Norbert Paulo takes over professorship for Philosophy and Ethics of Digitalization

Born in Berlin, he has an unusual background: He completed a double degree in law and philosophy at the University of Hamburg. His starting point was law, and the question of justice led him to philosophy. "In law school, it's more about what the law says – and less about the questions that interested me, namely why it is like this and how could it be better", Paulo recalls. His professor, the well-known legal philosopher Reinhard Merkel, finally sent him to the philosophers: "That was the big 'aha' moment that changed my whole life."

Paulo completed his doctorate at the University of Hamburg, followed by his habilitation at the University of Graz. He continued his academic career as a postdoc, first at the University of Salzburg and then in Graz. After his habilitation, he took on a deputy professorship at the Institute of Philosophy at the FU Berlin. Most recently, Paulo led a project on thought experiments in practical philosophy at the LMU Munich as part of the Heisenberg Program of the German Research Foundation (DFG). Since 2021, he has also been co-leading a research project on the ethics of self-driving cars at the University of the Federal Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) in Munich. He intends to continue this work at the KU. 

Paulo's philosophical interest particularly focuses on methodology: In his doctoral thesis, he used his dual professional background to examine how abstract moral principles in ethics are applied in individual cases, drawing on the methodology of legal theory. In his habilitation thesis, he dealt with the question of how findings from the empirical sciences play into normative ethics. "People often assume that these are separate spheres – but I think they overlap on many levels and I have tried to work this out further for ethics." In his academic career to date, Paulo has not only combined law and philosophy, but also theory and empiricism. 

As part of his Heisenberg project, he devotes himself to thought experiments: "The basic idea was to bring scientific methods into normative ethics", explains Paulo. Scenarios such as the famous trolley problem showed how small changes in thought experiments can result in major differences in moral judgments. "Structurally, it works in a similar way to a scientific experiment – only in the mind." His goal is a theory of thought experiments in practical philosophy. Although he is currently pausing the Heisenberg project for the position at the KU, he wants to continue pursuing the topic in his teaching.

At the KU, Paulo focuses on two main areas: Digitalization and sustainability as well as digitalization and democracy. He is concerned with key questions about the future of society: "AI consumes an incredible amount of energy and resources – but it can also help to change lifestyles or infrastructures in such a way that resources are being saved", he says. The aim is not to stop developments in the field of AI, but to shape them in such a way "that we deal with them as sensibly as possible with regard to sustainability issues".

Norbert Paulo also advocates democratic control of technical developments. "At the moment, the development of AI is primarily being controlled by a few American men with some strange views", says the philosopher and demands: "The state should get much more involved here; the people in this society should have a say in the limits and possibilities of development." He cites the area of autonomous driving as a tangible example: "We already have semi-autonomous vehicles on the road, and yet legislators in Germany are leaving many questions unanswered and refraining from regulation." Decisions in potentially fatal accident situations are thus "effectively left to the car manufacturers". A clear case for him: "This must be explicitly regulated."

In addition to research and teaching, transfer to the public is also important to the new KU professor. In Ingolstadt, Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" will be a thematic anchor point. The novel, which is partly set in Ingolstadt, provides Paulo with a cultural template to make the AI debate accessible: "Shelley has the young Victor Frankenstein create a creature in scientific hubris without realizing the consequences of his invention. The parallels with current developments in the field of AI are obvious."

Paulo's professorship is located at the KU's School of Transformation and Sustainability (STS) and is specifically designed to be cross-faculty and cross-campus. He sees this bridging function as an opportunity: "My aim is to link the humanities, social sciences and data science more closely, including in teaching." Plans include the further development of ethics modules and better networking between students in Eichstätt and Ingolstadt. The endowed professorship is one of three professorships established by the city of Ingolstadt at the KU – the other two professorships are located at the Mathematical Institute for Machine Learning and Data Science.

Norbert Paulo describes what particularly appealed to him about the new position: "I was particularly attracted by the opportunity to start from scratch and build up an area according to my own ideas." This is exactly what he now wants to do – in research, teaching and transfer. “I would like to help raise the potential that we already have in the various faculties of the KU on the subject of ethics, to bundle it and make it more visible.”