Toward Second-Generation Bioethics: Normative foundations for Human Germline Gene Editing

The accelerated expansion of biotechnology has reshaped the relationship between knowledge, power, and morality, generating unprecedented dilemmas surrounding human germline gene editing and revealing the insufficiency of the classical principalist framework to address intergenerational and planetary challenges. Within this context, the objective of this article is to formulate a normative and operational framework for second-generation bioethics capable of overcoming the limitations of principalism and responding to the ethical, legal, and social implications of hereditary genetic manipulation. The results reveal three structural transformations in contemporary moral architecture: the transition from anthropocentrism toward a relational ontology of life, from individual autonomy to intergenerational co-responsibility, and from normative morality to an ethics of uncertainty. It is concluded that second-generation bioethics redefines the role of ethics in biotechnology, orienting it toward moral sustainability, genetic justice, and global responsibility as the normative foundations for anticipatory governance of the biotechnological future.