Lecture on November 22, 2022
On the Digital Transformation of Care. An Ethical Reflection
Janina Loh (Stabsstelle Ethik bei der Stiftung Liebenau, Meckenbeuren)
About the lecture [recording of the lecture]
Probably nowhere are technology and humans so close to each other, so intimately and bindingly intertwined, as in the fields of medicine, therapy, and care. Our entanglements with technology are intimate here because it literally and often very tangibly becomes a part of us: for example, in the form of implants and prostheses that fuse with our bodies to form a new entity, as medications that we take, that is, that enter into us, or in the form of assistive technologies, such as exoskeletons or walking aids, that simplify everyday practices, basic bodily functions and thus our lives. But the relationship between us and technology is also binding, as we are at times dependent on it in medicine, therapy, and care. It either ensures our survival quite directly or enables us to live a dignified and, ideally, a good life according to our individual expectations, even in advanced age and in the event of illness.
This lecture deals with the digital transformations that we can currently observe in healthcare and especially in the care sector. Through four categories – manufacturing and design, autonomy and task, data and security, and context and application – these transformational movements will be subjected to ethical evaluation in discussing some examples.
About the speaker
Janina Loh (née Sombetzki) is an ethicist (Stabsstelle Ethik) at Stiftung Liebenau in Meckenbeuren on Lake Constance.
They studied at the Humboldt University Berlin and wrote their dissertation (2009-2013) on the issue of responsibility – Verantwortung als Begriff, Fähigkeit, Aufgabe. Eine Drei-Ebenen-Analyse (Springer 2014) – as a fellow at the graduate school Verfassung jenseits des Staates: Von der europäischen zur Globalen Rechtsgemeinschaft?, supervised by Prof. Volker Gerhardt and Prof. Rahel Jaeggi.
After a post-doc position at the Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel (2013-2016), Janina Loh has been a university assistant (Post-Doc) in the field of philosophy of technology and media at the University of Vienna (2016-2021). They published the first German Introduction to Trans- and Posthumanism (Junius 2018) and an Introduction to Robot Ethics in German language (Suhrkamp 2019). They habilitate on an Inclusive Ethics of Companionship for the Knowledge Spaces.
Janina Loh's main research interests lie in the field of trans- and posthumanism (especially critical posthumanism), robot ethics, feminist philosophy of technology, responsibility research, Hannah Arendt, theories of judgement, and ethics in the sciences.
photo credit: Janina Loh
Tuesday, 22. November 2022, 18:15-19:45 (CET)
