Ethics in a Changing World. Foreword by the Head of the Centre

Prof. Margit Sutrop, Professor of Practical Philosophy, University of Tartu, Head of the Centre for Ethics

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Looking back on twenty-five years of the University of Tartu Centre for Ethics, I think about why it was created, whose support made it possible, and how we arrived at our work today. Its history is a story of ideas carried across borders, interdisciplinary cooperation, and people who believed that ethics should have a visible place in the university and society.

The idea arose at a turning point in Estonia’s history. Following independence in 1991, the country spent a decade undertaking political, economic and legal reforms. By the turn of the millennium, people were asking: Is this the Estonia we wanted? The question was no longer only how to build a functioning state and economy, but what kind of society we wished to become. What is a good life, a just society and a good state? What responsibilities do freedom and democracy place upon us?

Letters were sent to the Rector of the University of Tartu calling for a centre that would address these questions. Initially, it was envisaged as part of the Faculty of Theology. When I became Professor of Practical Philosophy in 2000 and returned after almost a decade of doctoral studies and academic work in the United Kingdom, Norway and Germany, I proposed an interfaculty, genuinely interdisciplinary centre, following a model I had encountered at the University of Tübingen. Ethical questions arise wherever knowledge, professional responsibility and human lives meet and therefore belong to no single discipline.

The Centre for Ethics was established on 1 June 2001 with the participation of physicians, legal scholars, philosophers, biologists, classical philologists, theologians and social scientists. The support of the then Rector, Prof. Jaak Aaviksoo, was crucial. He believed we could create a centre of expertise and bring different fields together to discuss values and responsibility.

Equally important was support from Germany. With the assistance of Prof. Jürgen Mittelstrass and the University of Konstanz, we secured five years of funding from the Volkswagen Foundation. This enabled us to invite visiting professors, including Hubert Schleichert and Theda Rehbock, establish a specialist library, organise conferences, and publish textbooks and collections. Doctoral scholarships supported fifteen researchers from different disciplines, helping to form a new generation of ethics experts across academic and professional fields.

To improve the teaching of ethics and foster cooperation across faculties, we began holding regular ethics colloquia. They created a shared intellectual space and embodied a principle that remains central to our work: ethical understanding develops through encounters — between disciplines, between theory and practice, and between people who may not initially speak the same academic language.

Our interdisciplinary research gained momentum through ELSAGEN, a European Commission project examining the ethical, legal and social aspects of biobanks with partners from Iceland, the United Kingdom and Finland. It was followed by ETHICSWEB, coordinated by the German Reference Centre for Ethics in the Life Sciences in Bonn. The projects strengthened our connections with ethics centres across Europe and inspired the Estonian ethics portal, www.eetika.ee.

From the outset, our mission has rested on three connected pillars: to advance interdisciplinary research in ethics, integrate ethics into different curricula and fields, and lead public discussion on norms, values and justice. These activities are intertwined: questions arising in society generate research; research supports teaching and practical tools; and cooperation with practitioners helps us test and refine our ideas.

To promote public discussion, we organised colloquia, conferences and, with President Toomas Hendrik Ilves as patron, nationwide essay competitions. In 2008, at the request of the Ministry of Education and Research, we began preparing the national values development programme. It supported schools and kindergartens in analysing their values, developing organisational cultures and training teachers. It also helped professional communities formulate codes of ethics and examine the values guiding their work.

One of the most important lessons of these twenty-five years is that laws, codes and agreements on good practice are necessary, but not sufficient. Values acquire meaning in the way a teacher treats a pupil, a physician a patient, a researcher a participant, a leader an employee, and a state its citizens. Ethical conduct depends both on individual competence and on the institutions and cultures within which people act.

The Centre does not possess stamps marked ‘ethical’ and ‘unethical’. Rather than pass judgement or provide ready-made answers, we help people recognise ethical questions, identify the values and responsibilities at stake, understand different perspectives, and reach publicly justifiable decisions. Disagreement does not necessarily signify moral failure: people may seek what is good yet interpret a situation differently or assign different weight to values. A democratic society is distinguished by its ability to address disagreement without regarding opponents as enemies.

Today we are again living through profound change. Trust in institutions is under pressure, societies are becoming polarised, and the international rules-based order can no longer be taken for granted. Generative artificial intelligence is also transforming how we learn, work and decide, compelling us to ask anew what it means to be human. Artificial intelligence may expand our capacities, but it cannot understand human dignity or assume moral responsibility. That responsibility remains ours.

These changes make our work more necessary, not less. Ethics must help us understand how dignity, freedom, justice, care, and responsibility should be interpreted in new circumstances. An ethical society cannot be built once and for all; it must be renewed through every decision and generation. To paraphrase the Estonian poet Hando Runnel: Changing oneself may alter the world only by one person’s measure, but when a million people change themselves, the impact becomes visible and powerful.

I am deeply grateful to everyone who has shaped the Centre: our colleagues, students, advisory bodies, partners, practitioners, university leaders, funders, and friends in Estonia and abroad. The story of the Centre for Ethics is our shared story. I hope these pages convey both what we have accomplished and the spirit in which we have worked: with curiosity, openness and responsibility, and with faith in the power of thoughtful dialogue to make the world a better place.