Future ethics. Principles for governing bio-hybrid robotics in a post-biological world
Future ethics. Principles for governing bio-hybrid robotics in a post-biological world
Bio-hybrid robotics—systems integrating living tissues with artificial mechanisms—challenge conventional ethical frameworks due to their ontologi- cal ambiguity and technological novelty. While some argue that ethics is either unnecessary or impossible in this domain—due to axiological pluralism, instru- mentalist views of technology, or epistemic uncertainty—this paper rejects such deflationary positions. We argue that ethical governance in bio-hybrid robotics is both feasible and necessary, and that it can be grounded in a naturalistic theory of normativity informed by the evolution of cooperation in Homo sapiens. Drawing on game theory and the logic of collective action, we show that ethical failure in this domain is best understood as a problem of coordination under uncertainty: actors (researchers, institutions, and society) may endorse ethical principles pri- vately, yet fail to act on them without common knowledge and mutual assurance. Using historical (chemical weapons, atomic research) and contemporary (CRISPR, generative AI) case studies, we demonstrate the consequences of ethi- cal fragmentation and propose mechanisms for establishing shared ethical expec- tations, including public commitments, ethical observatories, and interoperable governance infrastructures. To avoid both ethical paralysis and ethical monocul- ture, we advocate for a model of pluralistic coordination grounded in evolution- ary accounts of norm emergence and cognitive capacities for joint intentionality. Ethics, in this view, is not an external constraint but an infrastructural condition for responsible innovation. We use the term “post-biological” in the title not to imply the end of biology, but to signal a transition to systems in which biology is engineered, embedded, and functionally reconfigured in non-natural contexts
542-553
Astobiza, Aníbal M.
9515e22c-82c8-495c-aed5-420e9f505b88
Astakhov, Sergey
947c2d81-4602-4452-8254-f7e07539f4d7
Mestre, Rafael
33721a01-ab1a-4f71-8b0e-abef8afc92f3
25 November 2025
Astobiza, Aníbal M.
9515e22c-82c8-495c-aed5-420e9f505b88
Astakhov, Sergey
947c2d81-4602-4452-8254-f7e07539f4d7
Mestre, Rafael
33721a01-ab1a-4f71-8b0e-abef8afc92f3
Astobiza, Aníbal M., Astakhov, Sergey and Mestre, Rafael
(2025)
Future ethics. Principles for governing bio-hybrid robotics in a post-biological world.
In,
Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems: 14th International Conference, Living Machines 2025, Sheffield, UK, July 15–18, 2025, Proceedings.
(Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 15582)
Springer Nature, .
(doi:10.1007/978-3-032-07448-5_45).
Record type:
Book Section
Abstract
Bio-hybrid robotics—systems integrating living tissues with artificial mechanisms—challenge conventional ethical frameworks due to their ontologi- cal ambiguity and technological novelty. While some argue that ethics is either unnecessary or impossible in this domain—due to axiological pluralism, instru- mentalist views of technology, or epistemic uncertainty—this paper rejects such deflationary positions. We argue that ethical governance in bio-hybrid robotics is both feasible and necessary, and that it can be grounded in a naturalistic theory of normativity informed by the evolution of cooperation in Homo sapiens. Drawing on game theory and the logic of collective action, we show that ethical failure in this domain is best understood as a problem of coordination under uncertainty: actors (researchers, institutions, and society) may endorse ethical principles pri- vately, yet fail to act on them without common knowledge and mutual assurance. Using historical (chemical weapons, atomic research) and contemporary (CRISPR, generative AI) case studies, we demonstrate the consequences of ethi- cal fragmentation and propose mechanisms for establishing shared ethical expec- tations, including public commitments, ethical observatories, and interoperable governance infrastructures. To avoid both ethical paralysis and ethical monocul- ture, we advocate for a model of pluralistic coordination grounded in evolution- ary accounts of norm emergence and cognitive capacities for joint intentionality. Ethics, in this view, is not an external constraint but an infrastructural condition for responsible innovation. We use the term “post-biological” in the title not to imply the end of biology, but to signal a transition to systems in which biology is engineered, embedded, and functionally reconfigured in non-natural contexts
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Published date: 25 November 2025
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 507683
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/507683
ISSN: 0302-9743
PURE UUID: 5d54b96a-6675-4821-9d78-e2958d7a335b
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Date deposited: 17 Dec 2025 17:35
Last modified: 18 Dec 2025 03:15
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Author:
Aníbal M. Astobiza
Author:
Sergey Astakhov
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