Tag Archives: Synthetic Biology
FINAL CALL – ISEE at the Pacific APA, April 16 -20, 2014, San Diego, CA, USA
Submissions are invited for the International Society for Environmental Ethics (ISEE) sessions at the 2014 Pacific Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association (APA). The upcoming meeting will be held in San Diego, CA, USA from Wednesday, April 16th to Sunday, April 20th at the Westin Gaslamp Hotel. Continue reading
ONLINE SUMMER SCHOOL – Ethics of Emerging Technologies
EthicSchool has announced a virtual summer school on Ethics of Emerging Technologies. Here are the pertinent details:
- Dates: 9-13 September 2013: 14.00-17.00 CEST (Central European Summer Time)
- Location: Internet – webinar system (for registered participants)
- Participants: max. 20 per session
- Free of charge – voluntary contributions such as lectures, scientific committee membership, open access teaching materials & literature or sponsorship are welcome.
To register for the course, please visit the course’s official webpage. The preliminary programme is listed below (with a PDF available here).
Preliminary Programme
Monday 9 September 2013 – Introductions
14.00‐17.00 CEST: lectures, Q&A
- Introduction to EthicSchool, welcome to Western participants
- Lecture 1: Introduction in Applied Ethics – Ethics and Law
- Lecture 2: Engagement, Communication and Dialogue on Emerging Technologies
- Lecture 3: Recent trends in Social Studies of Science and related areas
Tuesday 10 September 2013 – Nanotechnologies in multicultural perspective
14.00‐17.00 CEST: lectures, exercise
- Lecture 4: Nano and Health from a non‐Western perspective
- Lecture 5: Sustainable Nanotechnologies for All: barriers and opportunities
- Exercise 1: Case study of Responsible Nano‐innovation with the Nanometer self‐assessment tool
Wednesday 11 September 2013 – Conflicting nano‐interests
14.00‐17.00 CEST: lecture, exercise, master class
- Lecture 6: Nanoelectronics, Peace and Security
- Exercise 2: Dialogue on nanoethics using the Ethics Toolkit
- Masterclass 1: Participants present their research in 5‐10 minutes and receive feedback from lecturers
Thursday 12 September 2013: What it means to be Human
14.00‐17.00 CEST: lecture, exercise, master class
- Lecture 7: Perspectives on Human Nature and Dignity
- Exercise 3: DEMOCS card game on Human Enhancement
- Master class 2: Participants present their research in 5‐10 minutes and receive feedback from lecturers
Friday 13 September 2013: Nature and Techno Revisited
14.00‐17.00 CEST: lectures, master class
- Lecture 8: From Bio to Techno (e.g., synthetic biology, 3D printing biological materials)
- Lecture 9: From Techno to Bio (e.g., robotics, AI)
- Master class 3: Participants present their research in 5‐10 minutes and receive feedback from lecturers
- Wrap‐up
FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS – ISEE Sessions at the Pacific APA, Spring 2013
Submissions are invited for the International Society for Environmental Ethics (ISEE) sessions at the 2013 Pacific Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association (APA). The upcoming meeting will be held in the always beautiful San Francisco, CA, USA from Wednesday, March 27th to Sunday, March 31st.
ISEE invites submissions of individual papers (approximately 20 minutes running time) or proposals for themed sessions (particular topics, author-meets-critics, etc.; 2 hours running time). Submissions are encouraged from those working interdisciplinarily and include but are not limited to the following areas:
- animal studies,
- green religion,
- sustainability,
- climate ethics,
- conservation ethics,
- environmental education,
- environmental justice,
- environmental policy,
- ecophenomenology,
- environmental pragmatism,
- food, water, & agricultural ethics,
- geoengineering, synthetic biology, & nanotechnology,
- feminist, post-colonial, and queer studies.
Submission Procedure:
- For individual paper submissions, please submit either: 1) a full paper, or 2) a 300-word abstract.
- For themed sessions, please submit the proposed session title, a brief description of the session, names of presenters, and titles for each paper. Paper abstracts (of up to 300 words) are strongly encouraged. Participants should be confirmed as willing to attend if the session goes forward.
Materials should be submitted in Microsoft Word or PDF format to William Grove-Fanning: williamgrovefanning@hotmail.com. The deadline for submitting materials and proposals is September 1st, 2012. Early submissions are most welcome. Decisions will be made by late September.
CALL FOR PAPERS: Synthetic Biology for Human Health: Bioethics Special Issue
Guest Editors: Nikola Biller-Andorno, Ruud ter Meulen, Ainsley J Newson
Closing date for submissions: October 1st, 2012
The Editors of Bioethics are pleased to announce a special issue in 2013 on the ethical and policy issues in synthetic biology for human health. Synthetic biology is an emerging field with important potential applications for human health, such as innovative drugs, new vaccines, tissue regeneration, or even synthetic cells. Synthetic biology aims to be able to design, engineer and build biological systems that do not occur in nature as well as re-engineer systems that already exist. This raises fundamental ethical questions about the moral status of life, the conceptualization of risks and benefits as well as possible implications for future people. Questions also arise about how we should approach these ethical issues and the moral grounding which ought to guide policy and regulatory issues in this area.
We invite submissions on all aspects of this topic. Questions include but are not limited to:
- Is there anything inherently morally objectionable in creating or (re-)designing life?
- What are appropriate methodological paradigms for ethical debates over synthetic biology for human health?
- What questions does synthetic biology for human health pose with regards to justice
- When should we consider the risks that may arise in the development of synthetic biology applications for human health as morally justifiable to take
- How should we interpret contested concepts important to normative thinking about synthetic biology and human health? (e.g. life, risk, public interest, health and dignity).
- What should be the moral grounds for any specific regulation of synthetic biology research and applications to human health?
The editors welcome early discussion of brief proposals and/or abstracts by email to: biller-andorno@ethik.uzh.ch.
Upon submission authors should include full contact details and a few lines of biographical information in a separate electronic file. We discourage papers of more than 5,000 words.
For further submission requirements, format and referencing style, refer to the Author Guidelines on the Bioethics website: http://www.wiley.com/bw/journal.asp?ref=0269-9702
Manuscripts should be submitted to Bioethics online at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/biot
Please ensure that you select manuscript type ‘Special Issue’ and state that it is for the “Synbio”, Special Issue when prompted.
WORKSHOP – Teleological Organisation: Organisms, Ecosystems, and Artifacts
University of Copenhagen, August 23-24, 2012
Rapid progress in fields such as synthetic biology, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and environmental engineering are expected to result in a historical increase in the ability of humans to understand and intervene in human nature and the natural world. While the developments provide exciting ways of dealing with global problems in relation to energy, climate, health, and agriculture, they also elicit calls for caution.
In order to fully understand the ethical dimensions of these technologies, a variety of investigations must be undertaken. One such investigation concerns the nature and status of the biological and ecological systems subject to manipulation. This workshop will bring together philosophers of biology, science, and engineering, bio-, and environmental ethicists as well as other experts to investigate fundamental theoretical questions concerning the nature and value of organisms, artifacts, and ecosystems in the context of current developments in biotechnology and environmental engineering.
Speakers
- Karen Neander (Duke)
- Samir Okasha (Bristol)
- Jay Odenbaugh (Lewis & Clark College)
- Frédéric Bouchard (Montreal)
- Wybo Houkes (Eindhoven)
- Elselijn Kingma (King’s College London)
- Simon Rippon (Oxford)
- John Basl (Bowling Green)
- Sune Holm (Copenhagen)
Registration
Free, but please e-mail Sune Holm (suneh@hum.ku.dk) by August 1, 2012 if you would like to attend.
ISEE - International Society for Environmental Ethics 