Ilona Vera Szlezák
Kollegiatin im Graduiertenkolleg Bioethik
E-Mail: ilona.szlezak@gmail.com
PhD-Thesis
Self-design and self-orientation. An inquiry of practical rationality with respect to biotechnique-based self-enhancement practices.
Most attempts of ethically assessing the use of biomedical optimization techniques, such as the use of pharmacological neuro-stimulants or assisted reproduction-techniques in healthy beings, have been routed in principle-based approaches and have therefore been focusing on considerations as utility, autonomy, non-maleficience and the like.
In my project I aim at widening the focus through contextualizing the practices in question within human agency and practical rationality, in order to gain more complex insight for ethical considerations.
I assume that the concept of practical rationality underlying principle-based approaches amounts to the “classical model of rationality”, which rarely meets our experience of agency as limited beings and should therefore be modified to meet our limited condition. Thereby the concept of phronesis in Aristotlelian ethics, embedded in his account of eu zen, shall serve as a paradigm of a comprehensive account of practical rationality.
This is for the Aristotelian account promises to be successful in explaining
explaining phenomena like (moral) decision making, (moral) agency etc. in a way that is compatible with our everyday experience as well as with empirical psychological research. In my project I try to figure out these advantages for ethical theory in order to give a neo-aristotelian account of practical rationality as self-orientation, which allows to assess practices as neuropharmacological enhancement or assisted reproduction techniques in the light of a widened focus of life conduct.
Biography
Ilona was born in Zurich and studied philosophy, literary criticism and psychology at Konstanz and Tübingen university. Having completed her M.A. she worked at the editorial office for philosophy at de Gruyter publishing in Berlin. From 2009 to 2011 she worked as a research fellow (Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin) at Freiburg University (Institute for Medical Ethics). Since 2011 she is part of the postgraduate program in Bioethics at IZEW in Tübingen.
Publications
Articles:
Ilona Szlezák, Leitbilder. Überlegungen zu philosophisch-anthropologischen und ethischen Argumentationsformen im Kontext medizinischer Versorgung. In: Inthorn, J. (Hrg.): Richtlinien, Ethikstandards und kritisches Korrektiv. Eine Topographie ethischen Nachdenkens im Kontext der Medizin. Edition Ethik, Bd. 7 Göttingen 2010.
Ilona Szlezák, Zum Begriff psychischer Erkrankung Spiegel der Neurowissenschaften. Philosophische Überlegungen zur psychiatrischen Theoriebildung. In: Frewer, A.; Rotthaar, M. (Hrg.): Generell krank oder chronisch gesund? Neue ethische Implikationen des Krankheitsbegriffs. Frankfurt 2011.
Uta Bittner, Dominik Baltes, Ilona Szlezák, Oliver Müller, Der Krankheitsbegriff und seine Grenzen – Implikationen für die ethische Bewertung von Techniken der assistierten Fortpflanzung. In: Ethica 2011/2.
Book-Reviews:
Ilona Szlezák und Uta Bittner, Burkhard Radke, Wahrheit in der Moral. In: Ethica. 2011.
Conferences
Januar 2010, Universität Wien, Institut für Ethik und Recht in der Medizin
AK Medizin und Theologie: Zur Funktion ethischer Argumentation im Krankenhaus konfessioneller Trägerschaft (talk)
Mai 2010, Universität Ulm, Institut für Geschichte, Theorie und Ethik der Medizin
1st International Conference on Medical Imaging and Philosophy:
Epistemic Aspects of Neuroimaging in Psychiatry (talk)
November 2010, DGPPN-Kongress, Berlin, Zum Begriff psychischer Erkrankung im Spiegel der Neurowissenschaften (Poster)