Dr. Leonie Bossert

Independent Junior Research Group Lead Ethics Lab

Universität Tübingen
Cluster of Excellence HUMAN ORIGINS

Rümelinstraße 23
D-72070 Tübingen

R 710

leonie.bossert@uni-tuebingen.de

Research

"My research as a normative ethicist and political philosopher focuses on the normativity of treating human remains and the challenges this raises within democratic theories and values, as well as within theories of justice. I work at the intersection of the ethics of science, technology, and environmental ethics, thereby consistently taking non-anthropocentric perspectives into account.“


CV

07/2026 - present
Independent Junior Research Group Lead Ethics Lab

Human Origins Cluster of Excellence, University of Tübingen

Lent term 2026
Visiting Researcher

Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, University of Cambridge

04/2024 – 08/2026
Postdoctoral University Assistant

Philosophy of Media and Technology, University of Vienna

Fall semester 2022
Visiting Researcher

Center for Human Values, Princeton University 

08/2021 – 03/2024
Postdoctoral Researcher

International Center for the Sciences and Humanities and at the chair Ethics, Theory and History of the Life Sciences, University of Tübingen 

07/2021
PhD (Dr. phil.)

Bioethics, University of Tübingen       


Scientific work

Publications

Selection (for all, see https://leonie-bossert.com/ ):

Monographs:
 

Bossert, Leonie N. (2022): Gemeinsame Zukunft für Mensch und Tier – Tiere in der Nachhaltigen Entwicklung. (Common future for humans and animals – Animals in Sustainable Development) Baden-Baden: Karl Alber 

Bossert, Leonie (2015): Wildtierethik (Wild Animals Ethics), Baden-Baden: Nomos.

 

Journal Articles:
 

2026:
Bossert, Leonie N.; Palmer, Clare (2026): Geoengineering and Animal Ethics: The Case of Stratospheric Aerosol Injection. In: Ethics, Policy & Environment.

Rizk, A., Jones, E., Saab, A., Strobeyko, A., Soininen, N., Burci, G., Höll, D., Bossert, L., et al. (2026): Microbial rights for a planetary age. In: Earth System Governance 28, 100331 (Open Access). 

Ryan, Mark; Bossert, Leonie N. (2026): Facing the pain: ethical considerations of AI-based pain detection of farmed animals. In: AI and Ethics 6 (110). 

Eline De Jong; Bossert, Leonie N. (2026): Animal and Technology Ethics: The Need to Bring Them into Conversation. In: Ethics, Policy & Environment, 1–6.

2025:
Bossert, Leonie N. (2025): Opium for the Earth at the expense of nonhuman animals? Geoengineering and interspecies justice. In: Climatic Change  178 (186) (Open Access).

Bossert, Leonie N.; Loh, Wulf (2025): Why the carbon footprint of generative large language models alone will not help us assess their sustainability. In: Nature Machine Intelligence 7, 164-165.

Bossert, Leonie N.; Höll, Davina (2025): On the values of microbes: An ethical investigation of relational values associated with the microbial world. In: People and Nature 7 (4), 804-814 (Open Access). 

Bossert, Leonie N.; Potthast, Thomas (2025): Genetic engineering, nature conservation, and animal ethics: Why genetically modifying wild sentient animals is not a good option. In: Environmental Ethics, 47 (2), 117-139 (online first 2024).

Bossert, Leonie N. (2025): Künstliche Intelligenz in der Veterinärmedizin – Ethische Risiken und Nebenwirkungen. In: TIERethik 2025/1 (30), 216-231.

2024:
Bossert, Leonie N.; Crompton, Tom; Dutta, Anwesha; Seager, Joni (2024): Mapping the patriarchy in conservation. In: Nature Portfolio Biodiversity 3, 38 (Open Access).

Bossert, Leonie N. (2024): Interspecies Justice within a normative Sustainable Development framework – Animal-friendly energy systems as a test case. In: Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 37, 14 (Open Access).

Bossert, Leonie N.; Coeckelbergh, Mark (2024): From MilkingBots to RoboDolphins: How AI
changes human-animal relations and enables alienation towards animals. In: Nature – Humanities and Social Science Communications 11, 920 (Open Access).

Ryan, Mark; Bossert, Leonie N. (2024): Dr. Doolittle uses AI: Ethical challenges of trying to speak whale. In: Biological Conservation 295: 110648 (Open Access).


2023:
Bossert, Leonie N. (2023): Benefitting Nonhuman Animals with AI: Why Going Beyond “Do No Harm” Is Important. In: Philosophy and Technology 36, 57 

Bossert, Leonie N.; Hagendorff, Thilo (2023): The ethics of sustainable AI: Why animals (should) matter for a sustainable use of AI. In: Sustainable Development 31, 3459-3467


2022:
Hagendorff, Thilo; Bossert, Leonie N.; Tse, Yip Fai; Singer, Peter (2022): Speciesist bias in AI. How AI applications perpetuate discrimination and unfair outcomes against animals. In: AI and Ethics 3, 717-734 (Open Access).

Höll, Davina; Bossert, Leonie N. (2022): Introducing the Microbiome: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. In: Endeavour 46, 100817.

Blattner, Charlotte E.; Bossert, Leonie N. (2022): Tierarbeit – Animal Labour – Der Versuch einer Einordnung. In: TIERethik 2022/1 (24), 8-38 (Open Access).

Bossert, Leonie N.; Schlegel, Lena (2022): Anthropozentrismus (in) der Krise. Warum Probleme nicht mit der Denkweise gelöst werden können, die sie auch hervorgerufen hat.  In: GAIA Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society 31/1, 14-18.

Höll, Davina; Bossert, Leonie (2022): “What would a microbe say?”: Paving the Way to Multispecies Communication. In: TRANSPOSITIONES Journal for Transdisciplinary and Intermedial Culture Studies, Vol. 1 (1), Multiple Knowledges. Learning from/with Other Beings, 103-118 (Open Access).


2021:
Bossert, Leonie; Hagendorff, Thilo (2021): Animals and AI. The role of animals in AI research and application – an overview and ethical evaluation. In: Technology in Society 67, 101678.
2018
Bossert, Leonie (2018): Von Hirschkühen, „Milchkühen“ und Waschbären: Begründung unterschiedlich bestehender Hilfspflichten und ihre Anwendung auf „invasive“ Arten. In: TIERethik 2018/2 (17), 58-84.
 

Edited volumes:
 

Bossert, Leonie N.; Höll, Davina (Eds.) (2022): The Microbiome and its Challenges for the Environmental Humanities. Special Issue of Endeavour 46, Issues 1-2.

Meisch, Simon; Lundershausen, Johannes; Bossert, Leonie; Rockoff, Marcus (Eds.) (2015): Ethics of Science in the Research for Sustainable Development, Baden-Baden: Nomos.

Voget-Kleschin, Lieske; Bossert, Leonie; Ott, Konrad (Eds.) (2014): Nachhaltige Lebensstile – Welchen Beitrag kann ein bewusster Fleischkonsum zu mehr Naturschutz, Klimaschutz und Gesundheit leisten? (Sustainable lifestyles – How can less meat consumption contribute to nature conservation, climate protection and health?) Marburg: Metropolis.

 

Book chapters:
 

Bossert, Leonie N.; Höll, Davina (2024): Narrating the Uncanny Triad: Imagining Microbe, Animal, and Human Entanglements within the Planetary Health Humanities. In: Heike Härting; Heather Meek (Eds.): Planetary Health Humanities and Pandemics. New York/London: Routledge, 233-253.

Bossert, Leonie N. (2024): Andere Tiere im Anthropozän. Eine nicht-anthropozentrische Perspektive auf Gerechtigkeit. In: Florian Wobser (Ed.): Anthropozän. Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven und philosophische Bildung. Frankfurt: Campus, 73-87.

Bossert, Leonie N. (2022): „Unsere gemeinsame Zukunft“ – Nachhaltige Entwicklung tierethisch gedacht. (In: Julia Enxing; Simone Horstmann, Gregor Taxacher (Eds.): Animate Theologies. Darmstadt: WBG, 96-114.

 

Handbook contributions:
 

Bossert, Leonie (2018): Mitleidsethische Ansätze. (Compassion Ethics) In: Ach, Johann; Borchers, Dagmar (Eds.): Handbuch Tierethik. Stuttgart: Metzler, 101-106.

Bossert, Leonie (2018): Fürsorgeethische und feministische Ansätze. (Care ethical and feminist approaches) In: Ach, Johann; Borchers, Dagmar (Eds.): Handbuch Tierethik. Stuttgart: Metzler, 117-122.

Bossert, Leonie (2016): Tierschutz. (Animal Protection) In: Ott, Konrad; Voget-Kleschin, Lieske; Dierks, Jan (Eds.): Handbuch Umweltethik. Stuttgart: Metzler, 292-297.
 

Projects

As PI:

Developing an ethical research protocol for microbiome research within and beyond the HMB Program (Co-PI with Dr. Davina Höll; funded by CIFAR in the context of the Healthy Microbiomes in a Changing World Program, 10/2026-06/2027) 

Sustainable AI (Working Group at DKN – Future Earth, PI: Dr. Leonie Bossert, Dr. Wulf Loh; 2022-2024)
 

As researcher:

Philosophical and ethical analysis of wild organisms’ genetic modification for nature conservation (funded by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, PI: Prof. Dr. Thomas Potthast)

A common future for humans and animals – Animals in Sustainable Development (PhD thesis, partly funded by the Heinrich Böll foundation)

Orientation towards the common good in the digital age – Transformation narratives between planetary boundaries and artificial intelligence (funded by the German Federal Agency for the Environment, conducted at the IZEW, University of Tübingen in Cooperation with Fraunhofer ISI Karlsruhe)

Sufficiency politics for more nature conservation (funded by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, PI: Dr. Lieske Voget-Kleschin)

Ethics of Sustainable Lifestyles (funded by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, PI: Dr. Lieske Voget-Kleschin)
 

Teaching

Teaching

Since the WS 2014/15, I have taught more than 30 seminars in normative ethics at the Universities of Vienna, Tübingen, and Koblenz-Landau. My teaching encompasses a broad range of topics at the intersection of philosophy, the life sciences, technology, sustainability, and environmental and animal ethics. Depending on the course, I have taught philosophy students, biology students, and students pursuing teaching degrees across a range of disciplines. In addition, several of my courses form part of the Studium Oecologicum certificate program at the University of Tübingen, which is explicitly interdisciplinary in scope.

In the WS 2024/25 and the SS 2025, I taught the lecture Introduction to Applied Ethics at the University of Vienna for students of philosophy and ethics. 
The topics covered in my seminars include:
•    Ethics of the Life Sciences
•    The Intersection of Technology and Animal Ethics
•    Introduction to AI Ethics
•    Normative Foundations of Sustainability
•    Sustainability Transformations
•    Introduction to Environmental and Animal Ethics
•    Ethical Reasoning and Argumentation
•    Conservation Ethics
•    Sustainable Engineering