Call for papers: The Moralization of Science
Sep 17, 2026 - Sep 18, 2026
Conference at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna (Austria) | Conveners: Daniel Brewing, Moritz Fischer, Elke Seefried (RWTH Aachen), Alexander Bogner (Austrian Academy of Sciences), Axel Jansen (GHI Washington)
Warnings against moralization are a common theme in discourses about the sciences and the humanities. Moralization introduces a dichotomy of good and evil, which, from an epistemic perspective, constitutes an impermissible simplification of complex relationships and, from a social perspective, contributes to the entrenchment of conflicts. Ultimately, it transforms the opposing party into an enemy against whom one’s own values must be asserted with full force. Warnings against moralization assume that both truth and social peace are endangered by it—and that it is others who engage in moralizing.
However, moralization can also yield positive effects, as illustrated by the rise of bioethics. To the extent that advances in the life sciences have been interpreted as profound moral challenges, bioethics has undergone institutionalization and professionalization from the 1960s onward. Concern for moral standards in scientific practice has contributed to the further development of research ethics. In this way, ethics has evolved into the most visible subdiscipline of philosophy. Thus, moralization can function as a driving force in the differentiation of research fields. At times, moralization originated from within academia itself. One example from the early postwar period is political science, which understood itself as an instrument for promoting liberal democracy. In response to the crimes of National Socialism, political education and academic reform in Germany sought to prevent future abuses. Similar debates emerged globally, for example, in the U.S. after Hiroshima, and in Japan through anti-nuclear movements. Another example is environmental and climate science: After the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, scientific efforts to contribute to ecological transformation intensified. Environmental and climate sciences serve the cause of sustainability and, among other things, advance the moralization of markets and consumption. The fact that contemporary surveys indicate declining trust in climate science due to its perceived proximity to politics suggests that science can also fall victim to its own moralization.
When it comes to moralization, science does not merely function as a subject or object of such processes. Scientific knowledge itself can serve as a resource in processes of moralization. Relevant examples are value conflicts, which often revolve around the question of who the “true” victims are. Consider the controversy over stem cell research during the 2000s: Are the true victims the patients who are denied access to a potential stem cell therapy due to insufficient research funding or the embryos that are used and consumed for research purposes? In such disputes, the ability to prevail depends, among other things, on the possession of relevant scientific expertise.
This outline highlights the intricate and multifaceted relationships between science and the humanities, moralization, and victimization. As debated among historians, moralization is an essentially contested concept: diverse actors employ the term—often in opposition to one another—leading to ambiguity regarding its meaning and semantic boundaries. Our conference seeks to address this challenge by exploring the intersection of scholarship and moralization from a historical perspective.
We proceed from the assumption that the interrelationship between moralization and science has become increasingly prominent and visible since 1945. Of course, this issue has been debated in various forms at least since the professionalization and differentiation of the sciences in the late nineteenth century. But in the German-speaking world, the continued relevance of issues discussed in the earlier Werturteilsstreit (debate over value judgments) after World War II and the 1960s Positivismusstreit (debate over positivism) highlighted tensions about the role of critical science in democratic societies. Both debates revolved around the extent to which non-scientific values could or should influence academic discussions and whether a scholar could still claim scientific freedom while advocating for social justice. These lines of conflict persist into the present.
We expect to place particular focus on the period since the 1970s, asking to what extent a specific constellation emerged during this decade that intensified moralizing discourses in science. In Western industrialized countries, the legacy of ‘1968’ and the rise of new social movements prompted a critical reassessment of the role of science amid broader social and cultural transformations, and of the relationship between science and activism. This shift helped catalyze the rise of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and, within the social sciences, a growing emphasis on subjectivity, individual experience, and authenticity. Particularly in Western Europe, ideas of participatory democracy and equality began to permeate not only the social sciences and humanities but also the natural sciences, fostering methods and practices that blurred the boundaries between science, society, and the public sphere. These developments contributed to the emergence of “counter-knowledge” from above (A. von Schwerin) and became a central driver of the growing moralization of science. In the United States, the 1970s likewise saw an intensification of moralizing tendencies, shaped by the decline of the Great Society paradigm in politics, culture, and public life. The rise of neoliberalism signaled a return to an older, historically embedded discourse centered on the individual as a moral agent. Across both sides of the Atlantic, these developments reinforced the moralization of science.
We invite contributions that explore the role of moralization in fields of science, the social sciences, and the humanities, in public discourses fueled by these fields, and in public discussions about them. How is science a driver of moralization and victimization? What conflicts evolve from the moralizing role of science for science itself? What conflicts evolve for societies at large? In short: Under what circumstances and in what historical contexts does science become the subject, object, or resource of moralization—and what are the consequences with respect to awareness of societal problems, political decision-making, and research itself?
Key Questions for Inquiry
We invite contributions from historians, sociologists, and scholars in related fields to present papers that take up questions such as the following:
- In what ways have discourses and practices of moralization been interconnected in the history of science and the humanities? What roles have they played in stabilizing or challenging paradigms and disciplinary communities? How have these discourses and practices changed over time?
- To what extent has moralization contributed to scientific self-reflection and progress? Conversely, to what extent has it posed a threat to the scientific ethos and to adherence to norms of truth-seeking?
- Who has engaged in moralization, who has accused others of doing so, and to what end? What cultural, political, or economic contexts have shaped these dynamics?
- What role have methodological problems played in advancing or hindering moralization within scientific and humanistic fields?
- What resources has science contributed to public debates on “political correctness” or critiques of historical injustice? How have the humanities drawn on science in these contexts, and what roles have scientists themselves chosen to adopt—or avoid—in academic and public discourse?
- We are also interested in the impact of different forms and practices of communication: How should we evaluate the role of intermediaries such as journalists? What role does the public play in shaping or responding to moralizing discourses?
- Potential topics include (but are not limited to) nuclear technology, environmental science, the AIDS crisis, and biomedical ethics in the 1980s and 1990s. While the sciences offer particularly rich ground for analysis, we also welcome papers on moralizing discourses in the social sciences and the humanities.
The conference will bring together scholars from diverse fields, including history (such as the history of science or medicine), sociology, and science studies, as well as related disciplines. The conveners aim to publish contributions to this conference as a special issue in a peer-reviewed journal or (given the interdisciplinary nature of the project) as an edited book.
The conference will be held at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna (Austria) on September 17 and 18, 2026. Please upload a paper proposal in our applicant portal by September 15, 2025. (Please find the link for the applicant portal in the CFP published on the GHI website, at https://www.ghi-dc.org/events/event/date/the-moralization-of-science.) A proposal consisting of a single PDF-file containing a brief description of the research project (up to 300 words), a brief CV (1 or 2 pages), and contact information. Successful applicants will be notified in October 2025.
Accommodation will be arranged and paid for by the conference organizers. Participants will make their own travel arrangements; funding subsidies for travel may be available upon request for selected scholars, especially those who might not otherwise be able to attend the conference, including junior scholars and scholars from universities with limited resources.
Kontakt
For further information regarding the event’s format and conceptualization, please contact Axel Jansen (a.jansen@ghi-dc.org). For questions about the submission platform or logistics (travel and accommodation), please contact our event coordinator Nicola Hofstetter (hofstetter-phelps@ghi-dc.org).
