Again(st) the moralisation of illness - A theological-ethical contribution to an ethics of prevention in the post-genomic age

• Applicants: Professorin Dr. Katharina Klöcker; Dr. Katharina Mairinger-Immisch
• Subject Area: Roman Catholic Theology
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 547240690

There is currently a paradigm shift from curative to preventive medicine. Genetic tests, which are becoming increasingly easy and inexpensive to obtain, provide information about future diseases that can possibly be treated preventively before they break out. The advantages of such predictive preventive medicine are obvious. At the same time, however, a whole series of problems are exacerbated: If so-called healthy patients do not take advantage of preventive measures after a genome analysis, or only take advantage of them in part, they can be held responsible not only for their health and the health of genetic relatives, but also, in the case of 'preventable' diseases, for the costs incurred by the healthcare system. There is a danger that preventive medicine will promote moralisation, i.e. an unjustified individualised attribution of responsibility for illness. In view of possible moralisation in the context of predictive medicine, the project aims to develop a counter-strategy from a theological-ethical perspective. Theology in particular can be expected to make an important contribution to research here, as moralising interpretations of illness are deeply rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition. At the same time, however, it also contains attempts to theologically overcome the moralisation of illness. This project aims to systematise these theological anti-moralisation potentials with the help of the categories of vulnerability and ambiguity and make them fruitful for the current discourse on predictive medicine and the different dimensions of responsibility. Based on a clarification of the concept of moralisation in the context of disease, ethical problem horizons of predictive preventive medicine will be identified. The proposed solutions finally lead to a competence-oriented counter-strategy to the moralisation of illness. Based on the scientific results of the project, which will be published in a monograph, an ethical catalogue of guidelines with recommendations for dealing with complex decision-making situations in the context of predictive preventive medicine will be developed. This catalogue will support healthy patients in making autonomous decisions in the context of predictive genetic diagnostics.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants