The rapid development of life sciences and their technological applications in recent years has brought back to the forefront of philosophical debate age-old questions about the value of life, which are now posed with new intensity and under a new prism. The knowledge that overwhelms us daily and the possibilities of various interventions in humans, animals, and plants that are opening up create great optimism both in terms of satisfying "the appetite for knowledge" and improving the lives of people. On the other hand, many are concerned about the possibility of serious abuses and violations of rights, the alteration of life in general and human life in particular, as well as the environmental disruption that these can cause.

The book examines the related problems from the perspective of institutional ethics: to what extent is the legislator justified or obliged to intervene by enacting laws, by their very nature coercive, in order to regulate issues of biological, biotechnological, and biomedical research? The ethical questions or dilemmas associated with legislative intervention in these issues are systematically examined, the types of arguments that need to be taken into account, and the often conflicting ethical principles that need to be symmetrically satisfied.