2019 KEYNOTE LECTURERS

Digital Humanity – Ethical Analyses and Responses in an Age of Transformation

Digitale Menschheit – Ethische Analysen und Antworten in einer Zeit der Transformation

Societas Ethica’s 56th Annual Conference
Tutzing, GErmany
27-30 June 2019

Peter Dabrock

Professor Peter Dabrock, born 1964, studied Protestant and Catholic Theology, Philosophy and Social Sciences in Würzburg, Bonn and Bochum, Germany. After a vicarship at the Protestant Church in Holzwickede, Germany (1995) and several positions in academia as researcher, Assistant, Associate and Full Professor in Bochum and Marburg (from 1995-2010) he has been Chair of Systematic Theology (Ethics) at the Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nuremberg since October 2010 (in 2015 Peter Dabrock declined the offer for a chair at the Humboldt-University in Berlin). In 2011, he became ordained minister of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria. Beyond serving in many high-level national and international advisory bodies in academia, Church, and Society including the Central Ethics Committee at the German Medical Association (2004-2013) and the European Group on Ethics (2011-2016) he has been an appointed member of the German Ethics Council since 2012. Since 2016 he has been its elected Chairperson. Since 2017 he has been an appointed member of ACATECH (German National Academy of Science and Engineering). Peter Dabrock has published several books and more than 250 articles with special focus on ethics of life sciences and of technology, on social justice and on sexual ethics.

Andrew Feenberg

Andrew Feenberg is Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Technology in the School of Communication, Simon Fraser University, where he directs the Applied Communication and Technology Lab. He has also taught for many years in the Philosophy Department at San Diego State University, and at Duke University, the State University of New York at Buffalo, the Universities of California, San Diego and Irvine, the Sorbonne, the University of Paris-Dauphine, the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, and the University of Tokyo and the University of Brasilia.  Dr. Feenberg is Directeur de Programme at the College Internationale de Philosophie for the period 2013-2019.

RAiner Funk

Funk studierte Philosophie und Theologie. 1974 bis 1980 war er Assistent von Erich Fromm, über den er 1977 promovierte und dessen zehnbändige Gesamtausgabe er von 1975 bis 1981 editierte. Der 1980 verstorbene Fromm setzte Funk als seinen Nachlassverwalter ein. Seitdem baut Rainer Funk aus dem Nachlass und der Bibliothek Erich Fromms in Tübingen das Erich-Fromm-Archiv auf. Er ist Inhaber der Rechte an Fromms Schriften und im Vorstand der Internationalen Erich-Fromm-Gesellschaft tätig.

The 'Unbounded' Self - Impacts of an Ego-Oriented Reconstruction of the Subject

With his theory of character and particularly of social character Erich Fromm made values and ethical behavior an integral part of his social-psychoanalytic theory of human behavior. To a large extent human behavior is determined by inner strivings that stem from psychic structure formations – individual and social character structures. To understand changes in the behavior, concepts of self and values of many people one has to explore the economic and social requirements and their impact on the formation of social character orientation.

Due to technical innovations brought about by the digital revolution, we are witnessing the rise of a new social character orientation that is driven by a self-determined unbounding of reality. The pursuit of freeing oneself from limitations, of dissolving and blurring boundaries is seen as a central character trait of the ego-oriented social character. This new character orientation is increasingly reflected in an inner striving to also get rid of the limitations and boundaries of our own personality. This is pursued by de-activating one’s own abilities of cognition, emotion and judgement  and by substituting them with enacted and simulated,  yet self-determined abilities. The presentation is focused on the impacts of the ego-oriented reconstruction of the subject and its ego strength. The enquiry is directed especially towards the unconscious effects in relation to freedom and autonomy, respectively dependence and heteronomy.

Karlin Lillington

Karlin Lillington is a journalist and columnist with the Irish Times focusing on technology, with a special interest in the political, social, business and cultural aspects of information and communication technologies. Karlin’s investigative reporting on data retention in Ireland formed the basis for Digital Rights Ireland's appeal to the European Court of Justice, which resulted in the EUCJ’s landmark rejection of the European Data Retention Directive in 2014. She has been a contributor to a wide range of Irish and international publications, including The Guardian, New Scientist, Wired.com, Salon.com, Red Herring, The Scientist and The Sunday Times. She holds a PhD from Trinity College.

Beate Roessler

Beate Roessler is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. She formerly taught philosophy at Leiden University, the Free University, Berlin, Germany, and at the University of Bremen, Germany. She had fellowships and visiting professorships at the Institute for Advanced Study (Wissenschaftskolleg) in Berlin, at the Center for Agency, Value, and Ethics at Macquarie University, Sydney, at University of Melbourne, Law School and at New York University. She is a co-editor of the European Journal of Philosophy and a member of various advisory boards, among them the International Scientific Board of the Institute for Social Research, Frankfurt, Germany.

Her publications include Autonomie: ein Versuch über das gelungene Leben, 2017, Suhrkamp (Dutch translation 2018, with Boom, English translation 2020, with Polity);Social Dimensions of Privacy. Interdisciplinary Perspectives (ed. with D. Mokrosinska), Cambridge UP 2015; The Value of Privacy, Polity Press 2005; Von Person zu Person. Zur Moralität persönlicher Beziehungen, (ed. with A. Honneth) Frankfurt 2008; Privacies. Philosophical Evaluations, (ed.), Stanford University Press, 2004.

Jeroen van den Hoven

Jeroen van den Hoven is university professor and full professor of Ethics and Technology at Delft University of Technology and editor in chief of Ethics and Information Technology. He is currently the scientific director of the Delft Design for Values Institute. He was the founding scientific director of 4TU.Centre for Ethics and Technology(2007-2013). In 2009, he won the World Technology Award for Ethics as well as the IFIP prize for ICT and Society for his work in Ethics and ICT. Jeroen van den Hoven was founder, and until 2016 Programme Chair, of the program of the Dutch Research Council on Responsible Innovation. He published Designing in Ethics (Van den Hoven, Miller & Pogge eds., Cambridge University Press, 2017) and Evil Online (Cocking & Van den Hoven, Blackwell, 2018) He is a permanent member of the European Group on Ethics (EGE) to the European Commission. In 2017 he was knighted in the Order of the Lion of The Netherlands.