Abstract: Technical artefacts are a topic for moral philosophy as much as crimes and other misdemeanors. After all, their design and structure matter a lot for human wellbeing and dignity – for example, whether they function well, how they affect the environment, or whether they seduce people into committing abuses. Architectural artefacts are no exception in this respect; from the ethical perspective, we can distinguish moral and immoral buildings. But with architecture, things are particularly complicated: Often the criteria for good and for moral architecture seem to pull in different directions - many ‘green’ buildings are architecturally undistinguished, to say the least, and some of the finest buildings are morally questionable. Should, then, ethics be subordinated to aesthetic quality or vice versa? Existential riddles like these call for philosophy to solve all problems; or at least that is what philosophers like to believe.

Biography: Christian Illies holds the chair of philosophy at the University of Bamberg (Bavaria/ Germany). He was educated at Konstanz (M.Sc. Biology), Oxford (DPhil) and Aachen (Habilitation Philosophy). Prior to joining Bamberg University in 2008, he was lecturer and professor for ‘Philosophy of Culture and Technology’ at the Technical Universities Eindhoven and Delft where he co-organized the Center of Excellence for Ethics in Technology of the three Dutch technical universities. His research focuses on ethics (Grounds of Ethical Judgement, 2003), philosophy of biology (Darwin 1999 (with V.Hösle), Philosophische Anthropologie 2006), and philosophy of culture and technology, in particular philosophy of architecture. He is currently dwelling on problems of an ethics of architecture in close cooperation with Nicholas Ray (Cambridge).