Title: "Reimagining Capitalism: Business, Purpose and the Big Problems"

As a world we face a number of “big problems” including accelerating environmental degradation and rising inequality. The private sector has traditionally treated these problems as externalities and relied on the public sector to address them. But governments around the world are finding it increasingly difficult to address them with any success. Could the private sector play a major role in addressing them? Would it make a difference if firms were “purpose driven”? What would purpose driven firms look like, in a world in which many managers believe that the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits? Would they be legal? Could they survive? Could they change the world?... Read more about Public Lecture by Rebecca Henderson

Join us for a special and timely discussion with Chief Kathleen O'Toole, in conversation with Danielle Allen, on a range of topics such as codes of conduct for policing, core values of the profession, transparency and fairness in investigations of misconduct, and police reform efforts and challenges.

Kathleen O'Toole was sworn in as Chief of the Seattle Police Department on June 23, 2014. Chief O'Toole is a career police officer and lawyer who has earned an international reputation for her principled leadership and reform strategies. In 2012, Ms. O’Toole completed a six-year...

Title: “In Pursuit of Solidarity in the Age of Trump”

The 2016 election revealed deep divisions in our country, and a widespread alienation from our governing institutions. But it also suggested a growing desire for solidarity and unity. That desire can easily point in dangerous directions, in different ways on the Left and the Right, yet properly harnessed it might also point the way toward an era of political renewal. How can we distinguish the peril from the promise?

Yuval Levin is the editor of National Affairs, a quarterly journal of essays on domestic policy and...

Join us for an evening with Cornel West in conversation with Danielle Allen.

Cornel West is a prominent and provocative democratic intellectual. He is a Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Christian Practice at Union Theological Seminary and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. He has also taught at Yale, Harvard, and the University of...

The Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics and Harvard Book Store are pleased to welcome Meira Levinson, Faculty Committee Member, Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, and Professor of Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education, for a discussion of Dilemmas...

The Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics and Harvard Book Store are pleased to welcome Liav Orgad, Fellow-in-Residence at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, for a discussion of his book, ...

"Constructions of Forgiveness"

Forgiveness takes place in time. Obviously. But I shall explore the temporally extended nature of forgiveness with two particular aims in mind. First, the aim of explaining how forgiveness that must be earned through the culprit’s remorse is of the same moral genus as forgiveness whose distinct value resides precisely in the fact that the culprit has done nothing whatever to earn it. And second, the aim of explaining how acts of forgiveness can be acts of social construction, both in relation to the wrongdoer and in relation to the forgiver. Moreover,...

"Claim No Easy Victories: Can the Social Sciences Serve the Equity Interest of the Poor?"

This talk argues that  much of the academic discourse on inequality, educational and otherwise, has been hijacked, if you will, by two elite discourses, both self-congratulatory, both framing inequality in ways that don’t give us as much real-world leverage as we might have. On the one hand, scholars may be so afraid of “blaming the victim” they may be unable to consider a full-range of the possible levers to change, often working to the detriment of the most disadvantaged...