LEVIATHAN: Taming the European Leviathan: The Legacy of Post-War Medicine and the Common Good

Histories of postwar Europe have usually focused on the divisions of ideology, the competing economic systems, and the contrasting political structures that separated Western and Eastern Europe from each other. This project is distinguished by its multidisciplinary approach in which the conceptual, institutional, and legal frameworks of pursuing the development of common good are going to be studied in the two sides of Europe.

Thus, on the one hand, the life sciences’ claim to universal truth offers a privileged perspective beyond the usual oppositions of ideology, economic and political systems. On the other hand, medicine and health care systems are socially, politically, economically, technologically, and culturally determined more than nearly any other field of our modern life. The innovative approach of the project, which applies medicine as an analytical lens, goes beyond its heuristic methodology. Rather than merely studying postwar Europe’s two halves separately the researchers aim to understand Europe as one.

By reconstructing the genealogy of common values and principles attached to health and life sciences in Europe, we can develop a better understanding of Europe’s present and find answers to future challenges for preserving European identities.