Topic Focus
Main research topics of the Institute of Ethics and History of Medicine
Economization, mechanization and the scientific basis of medicine offer opportunities for an efficient and effective health care system. At the same time, these developments are changing the cultural understanding of the role of medicine and thus also the understanding of how people should deal with themselves:
- What do birth, health, illness and death mean for humans and how does medicine deal with these events and conditions?
- What image of the human being does modern medicine convey?
- What philosophical-anthropological assumptions can guide medicine in its actions?
- In what sense is medicine service and in what sense should it be?
- Are there limits to the medical-technical self-design of humans?
- Is there an ethical core to the identity of medicine?
- What is the relationship between humans and nature in modern biotechnology?
Asking these and similar questions with regard to the latest developments in medicine and biotechnology is the Institute's main concern.