Ethics of University

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Bernhard Laux
• Subject Area: Roman Catholic Theology
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 492938758

The project aims to reflect on university from a social-ethical point of view. The guiding research question focusses on the issue what the institution university should be like - and related to that – how individual and collective parties should act in regard to it. Three approaches will be related to each other in a normative framework: Firstly, the traditional idea of university following Humboldt’s ideal, secondly, the epistemic normativity, which becomes manifested in its formal requirements on scientific communication. Thirdly, we will investigate the approach of responsibility, which arises from the social need for academic achievements and their social impact; and, finally, we will identify the demands on freedom and justice in their consequences for the processes and structures of universities. The aim is to analyze the persuasiveness of these normative foundations of university.The classical triad of university’s tasks – research, teaching, and (limited) self-administration ¬– present university in a multi-system-reference. The idea of the Humboldtian university relates these tasks: University is a science-based institution and aims for academic education through science. Therefore, its organizational structure needs to be suitable for science and Bildung at the same time. By expanding scientific knowledge, developing science-based technologies, and enabling the academic education of students, impacts on society emerge. These, at best, could be considered as achievements, though social risks, strains and damages cannot be excluded. Although the ways of social usage cannot and should not simply be assigned to university, a particular relationship of responsibility emerges anyway. The research projects aims to specify in detail these requirements of social and ethical responsibility and their normative impact regarding the general structure of science, academic education, and the self-administration of universities.The normative reflection contains religious theory and theological questions as well. Relating to a science- or knowledge-society requires the reflection about different forms of knowledge and the clarification of the relationship between science, religion and practical reason. This is necessary in order to avoid a scientistic worldview or a technocratic orientation for action. The theologies play an important role in the self-reflection of science regarding its achievements and limits, as well as in the process of academic education. Bildung in the Humboldtian sense enables to deal appropriately with science in social and ethical terms while considering various claims of validity.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants