To what extent do we have to impose limitations on ourselves because of climate change so that future generations don’t suffer?
It’s not entirely clear in the debate whether all the measures and shifts we need to put in place are limitations in the true sense. For example, eating less meat not only has a positive environmental impact—it also brings significant benefits for our health. Rather, we need to redefine “quality of life” as a concept, because everyone agrees that climate change and biodiversity loss aren’t going to make it any better. We should also think critically about the term “future generations,” because our decisions are already affecting our children and grandchildren who are alive today. The concept of sustainability grew out of this spirit of intergenerational responsibility in forestry and describes how decisions made today should also benefit the younger generations and those yet to come.
The debate in the DRZE’s anniversary year is all about “rediscovering bioethics.” How has the discipline continued to evolve?
In bioethics, as well as in other fields of applied ethics, there was a phase in which people prioritized individual autonomy in order to break the shackles of paternalism. In some cases, this produced forms of individualization that drifted into egoism. These days, the focus is more on a sense of belonging and collectivity, e.g. in medicine, where solidarity with regard to organ donation or sharing health data for research is important. Ethics means placing individual decisions in the context of the collective. It’s not just about personal decisions but also about taking responsibility within a community. We need to think globally when it comes to climate action. What we’re doing in Germany or Bonn in isolation isn’t enough.
What ethical “sticking points” do you see in global questions?
If we’re navigating through the world by our moral compass, then we’ll have a degree of intuition about justice, solidarity and dignity in human life. At a global level, there are principles that can be universalized, but cultural and religious differences play a role too. Climate action can only succeed if countries work together, so we need to find principles that can be communicated across cultures. We want to formulate joint strategies that take both local and global issues seriously. Unfortunately, it’s more so national egoisms that are dominating the political scene at the moment.
Science doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it’s a social practice in a social context.
Are we more dependent on nature than we thought?
Over the past few years, our focus has been turning increasingly toward planetary health. The concept of global health also encompasses the planet and the environment. We need to recognize that we’re creatures of nature who are reliant on that nature staying intact. Biodiversity research looks at how organisms interact, for example, and what as-yet undiscovered ingredients might help us to solve today’s problems, especially in drug research. Biodiversity also boosts our mental health. Global health affects each and every one of us, although the people in the Global South are being hit harder by climate change. However, if the desertification that’s going on in African countries continues, this will have a knock-on effect on migration to the health systems in the Global North.
How are philosophy and ethics tackling these challenges?
The current trend in many disciplines is for thinking to no longer be channeled along the familiar thematic and methodological corridors, such as purely medical, biological or agricultural ones. Instead, the social responsibility that research bears is increasingly at the forefront of people’s minds. The ethical questions being posed, which range from genetics and stem cells through to AI, are concerned particularly with justifying the aims of certain courses of action and agreeing on the means appropriate for achieving them. Only through dialogue between the individual disciplines and with society will we find answers.
How important is ethics in science?
Very. Ethical questions must be considered from an early stage—during the research process—rather than leaving this reflection step until a scientific innovation is already being used by society. Science doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it’s a social practice in a social context. Our doctoral students need to learn to consider social responsibility too alongside their research. For example, the University of Bonn recently introduced a central research ethics curriculum that we developed at the DRZE and that’s available to all the faculties.
What’s the link between AI and responsibility?
AI can support us, but responsibility has to stay with the humans involved. You can’t permit a breach of trust by saying “AI made the decision.” Decisions must be transparent.
In light of the various crises affecting the world, can ethics triumph in a global context?
Ethics doesn’t have any way of imposing sanctions. The law does that. Ethics and the law need to work together to enforce norms and standards. However, even the best law is useless if society doesn’t feel that it’s fair or logical. So you always need this interplay between ethics and the law. The power of persuasion is the strongest tool in ethics’s armory. It’s about the ability to pursue a debate, analyze arguments and make sound ethical decisions. Ethics is a practical science that investigates which arguments are really justified and which aren’t. And it’s precisely this that we need to push more strongly in today’s complex world, not least now that social media has shortened communication channels.