Program in Ethics and the Professions Selects Fellows

The Program in Ethics and the Professions has selected the Fellows in Ethics for the 1996-97 academic year. Six scholars who study ethical problems in business, law, medicine, and public policy were chosen from a group of applicants from colleges, universities, and professional institutions throughout the United States and 12 other countries.

The Fellows will be in residence at the University, beginning in September, to conduct research on issues related to ethics within their respective fields and to participate in a seminar on ethical issues that arise in public and professional life. They will also participate in a wide range of activities throughout the University, including faculty seminars, curricular development, collaborative research, study groups, casewriting workshops, and clinical programs. The new Fellows are as follows:

Norman E. Bowie is the Elmer L. Anderson Professor in Corporate Responsibility at the University of Minnesota, where he holds a joint appointment in the departments of Philosophy and Strategic Management and Organization. He previously taught at the University of Delaware, and at Georgetown University as a visiting professor. He was educated at Bates College and received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Rochester. His research focuses primarily on business ethics, on which he has written numerous books and articles. His most recent book is University-Business Partnerships: An Assessment. During his fellowship year he will develop a book entitled A Kantian Theory of the Firm.

Lawrence Lessig is professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School. He studied economics and management at the University of Pennsylvania, and took an M.A. in philosophy at Cambridge University. After receiving his J.D. from Yale Law School, he clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, and Justice Antonin Scalia at the Supreme Court. His principal areas of research, on which he has written extensively, are comparative constitutional law, contracts, and the law of cyberspace. During the fellowship year, he will examine ethical issues raised by the emerging technologies of cyberspace.

Arti K. Rai is a Fellow at the University of Chicago's MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. She also teaches at the University of Chicago's Law School and the University's Harris School of Public Policy. She received an A.B. in intellectual history and biochemistry from Harvard College, and was a medical student at Harvard Medical School. After receiving her J.D. from Harvard Law School, she served as a federal judicial clerk and as an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice. During the fellowship year, she will explore the conflicts between individual privacy and social utility raised by the development of automated health data information networks.

Thomas E. Sorell is a professor of philosophy at the University of Essex, Colchester, England, where he directs the doctoral program in Ethics, Politics, and Public Policy. He was educated at McGill University and the University of Illinois, and took a D.Phil. in philosophy at Oxford University. He teaches courses on the application of moral theory and has lectured in the U.K., Ireland, Spain, and China on various aspects of applied ethics. His Moral Theory and Capital Punishment appeared in 1987, and he is the principal author of Business Ethics, as well as numerous articles. During his fellowship year, he will work on a book tentatively titled Moral Theory and Anomaly, which explores areas in applied ethics where orthodox theories in moral philosophy appear to work unsatisfactorily.

Carol S. Steiker is an assistant professor at Harvard Law School, where she teaches courses and does research in the areas of criminal law, criminal procedure, and capital punishment. She received her A.B. in history and literature from Harvard College and her J.D. from Harvard Law School. After clerkships with Judge J. Skelly Wright of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court, she worked as a public defender for the D.C. Public Defender Service, representing indigent defendants. During her fellowship year, she plans to explore how the work of moral philosophers, regarding the definition and justification of punishment, might help demarcate the blurring distinction between criminal and civil justice.

Melissa S. Williams is assistant professor of political science at the University of Toronto. She was educated at Bryn Mawr College and received her A.M. and Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University. Her areas of teaching include the history of Western political thought, American political thought, and contemporary democratic theory. Her book, Voice, Trust and Memory: Marginalized Groups and the Failings of Liberal Representation, will be published in 1997. During the fellowship year, she will work on a book titled Reconstructing Impartiality, which aims at reconceiving the liberal ideal of impartiality in the face of feminist and other difference-based challenges.

The Fellows in Ethics are selected by a University committee with representatives from each of the related Harvard professional schools and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences: Mark Moore (Kennedy School of Government), Martha Minow (Law School), Tim Scanlon (Philosophy), Lynn Peterson (Medical School), Michael Sandel (Government Department), Joseph Badaracco (Business School), and Dennis Thompson, director, Program in Ethics and the Professions and Committee Chair.

The Program in Ethics and the Professions, established in 1986, is under the auspices of the Provost's Office. The Program encourages teaching and research about ethical issues in public and professional life and aims to help meet the growing need for teachers and scholars who address questions of moral choice in schools of business, education, government, law, and medicine. The Fellows join a growing community of teachers and scholars dedicated to the study of ethics. In addition to the senior Fellowships in Ethics, the Program's Graduate Fellowships support graduate students teaching and writing in the field of practical ethics. The Program also sponsors a public lecture series on applied and professional ethics.

The efforts of the Program are extended by many of the activities of the professional schools, including the Program on the Legal Profession (Law School), the Charles Francis Adams Distinguished Fellows (Business School), the Fellowships in Medical Ethics (Division of Medical Ethics at the Medical School), the Francois Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights (School of Public Health), and the Center for Values in Public Life (Divinity School). Senior Fellows from each of the professional schools and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences provide counsel to the participants in the Program.