The socio-political effects of genetic research and how it shapes the democratic consciousness of the citizens

Vilhjálmur Árnason completed B.A. degree in philosophy at the University of Iceland, and a Ph.D. degree in philosophy from Purdue University, USA. He was later a Humboldt post doctoral fellow in Berlin. He is currently a professor of philosophy and chair of the Centre for Ethics at the University of Iceland. He is the author of Dialog und Menschenwürde. Ethik im Gesundheitswesen (LIT Verlag 2005) and of numerous articles on issues in moral theory and bioethics. Árnason is a member of the board of The Nordic Council of Bioethics (since 2005), and a member of the board of The European Society for Philosophy of Medicine and Health Care (since 2004). He was a co-ordinator of the bioethics project ELSAGEN, funded by EC 2002–2004. Published as Ethics and Governance of Human Genetic Databases: European Perspectives. Cambridge University Press 2007. He is one of the section editors of the revised edition of the Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics, forthcoming from Elsevier. Árnason’s current research focuses on the socio-political effects of genetic research and how it shapes the consciousness of the citizens. In the project at Brocher foundation, he intends to draw upon on the theory of deliberative democracy and explore a neglected vision of the citizen in the mainstream discourse of bioethics.