The development of bioethics has presented us with an ever increasing number of very different discussions over the last four decades. Bioethicists were initially c- cerned about questions of reproduction end of life organ transplantation and a broad range of moral problems raised by the forward march of the life sciences. Meanwhile these sciences grew to be a major in?uence in nearly all areas of our lives. Biotechnology has brought about considerable changes in agriculture plant breeding pharmacy veterinary medicine and medicine in general. These scienti?c and technological changes in turn are having a profound in?uence on economy law politics and culture. The life sciences are now certain to change our world in important ways. Because of their potentially all-pervasive and highly diverse impact bioethical discussions concerning the life sciences are no longer simply about ethical gui- lines or legal regulation of concrete technologies. Certainly the on-going debates concerning rules and regulations are complicated - and becoming more so. Nev- theless bioethics cannot be restricted to these topics - they cover but a fraction of the social and personal consequences of bio-technological change. The life sciences drive us to rethink long-time-honoured concepts of humanness of personhood of nature. Bioethics therefore needs to develop an understanding of the impact those changes have on the conceptualization of the ethical dimension of the life sciences.