ITeG Ring Lecture: "More freedoms, but also more heteronomy? Reflections on a Concept of 'Digital Self-Determination' "

In the ITeG lecture series "Digital society - a design task" on November 16, 2022, Dr. phil. Marcel Mertz will provide insights on the topic "More freedoms, but also more heteronomy? Reflections on a concept of 'digital self-determination' ".

Marcel Mertz heads the working group "Research/Public Health Ethics and Methodology" at the Institute for Ethics, History and Philosophy of Medicine at the Hannover Medical School. He currently coordinates the working group "Ethics and Empiricism" of the Academy for Ethics in Medicine e.V. (AEM) and is one of the speakers of CELLS MHH.

Summary of his presentation:
Digital systems nowadays enable freedoms that would hardly have been possible in the past. From the comfort of our sofa, we can order goods at any time of the day, read the newspaper, quickly look up something in Wikipedia, be entertained in a variety of ways, and share our lives with thousands of people on social media. We can communicate with each other via WhatsApp, Telegram and the like, track every step we take or have our bodily functions measured around the clock - if we want to.

But is it really that simple? To what extent can we still escape these "freedoms" - whether because we are becoming more and more dependent on such systems and services, or because something has now become possible and desirable that would not even have been conceivable in the past (such as constantly measuring ourselves in order to live healthier)? Since, moreover, the concrete design of these "freedoms" is rarely (co-)determined by oneself, the question of what self-determination might mean in this context suggests itself. The lecture therefore proposes a concept of "digital self-determination" that is tied back to general philosophical considerations of self-determination and identifies seven components of digital self-determination (competence, informedness, values, choice, voluntariness, volition, and action).
In addition to the limitations of the concept, examples of possibilities for empirical operationalization will also be addressed.

The lectures will take place online (via Zoom). The link for the Zoom meeting as well as the meeting ID can be found on the following website: www.uni-kassel.de/go/iteg-lectures.