PD Dr. Martin Hähnel

Personal information

Martin Hähnel is the lead of the bioethics subproject within the BMFTR-funded collaborative research initiative Embedding Generative Artificial Intelligence in Biomedical Research and Clinical Application – Epistemological, Ethical, Legal, and Social Aspects (EmGAI). He is also a Privatdozent (Senior Lecturer) in Philosophy at the University of Bremen. His research brings together systematic questions in moral philosophy with contemporary challenges in the ethics of technology, medicine, artificial intelligence, and politics. A particular focus of his work is on how classical ethical theories and principles of political action can be applied to the evaluation of emerging technologies. He also explores approaches to interdisciplinary philosophical research and discipline-specific public engagement.

Research interests

• Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
• Applied Ethics (especially bioethics, technology ethics, military ethics, and publication ethics)
• Normative Ethics (especially virtue ethics) and Metaethics (comparative analyses of ethical theories)
• Political Philosophy and the Philosophy of the Public Sphere

Selected publications

Selected articles

• Caritas pacem causat: How Can Virtues Serve Peace?, in: Journal of Military Ethics (2026), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/15027570.2026.2635221
• A New Age of Dual-Use Technologies: Identifying and Evaluating AI-Induced Risks and Opportunities in Military Medical Ethics. In: Koch, B., Winkler, D. (Hg.) Artificial Intelligence Ethics in Military Medicine and Humanitarian Healthcare. Military and Humanitarian Health Ethics. Springer: Cham 2026. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-11331-3_7
• Trust and Opacity in Artificial Intelligence: Mapping the Discourse (mit Rico Hauswald), in: Philosophy and Technology 38, 115 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-025-00947-9
• Wandel zum Besseren? Neuere Forschungen zum Begriff des moralischen Fortschritts, in: Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 4 (2024), 491-516. https://doi.org/10.3196/004433024839255738
• Conceptualizing Dual-use: A Multidimensional Approach, in: Research Ethics (2024), https://doi.org/10.1177/17470161241261466.
• Striking the Balance: Ethical Challenges and Social Implications of AI-Induced Power Shifts in Healthcare Organizations (mit Sabine Pfeiffer und Stephan Grassmann), in: AI and Society (2024), https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-024-02043-6.

Selected monographs

• Applied Biophilosophy. Towards a New Normativity of Life, Palgrave Macmillan: London 2027 (in Vorbereitung).
• Verantwortungsvoller Umgang mit Künstlicher Intelligenz in der Medizin aus interdisziplinärer Perspektive: Ein fallbasierter Leitfaden (mit Kathi Beier, Stephan Grassmann, Rico Hauswald, Sabine Pfeiffer, Timo Rademacher, Raphael Schaarschmidt), Nomos: Baden-Baden 2025.
• Was ist, was kann, was soll Künstliche Intelligenz? Ein philosophisches Gespräch (mit Vincent C. Müller), Meiner: Hamburg 2024.
• Theorien des Guten zur Einführung (mit Maria Schwartz), Junius: Hamburg 2018.

Selected edited volumes

• Blackwell Companion to Applied Philosophy of AI (mit Regina Müller), Wiley-Blackwell: Hoboken 2025.
• Aristotelian Naturalism. A Research Companion, Historical-Analytical Studies on Nature, Mind and Action, Volume 8, Springer Nature: Cham 2020.
• Die Natur der Lebensform. Perspektiven in Biologie, Ontologie und praktischer Philosophie (mit Jörg Noller), Brill/Mentis: Paderborn 2020.

Research project

The project investigates the ethical challenges and implications of the use of generative AI—particularly large language models (LLMs) and biological language models—in biomedical research, clinical practice, and medical education. Through a comparative and interdisciplinary analysis, it aims to develop practice-oriented guidelines and governance recommendations for the responsible use of these technologies.