Program on Ethics

The Program on Ethics (previously known as the Program on Values in Society) is dedicated to research, teaching, and outreach on ethical issues that arise across the disciplines. The Program is committed to facilitating the multidisciplinary collaboration that is essential to finding practical and insightful responses to today’s myriad moral problems. The members of the Core Faculty are currently working on a variety of issues, including global climate change; immigration and international justice; and medical practice and disability rights. 

Contact the Program on Ethics

You can get involved with the Program on Ethics in a variety of ways. We host symposia and workshops throughout the year, all of them open to the public. We also offer a certificate program for graduate students, and a minor for undergraduate students. More details can be found on their respective pages listed below.

Program on Ethics Offerings

Core Members

Associate Members

  • Brown, Timothy
    Assistant Professor, Bioethics & Humanities
  • Campelia, Gina (medical ethics)
    Associate Professor, Bioethics & Humanities
  • Jecker, Nancy (bioethics)
    Professor, Bioethics & Humanities
  • Mayerfeld, Jamie (human rights; global justice)
    Professor, Law Societies and Justice, and Affiliate Faculty, Philosophy
  • Turner, Jack (American political thought; critical race theory)
    Associate Professor, Political Science

Upcoming Events

Program on Ethics News

Stephen Gardiner

Interview: Stephen Gardiner on the ethical concerns of climate change

Stephen Gardiner was interviewed by the Organization for Defending Victims of Violence to discuss the ethical concerns of climate change and the efficacy of international frameworks to address effects of global warming and extreme weather on human rights. Q: In your different writings and speeches, you’ve discussed the ethical considerations of climate change and raised the concept of the tyranny of the contemporary. In the underprivileged and developing societies where the most… Read more
Stephen Gardiner

Stephen Gardiner on politics and the moral crisis of climate change

Stephen Gardiner discusses why the moral imperative of climate action is not addressed by the world governments with the urgency it requires. This summer in Europe and the U.S., politicians have made compromises with climate policies that prioritized worries of inflations and energy security. The problem, he says, comes down to the fact that our institutions might not be capable of properly dealing with issues that affect people across the world and through multiple generations. That’s a moral… Read more
Healthcare provider comforting patient

Nancy Jecker on abortion and bioethics

Nancy Jecker discusses how four principles guide a bioethical approach to abortion care: respecting a patents’ autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence and justice. She examines how these four principles are used by doctors and bioethicists, and how settling legal controversies regarding abortion will require reaching moral consensus. The ethical principle of autonomy states that patients are entitled to make decisions about their own medical care when able. The American Medical Association’s… Read more
Illustration of Ocean waves

Stephen Gardiner on accountability in environmental philanthropy

Professor Stephen Gardiner discusses the ethics behind Oceankind’s grants to projects aimed at improving the health of global ocean ecosystems. Oceankind is an incorporated LLC, which recently acknowledged that it is managed by Lucy Southworth, wife of Larry Page, co-founder of Google. One project Oceankind funds is researching geoengineering in the oceans by adding large amounts of ground-up alkaline rock to seawater, which would remove excess carbon-dioxide.  This lack of transparency… Read more
George Yancy

Benjamin Rabinowitz Symposium in Medical Ethics on Race, Health and Justice

Benjamin Rabinowitz Symposium in Medical Ethics on “Race, Health and Justice,” held on April 15, 2022, was a one-day, cross disciplinary symposium which presented theoretical and empirical research on racial injustice and its impact on health and well-being. The keynote address "The Black Body and the Trauma of Whiteness" was given by George Yancy, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Philosophy at Emory University. In his talk, he discussed both spectacular and mundane ways in which the Black… Read more
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