Public lecture by
Mission
The Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics seeks to advance teaching and research on ethical issues in public life. Widespread ethical lapses of leaders in government, business and other professions prompt demands for more and better moral education. More fundamentally, the increasing complexity of public life - the scale and range of problems and the variety of knowledge required to deal with them - make ethical issues more difficult, even for men and women of good moral character. Not only are the ethical issues we face more complex, but the people we face them with are more diverse, increasing the frequency and intensity of our ethical disagreements.
Given these changes in the United States and in societies around the globe, the Center seeks to help meet the growing need for teachers and scholars who address questions of moral choice in architecture, business, education, government, law, medicine, public health, public policy, and religion. By bringing together those with competence in philosophical thought and those with experience in professional education, the Center promotes a perspective on ethics informed by both theory and practice. We explore the connection between the problems that professionals confront and the social and political structures in which they act. More generally, we address the ethical issues that all citizens face as they make the choices that profoundly affect the present and future of their societies in our increasingly interdependent world.
We began with a conviction and a problem. The conviction was that reflection on the moral assumptions and foundations of practical affairs is both intellectually worthwhile and socially valuable. Philosophy in this broad sense, we thought, could contribute to identifying and understanding the ethical issues in public life, including those in the professions. The problem was that few philosophers knew enough about professional life, and few professionals enough about philosophy, to teach and write effectively on ethical issues in professional and public life more generally. Teachers and scholars of professional ethics were often isolated from colleagues in other faculties who shared their interests. In the curriculum, systematic discussion of ethics was mostly confined to specific courses in the philosophy department or to designated courses in the professional schools. The Center has made significant strides in breaking down these barriers.
Over 250 faculty and graduate students from a host of universities in this country and abroad have spent a year as Fellows in the Center, developing their competence in ethics and broadening their understanding of professional ethics through contact with scholars from other professions. Their associations endure beyond the term of their fellowship at Harvard, and have helped create a community of scholars in practical ethics that reaches across many different faculties and institutions. Similar interdisciplinary interactions have been encouraged by our public lectures, conferences, and faculty seminars and workshops. The sessions following the public lectures have brought together faculty and students from all parts of the University for stimulating discussion that transcends the usual disciplinary and professional boundaries. We have seen some of the barriers fall in the undergraduate curriculum as well. Most of the 50 courses created or revised with the support of an American Express Foundation grant integrate ethical analysis into the core of their main subjects. The courses cover 20 different disciplines, including anthropology, biology, comparative literature, economics, political science, religion, and sociology.
The Center stands at the core of what is now a well-established movement at Harvard and throughout the world that is giving ethics a prominent place in the curriculum and on the agenda of research. The Center encourages the activities of the professional schools, and provides a forum for university-wide communication and collaboration. Each of the faculties has begun its own courses and centers, and has developed its own group of scholars specializing in ethics. More than twenty Fellows in the Ethics Center have gone on to hold teaching appointments at Harvard.
The Center has also been actively involved in the growing ethics movement beyond Harvard, providing information and advice to many other centers at colleges and universities throughout the United States and in other countries. We supported the founding of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, the first national organization to provide teachers and scholars of ethics in many different fields with a medium for discussing their common problems and for collaborating on curricular and research projects. Fellows from the Center have gone on to teach ethics at more than 80 colleges and universities in the United States and in many foreign countries, including Australia, Austria, Canada, England, Germany, Greece, India, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Scotland, South Africa, and Switzerland. These successes would not have been possible without the financial support of many individuals and institutions.
The Center was renamed the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics in 2004 in recognition of a major gift facilitated by Mrs. Lily Safra, who serves on our Advisory Council. As a result of this gift, the Center now has an endowment that will support its activities at least as long as Harvard endures.