ETHICAL AND HUMANITARIAN EXPERTISE: CONCEPTUAL DISTINCTION

Abstract

The article draws a conceptual distinction between two different institutional forms of assessment of technological innovations in different spheres of human life - between the practices and procedures of ethical expertise and precedent cases of humanitarian expertise. The authors suggest that the aims and objectives of these types of expertise are fundamentally different, despite the precedents in which, in fact, the aims for humanitarian expertise have already been set within the framework of ethical expertise. Ethical expertise implies the inviolability of a person's identity, norms and boundaries. It is called upon to protect human being from all kinds of intrusions and interventions (in medicine, digital environment, education) and treats him or her as a passive object of protection and care. But in an unfolding situation of human identity radical changes, when human beings themselves are choosing the trend of their identity extreme transformation, turning to an application of smart technologies, the task of redefining, restoring human norms and boundaries is being raised. The latter becomes the crucial aim of humanitarian expertise. Accordingly, the role of experts, the design of expertise itself, procedures and normative framework are also changing within these forms of expertise.