The present essay focuses on the relationship between knowledge, power and ethics. At the start of a new millennium, many are the implications of the achievements in the sciences of life, as the repercussions of these achievements have consequences for the health professionals' everyday work and bring up to date the doubts on what is or is not 'good' for the human being. In mankind's trajectory, life (of the human being, of nature and of other beings not belonging to the human species) is the motive and the objective of learning. In the biotechnological context, we ask: to what extent are we distancing ourselves from this primary motive? In seeking an answer for this question, this essay, looks, in particular, at the work of Martin Buber, Hans Jonas and Emmanuel Lévinas. Eu e Tu, O princípio da responsabilidade and Humanismo do outro homem are works in which the 'alterity' is considered to be the motive of ethics. 'The other's presence' is the basis for the ethical encounter. The encounter with that which is 'different from me' initiates the 'act of knowing' and ethics.
ethics; responsibility; alterity; knowledge; power and ethics; ethics and science