Ethics center selects faculty fellows

The University Center for Ethics and the Professions has selected the Faculty Fellows in Ethics for the 2001-02 academic year. Five scholars who study ethical problems in government, law, medicine, and public policy were chosen from a pool of applicants from colleges, universities, and professional institutions throughout the United States and 16 other countries. Professor Dennis Thompson, who directs the center, anticipates an excellent year. “I am looking forward to working with this extraordinarily talented group of fellows,” Thompson said.

The fellows will be in residence conducting research on issues in ethics within their respective fields and participating in the center’s weekly seminar on ethics in public and professional life. This year the fellows will be joined in the center seminar by Robert Truog, professor of anesthesia and medical ethics at Harvard Medical School (HMS), and director of the Multidisciplinary Intensive Care Unit at Boston Children’s Hospital.

In addition, seven Harvard graduate students have been named Graduate Fellows in Ethics (including the Eugene P. Beard Graduate Fellows in Ethics and the Edmond J. Safra Graduate Fellows in Ethics). Under the direction of Arthur Applbaum, professor of ethics and public policy, the Graduate Fellows will pursue philosophical topics relevant to political and professional practice.

The Faculty Fellows in Ethics

Nomy Arpaly, an assistant professor of philosophy at Rice University, will research questions in moral psychology and meta-ethics, with a particular focus on the rationality of the way people act.

David Brendel, a psychiatrist at McLean Hospital, will examine the conceptual and practical links among philosophy of mind, clinical psychiatry, and psychiatric ethics.

Margo Schlanger, an assistant professor at Harvard Law School (HLS), will write on the appropriate definition, normative assessment, proof, and regulation of police racial profiling.

David Sussman, an assistant professor of philosophy at Princeton University, will focus on the relations between conceptions of trust and autonomous agency, and such moral or quasi-moral emotions as remorse, shame, and regret.

Kok-Chor Tan, most recently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto, will complete a book on cosmopolitanism and the challenges for global justice posed by nationalism and the practice of compatriot partiality.

The Graduate Fellows in Ethics

Doug Edwards, a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy, is researching socialist politics and the quest for an ideal, egalitarian society.

Louis-Philippe Hodgson, a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy, is exploring the implications of Kant’s approach to social contract theory for problems of international justice.

Orly Lobel, an S.J.D. candidate at HLS, is examining the challenges that globalization poses to collective struggles for social reform.

Matthew Price, a Ph.D. candidate in government, is exploring public discourse about the meaning and value of American citizenship over the past two centuries.

Martin Sandbu, a Ph.D. candidate in political economy and government, is exploring the extent to which economic methodology has normative implications that favor certain strands of political philosophy.

Andrea Sangiovanni-Vincentelli, a Ph.D. candidate in government, is assessing the democratic legitimacy of supranational non-majoritarian institutions in the European Union.

Penny Tucker, a Ph.D. candidate in the history of American civilization, is analyzing the philosophy of promising in 19th century American culture, with special emphasis on literature, law, and business.

Established in 1986, the Center for Ethics and the Professions is one of the University’s interfaculty initiatives under the Office of the President and Provost. It 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 business, education, government, law, and medicine. The center draws on the intellectual resources of the entire University, including the schools of Business, Design, Divinity, Education, Government, Law, Medicine, and Public Health. Leading faculty in moral and political philosophy, social and political theory, and professional ethics from every school at Harvard provide counsel to the participants in the center. Also contributing to the center are many of the activities of the professional schools, including the Program on the Legal Profession (HLS); the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy (Kennedy School of Government); the Charles Francis Adams Distinguished Fellows (Business School); the Fellowships in Medical Ethics (Division of Medical Ethics at HMS); the Francois Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights (School of Public Health); and the Center for the Study of Values in Public Life (Divinity School).