Innovative Ethics Education for Major Technological and Scientific Challenges
▶Summary
Environmental degradation, advances in biomedicalization, and rampant digitalization are three major contemporary challenges, coextensive with scientific-technological civilization itself. ETHICS4...
▶Objectives
Environmental degradation, advances in biomedicalization, and rampant digitalization are three major contemporary challenges, coextensive with scientific-technological civilization itself. ETHICS4CHALLENGES aims at addressing them through flexible ethics education pathways to inculcate the necessary ethical awareness in students of all backgrounds (engineering, sciences, social and human sciences) and foster critical thinking about science/technology in a way that advances core European values.
▶Activities
ETHICS4CHALLENGES draws on a unique set of partners, from humanities departments embedded in established engineering and science schools in Turkey (METU) and Greece (NKUA) to a new social sciences unit from Germany (EUV) and a European university association, specializing in education on science-technology from the human and social sciences (ESST). They aim to develop an online educational platform for modular course design, based on the creation of an ethics handbook and a case-study inventory.
▶Impact
ETHICS4CHALLENGES will impact greatly on ethics education in the academic and non-academic sectors (business, government, scientific associations, NGOs). Acknowledging this, eight international ethics committees and associations have agreed to help with civic engagement and expert advice. The longer-term benefit will be the cultivation of an ethical awareness that fosters EU values and a community of citizens, while respecting particular cultural differences and historical trajectories.