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Disruptive, inclusive, empowering.

Our projects aim to enable scholars and stakeholders to engage in critical conversations on health ethics and manifest the world we want to live in.

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We are dedicated to cultivating convivial scholarship for a just world.

As a diverse, interdisciplinary ensemble of enthusiastic scholars, our collective strength lies in our varied perspectives and unwavering commitment to collaboration.

Ethics in health research and innovation.

We are building an interdisciplinary network that strengthens Africa’s voice in local and global health ethics.

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Interested in supporting our work?

We are dedicated to shaping Africa's impact on global health ethics. We have various opportunities for researchers, partners and funders to get involved.

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What is our approach to ethics?

We understand ethics not only as the routine specification and application of rules or principles, but as a space to contemplate the human condition and the flourishing of all life. We understand the human in relational terms, emphasizing the interconnectedness of human, animal, and planetary wellbeing. Recognising how histories of injustices and domination have and continue to shape the present, we emphasize ethics as a normative project that is worldmaking, concerned with imagining and fostering a more just world.

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EthicsLab Insights

The Legal and Ethical Debate on Human Heritable Genome Editing (HHGE) in South Africa

The controversy and conflicting interpretations of the law around human heritable genome editing (HHGE) in South Africa raises significant concerns among the South African legal, ethical, and scientific communities.

Ethics Washing: The Misappropriation of Ubuntu in the Ethics of Heritable Human Genome Editing (HHGE)

Using superficial ethical language to legitimize an agenda — in this case, a liberal one focused on expanding HHGE policy — while concealing a lack of substantive engagement with the invoked principles

Artificial Intelligence as Worldmaking Retreat

Artificial Intelligence as Worldmaking: Colonial Dimensions and Planetary Futures

Event recap: The EthicsLab hosted a retreat at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study bringing scholars from Africa and Latin America together to explore the idea of AI as a force of worldmaking.

Nyamnjoh’s Digital Uprising: Navigating the Ethics of Technology and Politics in Africa

Republished: A review of Prof Francis Nyamnjoh’s novel "Digital Uprising: The Flower of Freedom in Mimboland", where he masterfully weaves ethics throughout and examines its implications for leadership and technology.

Upcoming Events

Africa-centredness, EthicsLab illustration

Africa, Ethics and Emerging Technologies: Call for Expressions of Interest

(Ends 16 December 2024)

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Emerging Frontiers in Neuroethics

25 November 2024

(Ends 25 November 2024)

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What new ethical dilemmas do emerging neurotechnologies pose? Could 'neurorights' become essential? And how can perspectives from the Global South influence the global conversation on neuroethics?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Ethics & Policy in Africa

25 November 2024

(Ends 2 December 2024)

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This course examines the law, policy, and ideology around the development of AI.

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Why I'm with the EthicsLab

We are a diverse, interdisciplinary ensemble of enthusiastic scholars. Our collective strength lies in our varied perspectives and unwavering commitment to collaboration. We asked, "What excites you about being part of the EthicsLab?" Discover their responses here.