Course description
In the nineteen seventies started the ethical discussion about a changing ethical horizon, which the increasing development of the technological world was producing. It was one aspect of a new general interest in ethics after more than 150 years of preferring violence than morals: Hegel, Marx, Carl Schmitt. On the one side the ideologies couldn’t anymore hide their failure. On the other side a lot of problems of the technological world seemed to need also ethical and moral answers. For example for a lot of thinkers the ecological crisis cannot be solved only by technological methods. In spite it needs an ascetic answer, that means an ethical answer, which includes in the ethical sphere also the nature and environmental problems. So Hans Jonas wrote in 1979 the first ecological ethics. The imperative of responsibility – a new kind of ethics involved by Max Weber – since is dominating the ethical discussions about the technological society. Since the debate on changing of the climate especially Bruno Latour demands urgently an ecological understanding of democracy. Ulrich Beck developed the concept of a world risk society. Also the technological world of computing and internet has completely changed daily life and it is producing a lot of new especially political risk, as the vote for Brexit and the US presidential votes in 2016 are showing. These developments need an ethical answer on the individual side and from the political sphere.

The seminar shall give information about the technological challenge and shall give an introduction into the ecological ethics and the ethics of the technological world. Naturally it is necessary to have also a look on the history of ethics and the philosophy of technology.

Teaching Methods
Discourse, Statement, Lecture of the students, Reading an Analysing Texts in the Seminar together, Discussion
Evaluation: presentation, written exam, each 50 %

Last updated: January 29, 2025