Bioethics - Branch of Applied Philosophy or a New Social Science with Interdisciplinary Nature

In the present study we aim to achieve a clarification of the legitimacy of claims of bioethics - and in general of applied ethics - to be part of the knowledge corpus specific for philosophy. Opinions in this regard are divided, and there are series of thinkers, appreciating that bioethics is a transdisciplinary speech about to self-constitute as science, that should detach from the philosophical theoretical perspectives as it builds its own object of activity and own epistemic perspective. The methodology is an analitical one. We consider that applied ethics and bioethics are areas of transdiciplinary reflection with a predominant philosophical orientation, but who should not ignore the epistemic particularities of different branches of science or social practice to which it applies. The transdiciplinar perspective makes applied ethics an area of transparency to knowledge, with openings to the horizon of philosophy, of social sciences and practice. The autonomy of ethics creates an epistemic horizon with a particular status. In our vision, applied ethics, at least in the area of bioethics and ethics of professions, maintains a strong philosophical component through constantly reporting to the great philosophical theories. Applied ethics gradually shapes its own area of research, borrowing and particularizing research instruments from the area of social sciences. We draw the atention on the distinction between medical ethics, as an ethical reflection inside the medical space, and the bioethics as a philosophical reflection on the development of medicine, and in general of science and its implications on the world of life.