Limites do conceito de princípio: a bioética a partir do conceito de referencial

Abstract

The vertiginous development of the science and the technique produced high complex dilemmas for Bioethics. In the research about the conceptual fundament of these dilemmas, we face the concepts of (i) principle and (ii) guideline. Here clearly we will discuss about the first concept to after only start to outline what should be the second. To illustrate these questions, we will approach the cases of René Descartes (1596- 1650) and Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995). Let us say that the history of thought usually was the continuous search for a principle: a knowledge with certain reliability that allowed raise a safer building for science. In this context, the concept of guideline, in contrast with the concept of principle, will be such as an inflexion point of the dominant tradition.