Titel: Empathic Bodies, Moral Brains, Complex Science - Bridging the Gap between the Sciences and the Humanities

Beginn: 15.9.2011, 10:00 -17:00 Uhr

Veranstaltungsort:
University of Humanistic Studies
Kromme Nieuwegracht 29
3512 HD Utrecht
The Netherlands

Referenten: Frans de Waal (Emory University, US)

Weitere Informationen:
http://www.uvh.nl/empathicbodies

Kurzbeschreibung: This conference explores critical humanistic perspectives on the changing relations between the natural sciences and the humanities. Recent scientific advances in fields such as genomics and neurobiology promise to extend our control over nature to incorporate genes and brains – supposedly for the benefit of all humankind. In practice, this optimistic view tends to further technocratic ‘solutions’ for a wide range of pressing problems, ranging from agriculture and bio-fuels to medicine and psycho-pharmacy. Unfortunately, by considering moral values and ethical considerations as critical supplements to ‘objective’ scientific knowledge, the traditional humanistic critique of this technocratic bias tends to substantiate the long-standing gap between the sciences and humanities, and the ensuing split between ‘nature’ and ‘culture’.
Instead of criticizing the dominant view from a traditional humanistic perspective that opposes the inherent limitations of objective, value-free science, a critical humanistic perspective as explored at this conference, builds on two pillars in an attempt to bridge the traditional gap between the sciences and the humanities from both sides.
The first pillar is provided by new ethical perspectives and insights that have emerged within scientific fields such as primatology, neurobiology and evolutionary theory. The second pillar builds on new, complexity-sensitive forms of scientific modelling that include rather than exclude ethical questions as an integral part of scientific enquiry.

Kontakt: Patrick Vlug, Irene Abbenhuis
University of Humanistic Studies
Kromme Nieuwegracht 29
3512 HD Utrecht
The Netherlands
Tel.: 0031-30-2390126
empathicbodies@uvh.nl
http://www.uvh.nl/empathicbodies

Veranstalter: University of Humanistic Studies, Utrecht

Schlagworte: Biotechnologie, Ethiktheorie, Hirnforschung, Medizinische Ethik, Ökologische Ethik, Pharmazeutik, Wissenschaftsethik