Rapid technological developments, such as artificial intelligence and synthetic biology, bring great promise but also potentially serious consequences for social and economic spheres. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly noticeable that global environmental developments such as climate change, loss of biodiversity and chemical pollution are progressing rapidly. The tension between the positive potential of technological developments and their possible negative consequences creates uncertainty and intensifies social controversy. As a result, there is a growing need for ethical guidance. This also applies to the question of how such challenges can be addressed and regulated at the political level.
The project focuses on ethics counselling in public administrations. It is a collaboration between Simon Meisch (International Centre for Ethics in Science, IZEW), Andreas Bachmann (Federal Office for the Environment, FOEN, CH) and Ariane Willemsen (Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology, EKAH). The two Swiss partners are responsible for ethics advice within their federal authorities. The collaboration focuses on two questions: What skills do people who provide ethics advice in public administrations need? How can university ethics teaching promote such skills? For example, interdisciplinary thinking, because different bodies of knowledge are relevant to ethical judgements; critical thinking, because different moral claims need to be identified and classified; and systemic thinking, because ethics in public administration always takes place within a specific regulatory context.
The innovative potential of the project lies in the fact that it focuses on a professional field that has so far played only a minor role in university ethics teaching but is of great importance for public administrations. At the same time, it can be assumed that academic (application-oriented) ethics, with its numerous interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary links, will also benefit conceptually, methodologically, and didactically from dealing with the challenges of this professional field. The skills to be acquired are relevant not only for the professional field of public administration, but also for people providing policy advice within NGOs. In addition, the project links current research with professional practice and thus offers transfer potential for further academic training.
