The Center

Over the past two decades, the study of practical ethics began to assume an important place in teaching and research at Harvard. The growth of serious scholarship in practical ethics in a wide range of fields provided the impetus for a university-wide approach to the subject. In 1986, Harvard took its first significant steps in meeting this challenge when President Derek Bok founded a program in ethics and the professions, led by Professor Dennis F. Thompson (see the Center's 20th anniversary report Ethics at Harvard 1987-2007). The Center is currently headed by Professor Lawrence Lessig.

Now in its third decade, the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics, while continuing to strengthen its own programs and activities, has also helped develop ethics programs in most of the professional schools throughout the University. Beyond Harvard, the Center is actively involved in the growing ethics movement, providing counsel to many programs and centers at colleges and universities throughout the United States and around the world. Former fellows of the Center play a major role in contributing to these endeavors.

"One of the best new developments in professional education is the wide and growing interest in problems of ethics. As hundreds of new courses spring up on this subject all around the country, able, well-prepared people must be available to teach them. Harvard's Program in Ethics and the Professions was established to meet that need, and it has exceeded even my own optimistic expectations."

Derek Bok, President Emeritus, Ethics Center Five Year Report 1992

Current Fellows