‘‘Responsible Innovation and Human Genomics, ethical opportunities and threats"

9-mars-2015

Advanced European Bioethics Course, Nijmegen, the Netherlands, 9-13 March 2015

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Human life is increasingly entangled with medical technology. Between conception and grave, virtually all medical problems and concerns receive a technological response.
Innovative medical technologies, while they may contribute to improving health and prolonging life, may also shift our understandings of health and disease, elicit new clinical practices and routines and shift responsibilities for health care providers and patients in preventing, diagnosing, monitoring and treating disease. As debates over medical technologies indicate, these shifts have ambiguous value.

In this course we will explore the nature of human-technology relations, as well as their value. The focus will be on ethical dimensions of developments in medical tech-nology and genomics.

Debates about new technologies reveal a need to consider their pro’s and con’s, preferably at an early stage of their development. At that point it is still possible to alter the technology, or choose an intelligent implementation strategy that helps to realize its most attractive aspects and diminish the influence of the less attractive aspects. Such early ethical engagement contributes to responsible innovation. The rationale behind responsible innovation is that it contributes to realizing better technologies, which actually foster human health and wellbeing, because their up and downsides are considered early on.

The lectures will introduce basic philosophical and ethical concepts related to responsible innovation and genomics. Small group discussions and working groups are devoted to in-depth discussions of particular contemporary ethical issues.

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Renseignements et inscriptions

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