Volume 8 (2020): Issue 1 (June 2020)

This article deals with a differentiated examination of robotics and its evaluation in inpatient geriatric care. It examines the extent to which nursing robots fit into person-centered nursing work and possibly change it significantly. The advantages and new possibilities are shown, but also the dangers and problems from the point of view of different area ethics are pointed out. In the centre of the considerations are residents and employees as a benchmark for the ethical evaluation of robots in geriatric care.

In the process of drafting European Union (EU) legislation and supervising its effective national implementation, the European Commission has to cooperate with lobbyists. This exchange involves the risk of arbitrary lobby influence on its decisions at the expense of other EU citizens. Against this backdrop, this article addresses the research question of which normative principles should constrain the Commission’s interaction with lobbyists. Based on the contractarian approach from Rawls’ Law of Peoples, it identifies eight criteria of a Rawlsian lobby consultation system for the Commission, which representatives of EU countries could accept from behind a Rawlsian veil of ignorance and in view of the fundamental interest of their people. These normative criteria can be supervised by independent institutions like the European Parliament and the European Court of Justice. They constitute a procedural approach to the political supervision of the Commission’s interaction with lobbyists that can be enforced without compromising its necessary institutional independence.

In the late Middle Ages, the canonical prohibition of interest increasingly came into conflict with an ever more dynamic economic practice. The Ingolstadt based theology professor Johannes Eck is better known as Catholic opponent of Martin Luther; however, he also worked more strongly than his academic contemporaries against fundamentalist business ethics theories thereby actively searching public debate. Subsequently, he became forerunner and point of reference for academic theory, which is committed to the struggle of merchants and entrepreneurs to shape their forms of practice responsibly.