Ivana Zagorac is the first outgoing researcher who successfully finished her NEWFELPRO project. Her project is titled "The Concept of Vulnerability in Medical Ethics (CONVINce-ME)". Ivana, who has a PhD in philosophy, spent her outgoing phase at the Institute for Medical Ethics and History of Medicine in Bochume and her return phase at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb.
Her project aimed at the analysis of the concept of vulnerability and the justifiability of its applications in discussions in medical ethics, with the special focus on the issue of end of life decisions (physician assisted suicide, euthanasia, limitation of life sustaining treatment etc.). The concept itself is notably under-theorized, nevertheless the descriptor ‘vulnerable’ is used in almost every discussion in the field of medical ethics. The project was divided into three phases: outlining the concept: analysis of key international and national documents that stipulate protection for vulnerable individuals and/or populations in the field of (bio)medicine, central activity: research on the relation between vulnerability, exploitation, and compassion and the contextualization of results: validation of results on an example of end of life decisions.
Throughout her project, Ivana presented her project multiple times at the host institutions. She participated, among others, at the International conference on Philosophical practices in September 2014, had a presentation at the „Man-Made World“ conference, presented at the 14th Lošinj Days of Bioethics on Mali Lošinj, she presented at the conference „Constrains and Vulnerabilities“ in Oslo, Norway and also had a workshop in school as a part of the project „Scientific incubator“.
Based on her research, Ivana prepared the following works:
Zagorac I. Psychosomatics of Virtue in the Age of Sensibility, Acta ladertina (1845-3392) 10 (2013); 61-68
Zagorac I. The Flower of Evil: On the Phenomenon of Boredom Philosophical Practice (1742-8181) 9 (2014), 3; 1455-1461
Zagorac I O odgovornosti znanosti u nuklearno doba u: Nikola Biliškov (ed.), Opstajati usprkos, kolekcija eseja, Izvori, Zagreb 2015
Zagorac I. Hume's Humanity and the Protection of the Vulnerable Diametros 44 (2015): 189–203
Fatić A., Zagorac I.The Methodology of Philosophical Practice: Eclecticism and/or Integrativness
Zagorac I. Bioethical Worldview
Zagorac I. What vulnerability? Whose vulnerability? Conflicts of Understandings in Medical Research Ethics
Upon finishing her project, Ivana returned to her academic career at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.