Center for Ethics and Professions selects fellows

The University Center for Ethics and the Professions has selected five Edmond J. Safra Graduate Fellows in Ethics for the 2003-04 academic year. The graduate fellows, who study ethical problems in law, political science, and philosophy, were chosen from an outstanding pool of Harvard graduate students who are writing dissertations or engaged in major research on topics in practical ethics.

Frances Kamm, visiting professor of philosophy and public policy, will join a seminar for the graduate fellows. Arthur Applbaum, professor of ethics and public policy at the Kennedy School of Government, directs the fellowship.

Edmond J. Safra Graduate Fellows

Sandra Badin is a J.D. candidate at Harvard Law School and a Ph.D. candidate in political theory at Columbia University. Her dissertation is on the tensions between liberalism and multicultural accommodation in contemporary western democracies. At Columbia, she taught western political theory and philosophy. At Harvard, she has been a teaching fellow for courses in social studies, philosophy of law, law and morality of property, and responsibilities of public action.

Noah Dauber is a Ph.D. candidate in government. His dissertation is on the idea of a science of politics in the 17th century. Dauber is reconsidering the old question of whether political science is a branch of practical and theoretical philosophy, and thus whether true political knowledge is practical and political, or theoretical and scientific. His general interests are in moral philosophy, the philosophy of social sciences, and the history of political philosophy. At Harvard, he has been a teaching fellow for courses in political thought and in the history of rights theories.

Kyla Ebels Duggan is a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy. Her dissertation draws on Kant’s moral theory to develop an account of how other people give us reasons for action. She is interested in developing Kant’s position that taking others as sources of reasons to act, which do not depend on our own advantage, desires, or choices, is a condition of our autonomy. She has been a teaching fellow for courses in political philosophy, moral philosophy, and the relation between theology and moral theory.

Waheed Hussain is a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy. His interest centers on the relation between human freedom and the structures of social and political life, and his dissertation focuses on freedom in economic life. Drawing on the ideas of Hegel and Rawls, he will argue that we should understand freedom in terms of self-government. Hussain will further debate that the economic system that responds best to this value is one that uses workplace democracy and union representation to ensure that workers understand and endorse the forms of cooperation in which they participate. Hussain has taught classes on ethics, philosophy of law, and political philosophy.

Ian MacMullen is a Ph.D. candidate in government. His interests lie mainly in normative political philosophy, especially contemporary liberal thought. MacMullen’s research focuses on the legitimate goals of public education policy in liberal democratic states and their implications for arguments about public funding and regulation of religious schools. He has been a teaching fellow for courses in moral and political philosophy. MacMullen is assistant senior tutor for fellowships and resident tutor in government at Lowell House.

The University Center for Ethics and the Professions, established in 1986, is one of the University’s interfaculty initiatives under the auspices of the Provost’s Office. 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 schools of business, education, government, law, and medicine. The center draws on the intellectual resources of the entire University.

For more information, contact the center at (617) 495-1336, ethics@harvard.edu, or visit the Web site http://www.ethics.harvard.edu.