Research Vision, Mission and Domains
Our vision is a world in which the life sciences and novel technologies contribute to values such as quality of life, health, justice, biodiversity, and moral responsibility. This requires societal (including scientific and professional) practices in which inevitable value conflicts are taken seriously and dealt with in a responsible way.
Our mission is to offer education and do research that promote critical reflection on fundamental and assumptions ethical choices in professional, scientific, corporate and political practices in the Wageningen domains. Such reflection is critical to responsible decision making in these practices.
The research expertise of the philosophy group covers three broad, overlapping domains: public health ethics, animal and environmental ethics, and philosophy of technology.
Exemplary projects that connect most domains are:
- The ethics of OneHealth and zoonoses control;
- Critical reflection on using gene drives for malaria control;
- Ethical ambivalence about meat consumption and in vitro meat; and
- Regulation of collective immunisation against infectious diseases.