The central role of education, the need for integrated knowledge, the development of new skills and the commitment to a joint and shared ecological transition. These are some of the issues of the meeting of the Italian UNESCO Chairs with the Ministries of Education and University and Research.
The meeting was opened by the Minister of Education, Patrizio Bianchi, and the Minister of University and Research, Maria Cristina Messa. Franco Bernabè, President of the Italian Commission for UNESCO (CNIU), and Stefania Giannini, Unesco’s Deputy Director General for Education, also participated.
The Italian Unesco Chairs, with the project “Dialogues of the Unesco Chairs: a laboratory of ideas for the world to come”, have started a path to propose themselves as a collective subject with a high scientific profile and as a community of knowledge to contribute to the challenge of sustainability and socio-economic transition. The meeting is the synthesis of a year of confrontation and dialogue between the holders of the Italian UNESCO Chairs engaged in the development of education and knowledge in relation to global environmental and social challenges and for the achievement of the goals of sustainable development of the UN Agenda 2030.
To this end, the Italian UNESCO Chairs are working to provide a laboratory of ideas and knowledge for future generations, to implement a transdisciplinary and transnational educational approach, to contribute the introduction of the environmental challenge in school and university education, to develop tools for sharing and dissemination of knowledge by acting as bridges between academia, civil society and policy makers.
Bioethics and Consciousness: an interdisciplinary and interreligious reflection on an essential dimension of the human person.
July 2,3,9,10 2021 – from 3:30pm to 6:30pm
Course presentation
The 19th Summer Bioethics Course will take placeat15:30-18:30 on July 2-3 and 9-10, 2021. Simultaneous translation will be available into English, Italian, and Spanish. The title of the course is “Bioethics and Consciousness: an interdisciplinary and interreligious reflection on an essential dimension of the human person.”
The course is organized by the Faculty of Bioethics in collaboration with the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics and Human Rights established at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum and the European University of Rome.
Description
The course is organized by the Neurobioethics research group, in particular by the subgroup on consciousness, with the participation of all other subgroups and researchers of the group. The theme of consciousness is at the center of contemporary bioethics debates. At the beginning stages of human life, the absence of self-consciousness is invoked to justify depriving the human organism of the status of personhood. At the final stages of human life, it is argued that an apparently irreversible loss of the manifestations of human self-consciousness can justify the harvesting of organs as a “donation” from subjects in gravely compromised states of altered consciousness. Moreover, two tensions are widespread in neuroscientific, philosophical and social contexts. On the one hand, there are attempts at reductionism, whether in the merely neurobiological sense or in a functionalist sense. On the other hand, there have emerged many substitutionary approaches that seek to identify personal self-consciousness with mere digitizable information. Therefore, correct information and formation regarding consciousness is important.
This international summer course in bioethics proposes an interdisciplinary and interreligious study of human consciousness with the aim of understanding the plurality of meanings corresponding to the multi-layered complexity of personal dimensions of which it is composed. The course will offer its participants the chance to acquire the knowledge regarding the following areas: the state of the art of the so-called “science of consciousness” ranging from neuroscience to artificial intelligence and including quantum physics; the medical-clinical and psychiatric-psychological context; the philosophy and anthropology of consciousness; the artistic-aesthetic and theological-spiritual dimension. In this final context, special emphasis will be given to interreligious dialogue about the theme. Finally, the course will give its participants the competencies necessary to discern critically the varied contemporary contexts in which consciousness is invoked in order to evaluate critically clinical protocols, proposed laws, sanitary applications, and the political, economic and social implications of the theme.
The Hastings Center has prepared this resource to help the nation stop the spread of the pandemic and we invite you to share it widely with patients and the general public through any dissemination channels available to you. This compelling animation underscores the four simple steps, needed to curb the coronavirus and restore the economy. We can “Stop the Spread.”
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Without effective masking, testing, tracing, and isolation, the country’s attempts to reopen will be disrupted. Stopping the spread of the novel coronavirus—and avoiding a general lockdown—depends on these important measures.
In 1947, a Human Rights Commission, led by Eleanor Roosevelt, a pioneer and fervent supporter of human rights, met to draft what would become the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Commission was composed of a committee created by the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations of the eight member states selected based on the criterion of the broadest geographical representativeness. The Declaration was presented in September 1948 and adopted a few months later. On December 10, 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was seen as a mere non-legally binding instrument, a “soft law” that laid the solid foundations for the rebirth of consciences shaken by the Second World War. In the following years, it became a crucial instrument of international law to protect fundamental human rights and a pillar of subsequent legally binding conventions and documents.
In October 2005, the General Assembly of UNESCO responded to rapid developments in science and technology and related ethical issues and approved the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights. Starting from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, below we would like to present the commitment of the UNESCO Chair of Bioethics and Human Rights. Since its 2009 foundation, the Chair has been and continues to be at the forefront of the dissemination and promotion of universal human rights through projects, study groups, advanced training courses, national and international workshops.
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “men are born free and equal in dignity and rights”, and have “duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.” (art. 29), It adds that “the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution” (art. 14). As part of the “European Citizens for Solidarity” (EUROSOL) project, co-funded by the Europe for Citizens program, on November 27, 2017, the Chair organized a public forum on the topic of “Human Dignity and Human Rights of Refugees.” The event brought together dozens of experts from eight countries to discuss EU resolutions related to the refugee crisis and propose new strategies and actions to address the urgent issues of the day: promoting intercultural dialogue, combating the stigmatization of migrants, and promoting tolerance and empathy. In addition, through the Bioethics Global Art project, the Bioaesthetics study group and the collaboration with the Fondazione Marianna, of which the Director of the Chair, Prof. Alberto García Gómez is an advisor, the Chair is pioneering the dissemination of human rights through art in all its forms. In 2011, 2013 and 2015, the Chair organized two art competitions and several exhibitions of unique pieces created by international artists committed and sensitive to the struggle for the rights of the most vulnerable.
Article 18, which enshrines freedom of thought, conscience and religion, introduces us to the project Bioethics, Multiculturalism and Religion with which the Chair wants to provide a place for debate where representatives of different religions and traditions can: engage one another in a sustained scholarly dialogue about global bioethics; cultivate an amicable atmosphere so participants can learn about each other’s tradition or religion with discursive empathy; promote mutual understanding of global bioethics through respectful discussion and scholarship; strive to develop the linguistic and conceptual space in which common ground or convergence can emerge and be mutually recognized and appreciated; and finally foster creative cooperation while respecting the dignity and uniqueness of each tradition.
The Chair, in conclusion, seeks to create venues for diverse leaders in bioethical thought. Working together in a spirit of respect and friendship, it aims to provide a common framework to guide the application of bioethical principles in light of the UNESCO Declaration. In this way, ethical, legal, and public views, decisions, and actions related to medicine, life sciences, human rights, and responsibilities can be informed and illuminated.
The organizers of the III World Congress of Transdisciplinary Virtual, the Centre International de Recherches et Études Transdisciplinaires (CIRET-FRANCE), the National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH/INAH-MEXICO), the UNESCO Transdisciplinary Chair on “Human Development and Culture of Peace”, University of Florence (UTC-ITALY), the Transdisciplinary Education Centre (CETRANS-BRAZIL) realize this world event of great importance to humanity, which will take place from October 30, 2020, until September 17, 2021.
This Virtual Congress is part of the III World Congress Face-to-Face Transdisciplinarity, to be held November 2-6, 2021 in Mexico City, with presentations, round tables, symposiums, cultural and artistic activities, can be found on their website. On this site, there are the forms of registration and inscription, for the two virtual and face-to-face modalities, as well as important information.
Our UNESCO Chair in Bioethics and Human Rights is part of the the Congressional CTU-Italy Committee lead by the University of Florence and will contribute participating in the RELATIONAL INTELLIGENCE OF THE SPECIES of the 21st Century, III week of conferences, during which our Chair Holder, Prof. Alberto Garcia will moderate the round table entitled “Bioethical challenges of artificial intelligence for a sustainable development respectful of human rights.” The round table will be held on March 24th 2021.
