Ethics of Innovations for the Digital Welfare State

Equitable and Just Digital Society: Developing Interdisciplinary Skills and Knowledge

Welcome to Ethics of Innovations for the Digital Welfare State (ECTS 3) - a master-level course, part of the unfolding CIVIS micro-programme Equitable and Just Digital Society focused on the potentials and challenges of the digital transformation of society. While taking this course, you will develop critical knowledge and practical skills in ethical reflection on digital innovations. We approach this field by the example of digital innovations for welfare states, such as AI tools for public employment services.

In the first part of the course, we explore how ethics helps to see that digital innovations are not objective and neutral. They rather build upon numerous value-related assumptions in their aims, development processes, inner logic and their possible consequences. This is no ivory tower debate. A major societal contribution of ethical reflexion is to make the (implicit) morality of innovations explicit and thereby debatable.

In the second part of the course, we focus on how ethical reflection can contribute to responsible innovation in the field of digital society. We discuss different approaches to reflexive modernization such as ELSI-research, technology assessment, sustainability research. We focus on inter- and transdisciplinary approaches to responsible innovation where computer scientists, ethicists, representatives of other disciplines and societal stakeholders work together in the development of innovations in order to prevent ethical problems with digital tools for welfare states.

You will be taught by Mone Spindler and Regina Ammicht Quinn, who are affiliated with the Ethics Center of Universität Tübingen, Germany.

This is a highly interactive course where active participation is expected. At present, we offer no option for auditing the course. It is mandatory to switch on your camera during the course in order to make dialogue possible. In our teaching we draw upon interactive, creative methods such as speculative design exercises and card games as well as upon topical AI ethics tools. 

You may enroll in this individual course or, over time, complete the whole micro-programme as additional courses are launched during the following academic years.

• Ethics of technology, 
• innovations for the digital welfare state, 
• responsible innovation throuth inter- and transdisciplinarity

Upon successful completion of this course, the students will have developed a critical basic understanding of applied ethics of technology. They are familiar with ethics tools that are designed to invite and enable people to ethical reflection. They can apply these tools to case examples and critically reflect them. The students demonstrate the ability to summarize and critically discuss digital innovations for the us in welfare state administrations.

In line with the objectives of the broader micro-programme, the aims of the course include enabling students to become ”interactional experts” - meaning people who can work in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary ways to address the challenges of ensuring that digital tools and services are developed in equitable and just ways for the communities they aim to support.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• relate the objects, aims and methods of your discipline to that of ethics.
• Perceive, explore and discuss ethical aspects of digital innovations.
• use and critically reflect ethics tools.

• identify and discuss potentials and challenges of responsible innovation.

• Thursday, October 15 2026 1-2:30pm CET

• Thursday, October 22 2026 1-4pm CET

• Thursday, November 5 2026 1-4pm CET

• Thursday, November 19 2026 1-2:30pm CET

• Thursday, November 26 2026 1-2:30pm CET

• Thursday, December 3 2026 1-2:30pm CET

• Thursday, December 10 2026 1-2:30pm CET

• Thursday, December 17 2026 1-2:30pm CET

Reading one text for each session, active participation, essay (4-6 pages) on a self-developed question including a transparency sheet in which the use of AI for the essay is detailed and reflected.

Enrolement into a master or PhD programme of a CIVIS University, a degree equivalent to a 2.5 degree of University of Tübingen, English level C1

Dr. Mone Spindler is leading the research group Co-laborative Research and Innovation at the Ethics-Center of University Tübingen. She deals with the question of how research and innovation processes can be made more reflexive by incorporating ethical expertise. Her main areas of focus include analysing the possibilities and limitations of ‘integrating’ ethics into technological development projects and critically constructive research into ‘ethics tools’. She also works on ethical issues relating to age(ing).

Prof. Dr. Regina Ammicht Quinn was spokesperson for the Ethics-Center and director of the Center for Gender and Diversity Research until the end of 2023. As a senior professor, she continues to be responsible for several research projects, committee chairmanships, and networking. Her research focuses on fundamental questions of ethics (responsibility, relationality, binary and dualistic thinking, discourses on autonomy and relationality, and dissatisfaction) as well as questions of ethics in practice: Ethics of cultures and human rights, political ethics, ethics and gender discourse, ethics, politics and care, security ethics, ethics of digital technologies, ethics of digital life, ethics and dual use; ethics of religion, body, sexuality, shame; ethics of religion, religions and cultures, religious freedom, fundamentalisms ad democracies.