Do Organoids Matter in Their Own Right? An Animal Ethics and Social Critique

The third 2026 VAS Summer Lecture Series will be a talk by Dr. Konstantin Deininger about organoids and ethics. Dr Konstantin Deininger is a philosopher specializing in animal ethics, bioethics, and animal politics. He completed his doctorate in philosophy at the University of Vienna in 2025, with a dissertation on methodological questions in animal ethics drawing on Wittgenstein and Wittgenstein-inspired moral philosophy. Following his doctorate, Deininger held a postdoctoral position at the Messerli Research Institute at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, where he further developed his research in animal ethics in close interdisciplinary exchange. His current work extends to questions in animal politics, as well as to moral psychology—particularly the concept of affordances—and metaethics.