The last decades we have seen a growing interest in ethics and in applied ethics in particular. We face a number of new ethical challenges.
- Information and communications technology is changing our society in different ways. How can we master the new technology so that it doesn’t–perhaps in an unnoticed way–go out of control?
- The scientist is able to collect more and more personal information in registers. How should we balance the value of new knowledge and the right to privacy?
- In a drive for efficiency, animals are reared in an industrial manner. Do we have moral obligations also towards animals?
- Genetic testing makes it possible to detect hereditary diseases. Where is the limit for a responsible way of handling this information?
- The new possibilities in medicine, combined with scarcity of resources, raise the question of priorities: Who is going to get the medical treatment?
- Politics seems more and more governed by economic rationality. How can we design an ethical theory that is relevant for the political sphere?
- Through globalisation people come closer to each other and national borders become less important. But what norms should govern the new globalised world?
The Centre for Applied Ethics is a resource for the various faculties of Linköping University. We offer courses in ethics and applied ethics. We also have a master’s programme in Applied Ethics in English. The research projects cover different issues in applied ethics like medical ethics, research ethics, ethics and politics, animal and environmental ethics, ethics of technology, ethics and migration, and ethics and globalisation.
