Values, Science and Technology

Science and technology are today shaping the ecological, economic, and political conditions of present and future human societies to an historically unprecedented extent. They are profoundly affecting our self-understanding as human beings, thus changing the ways in which we interact with each other as well as those in which we relate to non-human animals and the biosphere at large.

With the activities under this research line ISR contributes to an analysis of the ethical implications of the ever more complex role that science and technology play in contemporary human life. Paying particular attention to the areas of life sciences/biotechnology and computer science/ICT, we explore the argumentative potentials inherent in the value systems proposed by religious traditions and secular ethics in order to bring them to bear in critical reflections on the normative challenges arising from scientific and technological progress.