitae is a lucid illustration of this unifying con- ception.