Beyond Reduction and Relativity: Redefining the Moral Foundations in a Technocratic Society and Its Implications for the Moral Revival in Vietnam

Authors

  • Nguyen Anh Quoc University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City 71000, Vietnam

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.48048/ajac.2027.200

Keywords:

Inevitable, Free, Ethical, Social, Natural, Technocracy, Responsibility, Interdisciplinarity

Abstract

This study aims to reexamine the foundations of ethics in the context of contemporary technocratic societies, where biological conditions, technology, and social structures co-play a role in shaping human behavior. On that basis, the paper clarifies the relationship between inevitability and freedom as a constitutive condition of ethical behavior. It proposes an integrated theoretical framework that overcomes the separation between bioreductive and social-relativity approaches. In terms of methodology, the research uses an interdisciplinary philosophical approach, combining conceptual analysis, theoretical synthesis, and structural criticism. At the same time, methods of interpretation and induction are employed to restructure pairs of opposing categories as dynamic structures in the process of moral formation. The results of the study show that ethics is not a fixed normative system but a dynamic process, formed through the interaction between objective conditions and the subject's capacity for reflection. Categories such as interests and obligations, values and prices move in the relationship of mutual transformation. From there, the study concludes that ethics needs to be approached as an open, interdisciplinary, and historical system in which people are both governed by inevitable conditions and capable of creating value through responsible action.

Highlights
- Develops an interdisciplinary philosophical framework for rethinking ethics in technocratic societies.
- Defines ethics as a dynamic process shaped by biology, technology, social structures, and human reflection.
- Clarifies the dialectical relation between inevitability and freedom as the foundation of moral behavior.
- Analyzes interests, obligations, values, and prices as mutually transforming ethical categories.
- Examines Vietnam as a case for moral revival under digital transformation, institutional reform, and sustainable development.

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Published

2026-10-15

How to Cite

Quoc, N. A. (2026). Beyond Reduction and Relativity: Redefining the Moral Foundations in a Technocratic Society and Its Implications for the Moral Revival in Vietnam. Asian Journal of Arts and Culture, 27(1), e200. https://doi.org/10.48048/ajac.2027.200