Abstract
(Englisch)
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1. Scientific/Technological Objectives and Content
Biomedical breakthroughs were often regarded as great events when they extended the limits to the physical existence of human beings. Innovations such as genetic engineering, reproductive medicine, implantations, cell, tissue or organ transplantation, and even pharmacology and intensive care have actually led to a considerable prolongation of life expectancy. They have also supported the capabilities of human bodies in defeating diseases and they contributed to a better quality of life - however, within the still real contraints of finiteness. Modern medicine is part of a cultural project. Its normative programme aims at the mastery of nature and the organic mechanisms of the body, at the elimination of contingency in human existence. Limits are seen as negative: non-present abilities in individuals are classified as dysfunctions, diseases as adversaries, death as the foe.
The conferences raise questions connected with this negative assessment and potential negligence of limits. Which role have limits and their overcoming by biomedical technologies in the construction of modern human identity? Is this construction still adequate to the present situation of biomedicine and to the present social conditions? Does it provide a basis for moral assessments? What protects bioethics from becoming a legitimatory initiative for a technology to be used by the dominant powers of society? Are our currently used approaches to ethics related to, or even biased by the 'modern' attitude towards limits?
The first of two meetings is focused on the development of methods of bioethical deliberations, on the patterns of analysis they use, and on the practice of moral discourses within contemporary societies. Results of these reflections should be evaluated in the second meeting: in selected hot topics in the field of biomedical technology and practice. The series should yield ways to evaluate differing proposals for action in biomedicine, as well as the setting of moral, social, and political priorities within liberal and pluralistic societies.
2. Training Content
The design of the conferences should provide a situation of interdisciplinary cooperation and learning, bridging the realms of science, humanities and society. Young researchers should get the opportunity to bring in new approaches and ideas with short presentations and by participating in round table discussions.
The meetings are not designed to reproduce once again the state-of-the-art but to find new questions and new ways of treating them. How do state-of-the-art-methods in bioethics cope with limits of rational power of judgement? How can bioethical discourses be enriched with the existing critical discussions on constraints in the concepts of body, of relationships, of nature, and in the epoch of modernity itself which are taking place outside ethics, in different fields of humanities, but also within the sciences and medicine? This focus on a critical examination (and defense) of the state-of-the-art will give space for the active participation of young scholars.
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