The Legacy of Nazi Medicine in Contemporary Mental Health Ethics: Comparing three decades of Bioethics Debates in Germany and Israel (1990-2020)

The scientistis reconstruct the impact of Nazi Medicine on institutionalized mental health ethics and its expressions mainly from 1990 until 2020 by analysing the 'evolution' of bioethical expert discourses via documents and interviews in Germany and Israel. They focus hereby on three research areas: 1. To what extent individuals with mental illness are seen as able to give informed consent and if so, which ethical safeguards are implemented; 2. How research with mentally incompetent patients is seen as justified or its justification is balanced with other values; 3. What are the competing scientific, epistemic, and ethical imperatives in current experimental practices, such as placebo research? The empirical-comparative study aims at detailed, disciplinary-reflective understandings of the social, political and ideological factors which influence the development of highly relevant bioethical discourses.