@HarvardEthics: Celebrating 30 Years at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics

Date: 

Thu - Sat, May 4 to May 6, 5:00pm - 2:30pm

Location: 

Various (see below) - Harvard University

Registration is closed. This event is FULL. Please email susan@ethics.harvard.edu if you would like to be added to the waitlist.

The Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University is turning 30! To mark this occasion, we are hosting a two-and-a-half-day celebration, @HarvardEthics: Celebrating 30 Years at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics from Thursday to Saturday, May 4-6, 2017.

Event Program & Participant Bios

Thursday, May 4, 2017
5:00 - 6:30pm             Keynote Lecture
"In Defense of Spies?: Espionage in War" by philosopher Cécile Fabre (All Souls College, University of Oxford).
Location: Emerson Hall, Room 210

Abstract: One of the deepest difficulties faced by belligerents and their individual members is the problem of uncertainty: How can they know whether their war, and individual acts within the war, meet the requirement of the just war? By procuring information about their enemy. How can they do that? By spying on them. Interestingly, just war theorists have not said much about espionage. In this talk, I make a stab at filling the gap. It might seem an easy task. For, to the extent that we are permitted to go to war and kill in it, surely we are permitted to spy – are we not? Yes, and no. I argue that defending espionage requires more argumentative work than merely settling on the morality of a particular war and of its constituent harmful acts. In particular, we must attend to the ways in which spies obtain the needed intelligence – notably deception and treason.

Cécile Fabre is a Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, and Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Oxford, as well as a Fellow of the British Academy. She has written extensively on distributive justice, democracy, and the rights we have over our own body. She has just completed a two-volume project on the ethics of war and peace (Cosmopolitan War, OUP, 2012; Cosmopolitan Peace, OUP, 2016), and is currently working on the ethics of economic statecraft for Harvard University Press.

Friday, May 5, 2017
9:30 - 10:00am           Registration/Continental Breakfast
Location: CGIS South Lobby & Concourse (1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge MA 02138)

10:00 - 10:30am         Opening Remarks - Danielle Allen and Alan Garber
Location: CGIS South Tsai Auditorium & Belfer Case Study Room (1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge MA 02138)

10:30am - 12:00pm    Ethics & the End of Life
Ezekiel Emanuel and Frances Kamm will participate in a conversation, moderated by Arthur Applbaum, on dilemmas surrounding end-of-life care and decisions to prolong life through medical and technological advances.
Location: CGIS South Tsai Auditorium & Belfer Case Study Room (1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge MA 02138)

12:00 - 1:15pm           Buffet Lunch
Location: CGIS South Concourse (1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge MA 02138)

1:15 - 3:00pm            Preparing for Public Office
Christopher Robichaud will be joined by Yuli Tamir, former Minister of Education in Israel, Richard Painter, former chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush, and Larry Lessig for a discussion of how one prepares for public office, and where preparation will inevitably fall short. An ethics simulation for the whole audience will follow the conversation.
Location: CGIS South Tsai Auditorium & Belfer Case Study Room (1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge MA 02138)

3:00 - 3:20pm            Coffee Break
Location: CGIS South Concourse (1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge MA 02138)

3:20 - 3:30pm            President's Remarks - Drew Faust
Location: CGIS South Tsai Auditorium & Belfer Case Study Room (1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge MA 02138)

3:30 - 4:45pm            The Engaged University
Drew Faust, Dennis Thompson, and Elizabeth Kiss will join us for a discussion, moderated by Danielle Allen, about the role of universities in public life and some of the pressing ethical challenges facing universities today.
Location: CGIS South Tsai Auditorium & Belfer Case Study Room (1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge MA 02138)

4:45pm                      Day 1 Closing Remarks - Danielle Allen
Location: CGIS South Tsai Auditorium & Belfer Case Study Room (1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge MA 02138)

6:00 - 8:30pm            Cocktail Reception with Remarks - Danielle Allen, Dennis Thompson, and Larry Lessig
Location: Harvard Art Museum (32 Quincy Street, Cambridge MA 02138)

Saturday, May 6, 2017
9:30 - 10:00am          Registration/Continental Breakfast
Location: CGIS South Lobby & Concourse (1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge MA 02138)

Concurrent Morning Panels:
10:00 - 11:30am        The Ethics of Economic Ordeals
Featuring Nir Eyal, Richard Zeckhauser, and Julie L. Rose; moderated by Anders Herlitz. Economic ordeals are, roughly, interventions that deliberately make access to products or services slightly harder, so as to "weed out" recipients who need them less or who are otherwise less likely to use them. This panel will explore the ethical dimensions of economic ordeals, particularly in the areas of health and development, where their usage is growing.
Location: CGIS South Tsai Auditorium (1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge MA 02138)

10:00 - 11:30am        Institutional Corruption: The Lab and its Legacy
Featuring Center alumni Brooke Williams, Sunita Sah, and Christopher Robertson: moderated by Larry Lessig. This panel will offer a cross-disciplinary exploration of research that started in the IC Lab and continues its mission across a range of fields, including journalism, medicine, government, and law.
Location: Emerson Hall, Room 210

11:30 - 12:00pm           Boxed Lunch
Location: CGIS South Concourse (1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge MA 02138)

12:00 - 1:00pm         Themed Lunch Discussions
Join fellow alumni and faculty affiliates of the Center for a conversation over lunch on a topic of keen interest to the Center during the past 30 years. Lunchtime topics include:
- Bioethics
- Diversity, Justice, and Democracy
- Institutional Corruption
- Global Justice
- Political Economy
- Ethics and the Professions
Location: CGIS South (Assigned Rooms) (1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge MA 02138)

Afternoon Panel:
1:00 - 2:30pm           The Moral Psychology of Climate Change
Featuring Nancy Rosenblum, Eric Beerbohm, and Alison McQueen, this panel will discuss what moral and political philosophers have done and not done in thinking about this world historical threat.
Location: CGIS South Tsai Auditorium (1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge MA 02138)

2:30pm                      Event Closing Remarks - Danielle Allen
Location: CGIS South Tsai Auditorium (1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge MA 02138)