Vojin Rakić

In his latest books, both published by Springer in 2021 (How to Enhance Morality and The Ultimate Enhancement of Morality) Rakić reviews existing (bio)ethical theories and proposes an original ethical theory (the theory of "Ultimate Morality"), showing the superiority of this theory and asserting that this will become the dominant ethical theory of our time.

From the beginning of 2020, he criticized the President and Government of Serbia for adopting autocratic policies under the pretext of anti-COVID-19 measures, for counterfeiting data about the number of deceased COVID-19 patients, and for organizing undemocratic and unfair elections that were boycotted by the opposition. This resulted in a smear campaign against Rakić by Government controlled media in Serbia (primarily tabloids), as well as by Aleksandar Vučić, the President of Serbia, personally. This smear campaign came abruptly to an end as dozens of the world`s most famous philosophers, ethicists and scientists (including Peter Singer, Arthur Caplan, John Harris, and Julian Savulescu) signed a letter of support for Vojin Rakić that they sent to the political leaders in the United States and in the European Union and in which they asked them to nudge Vučić into stopping his smear campaign and to publicly apologize to Rakić.

In August 2020, Rakić was appointed as advisor to Democratic Party President Zoran Lutovac.

In October 2020, Rakić founded New 6 October, an association aimed at the promotion of liberal democratic values in Serbia.

On 16–19 August 2017, CSB organized, in cooperation with the European Society for the Philosophy of Medicine and Health Care, the 31st ESPMH Annual Meeting "New Technologies in Health Care".

On 20–21 August 2017, CSB partnered with the Division of Medical Ethics in NYU School of Medicine's Department of Population Health and The Hastings Center, in order to organize the international conference "Genome editing: biomedical and ethical perspectives". This event gathered an international group of ethics experts in order to discuss genome editing in humans and other living beings. The conference keynote speech included one that was delivered by Arthur Caplan. The conference was opened by the Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic.

In October 2015, CSB organized another highly acclaimed bioethics conference in Belgrade, this time in collaboration with The Hastings Center. The keynote speakers were John Harris and Erik Parens. Reports on the event have appeared in dozens of media.

During the previous years Rakić has been devoted to bioethics, developing the concept of voluntary moral bioenhancement, a recent field of interest of scientists dealing with human enhancement. Rakić favors moral enhancement, even with the help of medicines and other substances (e.g., oxytocin, some SSRIs, dopamine, propranolol), but only under the condition that their use is voluntary. Rakić has polemicized on the one hand with John Harris (who believes that cognitive bio-enhancement is sufficient for our moral improvement) and, on the other hand, with Julian Savulescu and Ingmar Persson (who used to defend the idea of making moral bio-enhancement compulsory). These two authors and Rakić have polemicized with each other during 2013 in the Journal of Medical Ethics. Rakić opened the debate in February 2013 and Persson and Savulescu responded in March. During 2014 Rakić, Robert Sparrow and Harris Wiseman polemicized in the American Journal of Bioethics on the same problem, as well as on other issues related to enhancement.

In 2012, Rakić founded the Center for the Study of Bioethics, a research institute based in Belgrade, Serbia. CSB has internal and associate members. They include Peter Singer, John Harris, Don Marquis, Nicholas Agar, Ingmar Persson, James J. Hughes and Stefan Lorenz Sorgner. In May 2013 CSB attracted widespread attention by organizing a conference in Belgrade at which John Harris and Julian Savulescu confronted their differing positions on human enhancement and freedom. Their debate continued for several days in Belgrade, not only at the conference (with Peter Singer as a discussant of their positions), but also in front of TV cameras. The Oxford Centre for Neuroethics co-organized the congress.

Rakić is the author of a variety of books and articles from the domain of philosophy and political science. They include "How to Enhance Morality", "The Ultimate Enhancement of Morality",A Theory of the Normative Will, History and Future of Justice and Hegemony, Culture and Human Resources in Politics. In History and Future of Justice Rakić analyzes the teleological thesis that history in the long run is marked by a gradual development of morality and justice, and that humanity will achieve a condition of "perfect justice" at the end of its historical development– provided that history will last sufficiently long. A topical book influenced by History and Future of Justice is The Evolution of God, published in 2009 by Robert Wright.

Rakić's role has not been limited to science and academia. In 2002, he became a special adviser of the United Nations to the Government of Serbia. During his work as a government adviser Rakic worked closely with Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, who was assassinated in 2003 by rogue elements of the Serbian secret police that were still loyal to ousted President Slobodan Milosevic.

Vojin B. Rakic (born 1967 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia) is a Serbian philosopher and political scientist. He publishes in English, but also in Serbian. He has a PhD in political science from Rutgers University in the United States. His publications on ethics, bioethics (human enhancement in particular), Kant, and cosmopolitan justice are considered as influential writings in the international academic arena, as can be read in the references to Rakić`s works, the endorsements of his two latest books, as well as in the open letter of support for Rakić that has been signed by dozens of the world`s most reputed (bio)ethicists and philosophers, in which they state their opinion about him (about all this later in this article).