Ethics of Medicine
This working group analyses fundamental ethical questions that arise in medical practice, research and health policy regulation. The focus is on combining philosophical reflection with the analysis of concrete challenges in clinical practice and in the public health system.
Our research focuses on the conditions of ethical action in medicine, which is increasingly characterised by technological innovations, ecological transformation processes and social and cultural diversity. We are concerned with questions of justice and responsibility, the design of fair allocation decisions and a just future medicine, dealing with vulnerability and cultural differences as well as the ethical implications of biomedical innovations and digital technologies.
The working group is anchored in the Faculty of History, Philosophy and Theology and at the same time closely linked to the Medical School OWL. This interdisciplinary environment enables us to establish a productive dialogue between humanities analysis and medical practice.
We work together with partners from the fields of medicine, law, history and cultural studies. These include the working groups for the History and Philosophy of Science of Medicine (Prof. Dr Lara Keuck) and for Medical Law (Junior Prof. Dr Friederike Gebhard), the Clinical Ethics Committee of the University Hospital Bielefeld-Bethel (Tanja Kirchner) and the Institute for the Study of Science (ISoS).
Research areas
Our work is divided into several thematic focuses that are closely interlinked and combine theoretical and practical questions of medical ethics.
- Distributive justice, public health & resource allocation
- Culture & identity
- Vulnerability & non-discrimination
- Research ethics
- Biomedical innovations
- Digitalisation & AI
- Responsibility
- Green Health Care
- Ethics counselling
Team
Head of the group
- Prof. Dr. Annette Dufner
As a philosopher and medical ethicist, I form a content-related bridge between the Department of Philosophy and the newly founded Medical School OWL at Bielefeld University. Together with Prof. Dr Lara Keuck (History and Philosophy of Science in Medicine) and Junior Prof. Dr Friederike Gebhard (Medical Law), I head the Medical Humanities department at the Faculty of Medicine and am also active in the Department of Philosophy.
My work focuses in particular on normative ethics and medical ethics, as well as legal and social philosophy and questions of personal identity.
My current research questions in the field of normative ethics include problems of distributive justice and fair aggregation as well as the question of which allocation criteria would be discriminatory under conditions of scarcity.
In terms of medical ethics, these include the efficient and non-discriminatory allocation of scarce resources in transplantation medicine and in pandemics, the handling of predictive uncertainty and probabilities as well as bioethical and population-ethical follow-up questions of personal identity.
You can find more information here.
Researchers / Lecturers
- Dr. Serap Ergin Aslan
Bielefeld University
Department of Medical Humanities / Dept. of Philosophy
P.O. Box 100131
33501 Bielefeld
Building X A4-252I have been working in the medical ethics group at Bielefeld University since May 2025. My research in the field of systematic medical ethics examines how responsibility and moral rationality change in medical practice under conditions of technological, ecological and cultural complexity.
The focus is on the question of how medical professionals can make ethically justified decisions in a field characterised by artificial intelligence, sustainability and cultural plurality. The aim is to develop a normative model of ethical responsibility that combines individual action with institutional and global frameworks.
My doctoral thesis (Universelle Prinzipien und kulturelle Bedingtheit, Brill | mentis, 2024) shows how the four principles of medical ethics by T. Beauchamp and J. Childress are shaped in different cultural contexts. The focus is on the tension between individualistic and collectivist cultures, taking Germany and Turkey as examples. In doing so, I am investigating the extent to which culturally characterised specifications of these principles limit or expand the practical scope and normative significance of principlism.
I am currently working on questions of ethical principles as a basis for the development and application of AI in medicine, sustainability in healthcare and intercultural and global medical ethics.Main areas of research
- Applied ethics
- Global ethics
- Moral responsibility
- Research ethics and dual-use issues
- Ethics of artificial intelligence
- Sustainable health care (green health care)
- Practical and political Philosophy
Further information can be found here.
- Adriano Mannino
You can find information about Mr Mannino here.
- Jan Schnalke
Although I mainly dealt with questions of theoretical Philosophy in my philosophy studies - such as the question of personal identity - my work has shifted towards practical Philosophy. Since I was employed as a research assistant in the project "NANoSoGT - Normative Assessment of Novel Somatic Genomic Therapies" at the Institute for Medical Humanities at the University of Bonn, I have mainly been dealing with questions of medical ethics. In July 2024, I started working as a doctoral student and researcher in the Medical Ethics working goup. In my doctoral thesis, which is supervised by Prof Dr Annette Dufner, I am investigating the concept of the common good and working out the extent to which this concept can be used to address issues in medical ethics.
Research interests
- Medical Ethics
- Normative Ethics
- Theories of Personal Identity
- Metaphysics/Ontology
You can find more information here.
Research assistants
- Gesa Tefett
After completing my degree in healthcare and nursing, I worked in an interdisciplinary intensive care unit. During this time, I was able to gain valuable experience in acute and intensive care medicine and gain deep insights into the challenges of modern patient care. Parallel to my work, I started studying human medicine at Bielefeld University in 2021. During my studies, I was particularly interested in the medical humanities, especially medical ethics. I am fascinated by the question of how ethical principles can be implemented in the often hectic and complex daily clinical routine. I am particularly interested in how ethical considerations can shape medical decision-making and sustainably improve patient care. Through my professional and academic career, I would like to help build a bridge between medical practice and ethical standards and promote more humane, responsible medicine.
Associate members
- Prof. Dr. Ralf Stoecker
You can find information about Mr Stoecker here.
- Dr. Martina Herrmann
You can find information about Mrs Herrmann here.
- Dr. Roland Kipke
You can find information about Mr Kipke here.
- Tanja Kirchner
You can find further information about Mrs Kirchner here.
- Dr. Shingo Segawa
Dr Shingo Segawa received his Master's and Bachelor's degrees in Sociology from Rikkyo University and Hitotsubashi University in Japan. For his bachelor's thesis, he conducted interviews and participant observations in an urban area where many elderly, single people and people in need of care live. In his master's thesis, he focussed on the emergence of the subject in Hegel's "Phenomenology of Spirit". In his PhD thesis in philosophy at the University of Münster, he dealt with the question of whether the concept of the person is helpful in the debates about the beginning of life (abortion) and the end of life (euthanasia and respect for people with dementia). He is currently interested in whether and how people can show solidarity in a culturally diverse society.
Main areas of research- Public health in culturally diverse societies
- Philosophy of the person
- Autonomy / respect for autonomy
- Ethical aspects of dementia
Publications (selection)
- Segawa, Shingo. Der Begriff der Person in der biomedizinischen Ethik. mentis: Münster. 2020.
- Segawa, Shingo. & Alpinar-Segawa, Zümrüt (2026): How can we foster solidarity in a culturally diverse society? Taking dementia prevention through technology as an example. In: Monash Bioethics Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40592-026-00283-4.
- Segawa, Shingo. & Alpinar-Segawa, Zümrüt. (2025): Limits to respect for autonomy principle when caring for people with dementia: Rethinking respect for people with dementia. In: Ethics & Bioethics (in Central Europe) 15 (1-2): 79-99. https://doi.org/10.2478/ebce-2025-0007.
- Andreoletti, Mattia; Lazzaroni, Cynthia; Petersen, Niklas; Segawa, Shingo; Leibing, Annette; Schicktanz, Silke; Blassime, Alessandro. (2023): Optimising the Aging Brain: The BEAD Study on the Ethics of Dementia Prevention. In: The Journal of Frailty & Aging 12. 111-16. https://doi.org/10.14283/jfa.2023.6.
- Segawa, Shingo. (2021): How is the concept of person useful for biomedical ethics? In: Journal of Philosophical Research 75 (3). 433-55. https://doi.org/10.3196/004433021833548642 (Deutsch).
- Segawa, Shingo. (2018): The limit of the concept of person and its validity in biomedical ethics. In: 生命倫理 29 (Journal of Japan Association for Bioethics 29). Japan Association for Bioethics. 22-30 (Japanese).
- Konstantin Weber
You can find information about Mr Weber here.
Clinical Ethics
Our group cooperates with the clinical ethics committee at Ev. Klinikum Bethel (Universitätsklinikum OWL, Campus Bielefeld-Bethel). Further information can be found here.