Stanford Scholar Roland Benedikter wins Klaus Reichert Award in Karlsruhe, Germany

Europe Center scholar Dr. Roland Benedikter (47), has been honored with the 2012 Klaus Reichert Award for Medical Philosophy. This award, given by the Center for Medical Philosophy in Karlsruhe, Germany, was bestowed on Benedikter in recognition of his outstanding merits for medical ethics, for advancing the debate on avant-garde issues at the interplay between contemporary politics, sociology, ethics and medicine, and for his efforts to re-humanize the contemporary thought and international debate about the future of the human being in times of "transhumanism" and "hyper-technologization". The award is the most highly regarded academic award of this genre in Germany.

The award ceremony will be held on October 6, 2012 in Karlsruhe. In his award speech "What future for the human being: Humanism or Transhumanism? Aspects at the interplay between technology, politics and ethics", Benedikter will give an overview of the current "global systemic shift", its trend towards a "neuromorphosis" of global culture (two notions co-coined by him) and the future of the human being in the age of "transhumanism" and invasive new technologies. Benedikter will in particular elucidate the contemporary relation between macro-philosophical trends that will dominate the years ahead in the advanced international thought on the interplay between medicine and society.

Benedikter shares the award with his long time collaborator Prof. James Giordano, director of the Center on Neurotechnology at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, Washington DC.