Value Orientations of Subjects of Scientific and Technical Activity in the Context of Transition to a Post-Information Society

Abstract

This article explores the transformation of the value orientations of scientific and technical actors – scientists, engineers, and designers – in the context of the transition from an information to a post-information society. It is argued that while the information age was dominated by the values of efficiency, access to data, and technological neutrality, the post-information society is characterized by an ‘axiological shift.’ Information ceases to be a resource and becomes an ontological environment, which highlights the issues of responsibility of scientific and technical actors in the information environment, its semantic richness, and its ethical understanding. Under these conditions, the actor in scientific and technical activity ceases to be a ‘source’ of symbolic and technical systems, an automatic translator of objective data. They become creators whose activities directly shape the anthropological and social environment. The methodological basis of the study is an activity-based approach and the concept of the ethical dimension of science and technology. The author demonstrates that the information ‘saturation’ of the modern environment exacerbates value contradictions, leading to a revision of existing ethical frameworks and a search for modern ones. The article devotes particular attention to new forms of value positioning, such as ‘ethical engineering,’ which involves integrating moral principles directly into the structure of technical knowledge and activity, as well as the concepts of responsible research and innovation (RRI) and technology assessment. Key vectors of transformation are identified: a shift from responsibility for results to uncertainty management, from objectivity to contextual justice, and from control to trust. The article substantiates that, in the context of hybrid subjectivity and distributed activity, classical normative ethics with individual responsibility is giving way to a new ethical orientation with distributed responsibility. It concludes that a new ethos is emerging, based on situational value choice, reflexivity, and a projective approach to the future. The article contributes to the clarification of the socio-philosophical determinants of the post-information society and proposes a parametric approach to value changes in modern scientific and technological activities.