Abstracts

Kate Soper

Given the multiple crises we now face, a major shift in thinking about the nature of human prosperity and the qualities of the ‘good’ life is much needed. Though presented as the model to be pursued by less developed communities, affluent consumer culture continues to enrich a global elite at the expense of the health of the planet and the well-being of large numbers of its inhabitants. Consumer culture has improved living standards in certain respects, and exerts a powerful influence. But it has also proved seriously detrimental to well-being, and many of those who are questioning its less beneficial effects, and uneasy about its negative social and environmental impact, are also now seeking better cultural and political representation of their viewpoint. In pressing the case for a compelling – and more mainstream - challenge to prevailing economic orthodoxy and its discourse on human value, I shall provide a digest of my argument on ‘alternative hedonism’; briefly comment on some objections to which it is open, and reflect on its potential political impact – including in helping to offset the defiant inaction on climate change of the populist right.

Josée Johnston

Title: Pleasure, Paradox, and the Cultural Politics of Happy Meat Consumption

Even as concerns about climate change, animal welfare, and health mount, meat remains one of the most pleasurable and culturally significant foods in Europe and beyond. Drawing on recent research from my co-authored book Happy Meat, this talk examines how consumers and producers navigate the “meat paradox”—the tension between the enjoyment of eating meat and the discomfort of its environmental and ethical costs. Using Canadian survey data, focus groups, and interviews with small-scale farmers, I explore how “happy meat” narratives—framing meat as high-welfare, sustainable, and local—offer a partial resolution to this tension. While such narratives can reduce individual guilt and inspire shifts toward “less meat, better meat,” they also risk obscuring the scale of transformation needed to meet climate and sustainability targets. Connecting these insights to the European context, where policies promoting sustainable consumption are evolving, I reflect on how cultural understandings of pleasure and responsibility shape the politics of dietary change. My goal is to provoke discussion about how we might reconcile the pleasures of eating with the urgent demands of planetary stewardship.

Verena Fuchsberger

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) has long focused on human-centered design, asking how technology can best support people in their everyday and work life, with the aim to understand and give shape to desirable digital-physical realities. However, the world we live in today is shaped by challenges that extend far beyond human concerns. Issues such as climate change, poverty, or social marginalization remind us that humans are deeply entangled with wider ecological and technological systems. As a result, research and design in HCI are beginning to shift their focus beyond the human. This shift is often described through terms such as “more-than-human,” “posthuman,” or “transhuman.” These perspectives encourage us to think not only about humans, but also about the needs, values, and roles of nonhuman actors, whether plants, animals, algorithms, or infrastructures. The question is no longer just how technology can serve humans, but how humans and nonhumans are entangled. Drawing on examples from HCI I will reflect on what these philosophical positions mean for design and how they might guide us toward more sustainable, just, and livable futures.

Shengnan Han

When we speak of a “more-than-human” world, we imagine more than faster machines or smarter algorithms. We are entering a new condition of humanity, where artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and planetary systems shape who we are and who we might become. From a transhumanist perspective, this is not about replacing the human, but expanding it—our capacities, our horizons, and our responsibilities. This expansion forces us to ask: what human values will guide us? Technology does not simply serve human ends; it mediates and reshapes them. The task, then, is not only to align machines with human values, but to cultivate a relational ethic in which humans, posthumans, and nonhumans co-create meaning. Across cultures we can discern enduring goods—safety, dignity, fairness, care, creativity. These must anchor how we design and live with technology. In Europe, the aspiration has been framed as uniting new technologies with age-old values; globally, it is about resilience, justice, and sustainability. A transhumanist horizon is neither blind faith in machines nor nostalgia for the past. It is a conscious project of co-creation: learning to be better persons, so that together we may shape better worlds.

Deividas Petrulevičius

What does it mean to speak about human values at a time when algorithms are used in healthcare, automation is changing workplaces, and digital platforms shape how we connect, learn, and share information? Do we direct technologies with our values, or do they begin to reshape how we think about what is human? And if values are shifting, who has the authority to decide which ones continue and which ones are left behind? This presentation will open the discussion in the workshop Human Values in a More-than-Human World by looking at the intersections of human–technology interaction in industry, digital innovation, and beyond. Europe’s push in artificial intelligence, robotics, and data governance shows both the promise and the uncertainty of technological progress. Collaboration between Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) and STEM is not an optional extra — it is central to making these changes meaningful and responsible. Values are not secondary; they steer technological progress and influence whose futures are supported and whose are not. The talk will raise questions that are not easy to answer: Can we assign responsibility to AI systems? What happens when technological goals clash with social priorities? Do we design systems that adapt to human needs, or will people adapt to the systems instead? The purpose is to open space for reflection on how Europe can create innovation that is not only advanced but also inclusive, responsible, and guided by values.

Charlotta Sparre

Since the dawn of times, scientific discoveries and technological innovation have always told us an inextricable story of progress and regress. The current scientific innovations – especially AI – present new opportunities, but also unprecedented risks. Too frequently history has shown how innovation disconnected by humanism is precursor of political decay and moral decadence. In times of rising populism and weakened rule of law, it is on these history lessons that the EU must anchor research to humanities disciplines, directed to serve humanity progress. In other words, scientific progress could enrich civilization only if inspired by human values. Cultures evolve but human values remain anchored to a few essential principles that are of moral nature: that human being are born free and equal, and deserve the opportunity to pursue a life of their choice, respecting the choices of others. A life free from want, discovering our talents, cultivating our skills and in turn contributing to societal progress. Democratic institutions play an essential role in protecting humanism and the values that sustain it. As imperfect as they are, they remain our best option to live in harmony with each other and with nature. The EU offers us a framework connecting technology, research, innovation, private sector capital and drive, academic knowledge, accountability, and above all respect to those human rights that remain the basis of our common humanity.

Eric Arnould

Green growth and techno-optimism are utopian delusions generated from within the existing dominant capitalist value paradigm. An alternative, well-being paradigm requires epochal changes in consumer values. We should start with recalling our ancestors ecosystemic value system embracing the non-human world. We then need to consider what mechanisms of resource circulation and value cocreation can get us to the 8 Rs envisioned by Serge Latouche (re-evaluate, re-conceptualize, re-structure, re-distribute, re-localize, reduce, re-use, and re-cycle) that will foster practices of care, justice, and well-being. I propose some foundational processes of resource circulation and value cocreation. Gift systems, management of commons, reciprocal exchange, and symbiosis are processes well-documented cross-culturally, historically, and biosemotically.

Anne Gerdes

When discussing the possibility of conscious AI, let’s not forget that human consciousness arises from embodied experience within a social world where outcomes matter to us. Machine learning systems – from simple regression models to advanced deep neural networks, including large language models fine-tuned through reinforcement learning with human feedback (RLHF) – process information through computation alone. One of the arguments supporting the idea that consciousness is computationally tractable claims that mental states arise from physical processes in the brain, which can be replicated computationally. Yet, human consciousness and moral agency emerge not merely from neural computation, but from our embodiment, our

engagement with and dependence on others, and our lived experiences. We don't just process information about friendship, love, hate, or injustice – we feel them in ways that shape who we are and how we act. AI systems may convincingly simulate aspects of consciousness and moral reasoning. Still, they cannot experience what it means to be in a situation in which something is at stake. This does not rule out the development of AI systems with functional morality – rule-based or machine-trained behaviors that align with human values. However, statistical pattern matching, risk stratification, or next-token prediction in large language models remains fundamentally different from human moral judgment. The notion that AI might become conscious, or moral, confuses the simulation of these capacities with their embodied reality in a social world.

Sergio Salvatore

Human values guide social action not merely as explicit moral prescriptions, but performatively—through their immanence in everyday practices. Values are effective insofar as they are instituted: embodied in action, enacted unreflectively as states of fact that give meaning and direction to collective life. Today, however, this performative ground of values is weakening. Across all levels of public life, the social bond is increasingly structured around the “nemicalization” of alterity—visible in war narratives, migration policies, and polarized political discourse. The affective nature of this dynamic prevents it from being confined to relations with external outgroups: it tends to permeate internal social relations, generating divisions within communities themselves. As a result, the affective polarization that once defined external boundaries now erodes the inner cohesion upon which substantive democracy depends. Defending democracy, therefore, requires fostering forms of social action that inherently convey universalistic values. This, however, should not be seen as an alternative to, but as integrated with, the care for communitarian identity and emotional needs. This calls for a generative welfare model, the empowerment of intermediate processes between the private and public spheres, the promotion of active citizenship, and the recovery of institutions’ capacity to govern systemic transformations.

Mario Scharfbillig

Seen through the lens of behavioural sciences, values are not only rights but psychological constructs, shaped by foundational motivations, culture, emotions, and social identities. Seen through this perspective, universal principles like democracy or human rights will be understood and interpreted differently — not because of legal debates, but because of how individuals and groups perceive, prioritize, and defend what matters to them. Theories of values and morals show that people anchor their judgments in distinct value priorities, and group identity dynamics amplify these differences. Those dynamics can then turn values into markers of competing identities — nationally and internationally — rather than shared aspirations.

Combined with technology that is designed to drive engagement by showing people what they want to see, reality is increasingly fractured and polarised. The same value — freedom, equality, justice — becomes divisive when framed through competing narratives, even when support remains high in principle. The result is a clash not only of ideas, but of deeply held psychological needs and motivations: security, belonging, status, morality.

To navigate these conflicts, we must better understand the underlying drivers of pluralist perspectives, find better ways to navigate differences, and actively engage in different ways than just in social media battles. New ways of online and offline deliberation are needed. Importantly for SSH to play a role in this, research needs to go beyond describing these issues towards designing and testing tools, methods and approaches that can deal with this foundational plurality.

Mona Kanwal Sheikh

This presentation introduces worldview analysis as a framework for understanding international conflict through the lens of human values, historical experience, and collective self-understanding. It argues that many of today’s geopolitical tensions are not merely about power or resources, but about competing visions of order, justice, and moral legitimacy. By unpacking the worldviews that shape both Western and non-Western actors, the approach helps explain why diplomacy often fails and why certain regimes or conflicts endure despite global pressure. In a world where competing moral narratives and historical grievances increasingly define international relations, worldview analysis offers a framework for rethinking human values as both a source of division and a potential bridge for understanding. The presentation argues that in today’s post-Western order, genuine conflict resolution requires not moral superiority but interpretive empathy: to understand is not to defend, but to enable peace.