A Mission of Ethics

The Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics encourages teaching and research about ethical issues in public and professional life; helps meet the growing need for teachers and scholars who address questions of moral choice in architecture, business, education, engineering, government, journalism, law, medicine, public health, public policy and other professions; brings together those with competence in philosophical thought and those with experience in professional education; and promotes a perspective on ethics informed by both theory and practice.

A guiding principle of the Center is that moral and political theory can help identify and clarify ethical issues in public life. The Center explores the connection between the problems that professionals confront and the social and political structures in which they act.

Among the issues addressed are conflicts within professional roles arising from competing understandings of the purposes of a profession; conflicts between duties of professional roles and those of general morality; the duty of professionals to serve the public good; legitimacy of professional authority; and accountability of professionals. The agenda also includes many of the topics prominent in recent philosophy, including justice, rights, liberty, community, and relativism, but situates them in the context of professional practice and public policy. More generally, the Center is concerned with the process of moral deliberation in which professionals and other citizens confront their common ethical problems, and the entire range of issues that arise in the practical ethics of public life.