Life, Technique and Event

Technique is not an unknown phenomenon to the genesis and development of western civilization. Some analysts maintain that the origin and development of technique could be interpreted in a different way, or to be more precise, in a metaphysical way, as the inevitable consequence of a metaphysical knowledge which in itself and in its apogee recognizes the triumph of being as nothing. Technique makes real that which is not, and at the same time can reduce something which exists to nothing. In this way, a typically instrumental idea of technique can take on a metaphysical value. This can be attributed to the fact that technological processes are increasingly an expression of power and efficiency, they are even able to "substitute" natural reality. It is this substitutability of nature which characterises our era, not simply the creation of the artificial. In this perspective, are biotechnologies related to human nature, and therefore respect internal ends (in particular moral ends), or do they want to construct a new image of nature, onto which process ends are grafted? According to Habermas, the traditional anthropological demarcation line has been removed between the nature that "we are" and the nature that "we have at our disposal". We cannot deny that what is happening is paradoxical: today our disposability coincides with our substitutability. "The praxis of reification" of objectifying, of commoditisation, places the living being in an infinite circle of exploitation, in a logic in which premises and conclusions of action inevitably coincide and in which self-evident axioms no longer exist. The obvious temptation at this point is to genetically moralise human nature; that is, improve the behaviour of individuals without their consent, drawing attention to the fact that the autonomous and inevitably non manipulative/exploitative relationship is not recognised as central and diriment - on an epistemic level - that each subject maintains with his/her own normative horizon (values, norms, obligations, ends). History and nature end up as being the result of man’s arbitrary project, which has efficacy and practical feasibility as its only criteria. In the same way, it is however undeniable that “life” as an event constitutes an indomitable and objective threshold of being, and only the acceptance of this premise can limit the negativity and violence of a technicist perspective, also in the biotechnological field.

La tecnica non è un fenomeno estraneo alla genesi e allo sviluppo delle civiltà occidentale. Alcune analisi sostengono che l’origine e lo sviluppo della tecnica possano essere ritenuti come la conseguenza di un sapere metafisico che caratterizza l’essere come nulla. La tecnica rende reale ciò che non lo è e allo stesso tempo riduce al nulla ciò che esiste. In questo modo, un’idea tipicamente strumentale della tecnica può assumere un valore metafisico. I processi tecnologici, e in particolare quelli legati alle biotecnologie, sono in modo crescente un’espressione di potere ed efficienza, essi sono persino in grado di “sostituire” a realtà naturale.