Public lecture by
News
PUBLICATION BY FORMER FACULTY FELLOW
Conversations on Ethics
Alex Voorhoeve
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, London School of Economics
Can we trust our intuitive judgments of right and wrong? Are moral judgments objective? What reason do we have to do what is right and avoid what is wrong? In Conversations on Ethics, Alex Voorhoeve elicits answers to these questions from eleven outstanding philosophers and social scientists:
Ken Binmore, Philippa Foot, Harry Frankfurt, Allan Gibbard, Daniel Kahneman, Frances Kamm, Alasdair MacIntyre, T. M. Scanlon, Peter Singer, David Velleman, Bernard Williams
The exchanges are direct, open, and sharp, and give a clear account of these thinkers' core ideas about ethics. They also provide unique insights into their intellectual development--how they became interested in ethics, and how they came up with the ideas they became famous for.
RECENT PUBLICATION BY FORMER FACULTY FELLOW
The End of Reciprocity
Terror, Torture, and the Law of War
Mark Osiel
Professor of Law, Aliber Family Chair, College of Law, University of Iowa
"Many books have now been written about the law and ethics of how states should respond to terrorists who respect neither. This book may be the most impressive of them all: a hardheaded, clear-eyed, unsentimental argument for observing humanitarian restraints in the law of armed conflict even when adversaries do not. Drawing on deep reservoirs of learning in the law, history and sociology of armed conflict, Osiel challenges both critics and defenders of the Bush Administration's anti-terror policies: idealist human-rights advocates who prescribe absolute adherence to moral norms regardless of what enemies do, and "realists" who want to calculate in each case whether adherence will yield more benefits to national self-interest than costs. Ultimately he suggests that acting upon national self-conceptions of civilized conduct rooted in honor may induce the cooperation of other nations in building the networks that constitute a social contract. Neither blinding himself to the savagery and brutality of modern conflict nor falling into a shallow cynicism, Osiel offers a penetrating analysis of current policies and the controversies over them and a grounded, carefully reasoned, basis for hope for something better."
- Robert W. Gordon, Chancellor, Kent Professor of Law and Legal History, Yale University
MARTHA MINOW APPOINTED DEAN OF HARVARD LAW SCHOOL
The Center is pleased to note the appointment of our Faculty Associate Martha Minow, the Jeremiah Smith, Jr., Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, as the dean of the Faculty of Law. Professor Minow has twice served as Acting Director of the Center, during the academic years 1993-94 and 2000-01, while Professor Dennis F. Thompson was on sabbatical leave. Additionally, Professor Minow was Senior Scholar in Ethics in 1991-92 and is a charter member of the Faculty Committee, serving in this capacity since the founding of the Center.
Click here for more information.
LAWRENCE LESSIG APPOINTED NEW CENTER DIRECTOR
This summer, the Ethics Center will welcome renowned legal scholar Lawrence Lessig, currently the Carlsmith Professor of Law at Stanford University, as the new Director of the Center. Professor Lessig, who virtually invented the field of cyberlaw, is one of the world's leading thinkers about the revolutionary impact of the Internet on society. Part of his new vision for the Center will be to focus on the problem of corruption across a range of public and professional institutions that depend upon trust for their effectiveness. Larry is an old friend of the Center, where he was a Faculty Fellow in 1996-97, and is well-known at Harvard, where he was a professor of law. He is an inspired choice who will transform the Center as it moves into its third decade. Larry has my full support and the good will of our faculty, fellows, senior scholars and staff as we transition to his leadership.
Arthur Applbaum, Acting Director
Click here for a link to the Press Release
ETHICS FELLOWS GO TO WASHINGTON
The Ethics Center is pleased to note the appointments to the new administration of two former fellows of the Center.
Samantha Power
Former Graduate Fellow in Ethics and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Samantha Power has been appointed to a top foreign policy position in the Obama administration, serving as senior director for multilateral affairs at the National Security Council. Professor Power, who teaches at the Harvard Kennedy School, will work closely with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. Power had been a senior adviser to the campaign and, following the election of Barack Obama, had been a member of the team looking at how the new administration should approach national security, defense and state department issues.
An expert on human rights and foreign policy, Professor Power's more recent writings include the 2008 book Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World, about the slain U.N. diplomat. A journalist before law school, Power covered the wars in the former Yugoslavia. Following her year as a Graduate Fellow in Ethics and appointment to the Kennedy School's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, she continued to report from such places as Burundi, East Timor, Kosovo, Rwanda, Sudan, and Zimbabwe.
Ezekiel Emanuel
Another influential voice at the White House is that of former Faculty Fellow in Ethics Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, an oncologist and medical ethicist. Dr. Emanuel, a brother of Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, is special advisor for health policy to the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. He continues to chair the department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health. In a book published last year, Healthcare, Guaranteed: A Simple, Secure Solution for America, Dr. Emanuel proposed a plan under which all Americans would receive vouchers to enroll in health plans offering a standard package of benefits like those available to members of Congress.
Dr. Emanuel, who also advised the Clinton White House on health care issues, has published on the ethics of clinical research, advance care directives, end-of-life issues, euthanasia, the ethics of managed care, and the physician-patient relationship. The book he wrote at the Center, The Ends of Human Life, received the Rosenhaupt Memorial Book Award by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation.