Modern medical technologies and psychology of consent: A new look at bioethics

The themes which characterize the debate over bioethics play an important role in western democratic society. The dilemmas raised by new scientific discoveries give testimony as to how contemporary common sense is plagued by a profound sense of anguish over possible future anthropological transformations. One of the central problems is the social construction of consent as a psychological strategy which seeks to orientate public opinion towards acceptance of the new applications of science and technique. In order to understand similar phenomena the present article defends the theory that social psychology must take on, as its object of study, thinking society, characterized by discussion and reasoning over themes relevant to bioethics. The aim of the authors is to single out some theoretical referents of contemporary culture in order to define a conceptual framework within which to develop psychological research studies able to analyse the relationships between ideologically-oriented ethical practices, scientific-medical knowledge and common sense in the social construction of consent. The treatise falls within in the psycho-social research area of socio-constructionist and cultural matrix.