ethics news & views

EASL Forum accepting applications until Sept 8

The D. Abbott Turner Program in Ethics and Servant Leadership is proud to celebrate the conclusion of its fourth year of programming and to announce the opening of applications for the 2003-2004 EASL Forum.

The beginning of the 2003-2004 academic year brings many changes to the EASL staff. The Center for Ethics welcomes Edward Queen as the new director of the program and Kate O’Dwyer Randall as Assistant Director. The new team looks forward to the opportunity to build on what has been such a successful and exciting program and to receiving applications for this year’s forum.

New funding, appointments in health science ethics

Three exciting announcements with our work in health care ethics:

1. Kathy Kinlaw and Karen Trotochaud received funding with Dr. Pamela Bachanas, Psychiatry, and Dr. Nicolas Krawiecki, Pediatrics, to develop and pilot test an advance care planning guide for health care professionals and families of children with life-limiting illness. The funding begins in October 2003. We believe this work will provide a unique contribution to national efforts in palliative and end of life care for children. The grant is award by the Emory Medical Care Foundation.

2. Rallying Points, a program of the national RWJ Last Acts coaltion, has awarded a grant to fund strategic planning for the statewide work in End of Life Care, of which the Center is a lead partner in a statewide partnership of organizations committed to improving end-of-life care. The Rallying Points certificate will bring Dr. Dan Tobin, from the Life Institute in Albany, NY and Kathy Brandt, from the Hospice of the Florida Suncoast, to Georgia to work with our statewide partnership in determining strategic direction for our effort in the state. Dr. Tobin's emphasis is on integrating end of life care conversations into mainstream medicine.

3. Kathy Kinlaw has been appointed to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development’s Committee on Ethics and Genetics. Kinlaw will serve as a part of a new committee addressing Genomics and Ethics for the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. In this role she will work with other ethicists in reviewing documents and proposals to the Institute.

Religion & globalization lecture series:
Fall schedule of events

September 23, 7:30pm. "Principalities & Powers in Globalized Conflict." With Walter Wink, Auburn Theological Seminary. Winship Ballroom, Dobbs University Center. Reception following. Part of the "Religion & Globalization" lecture series. For more information, contact Chance Hunter at chunte2@emory.edu or (404) 727-1179. No RSVP necessary.

September 24, 3-5pm. Workshop. With Walter Wink, Union Theological Seminary. Cox Hall, Rooms 1 & 2. For more information, contact Chance Hunter at chunte2@emory.edu or (404) 727-1179.

October 7, 7:30pm. "After Armageddon: The Politics of the End Times." With Harvey Cox, Har-vard Divinity School. Winship Ballroom, Dobbs University Center. Reception following. Part of the "Religion & Globalization" lecture series. For more information, contact Chance Hunter at chunte2@emory.edu or (404) 727-1179. No RSVP necessary.

October 21, 7:30pm. "Engaged Buddhism & the Roots of Militancy." With Christopher Queen, Harvard University. Location TBA. Reception following. Part of the "Religion & Globalization" lecture series. For more information, contact Chance Hunter at chunte2@emory.edu or (404) 727-1179. No RSVP necessary.

November 4, 7:30pm. "Globalization & Universal Values?" With Edward Queen, Director, Ethics and Servant Leadership. Lo-cation TBA. Reception following. Part of the "Religion & Globalization" lecture series. For more information, contact Chance Hunter at chunte2@emory.edu or (404) 727-1179. No RSVP necessary.

[ Posted by Chance Hunter on August 18, 2003 | Article Link | More Public Events articles | Comments (2) ]

Disclosing medical error: August 28

The next meeting of the Clinical Ethics Faculty Seminar is entitled "Disclosing Medical Error: Obscurities, Fears, Ethical Obligations, and the Future." Presented by John Banja, PhD, Clinical Ethicis, Center for Ethics; and Associate Professor, Rehabilitation Medicine.

Thursday, August 28, 2003, 3:30-5pm. Rollins School of Public Health, 1518 Clifton Road, Conference Room 864.

We hope that you join us. Please notify other faculty who may be interested in this topic. The Clinical Ethics Faculty Seminar is hosted by the Quality of Life Program of the Emory University Center for Ethics and School of Medicine.

Marian Osborne at (404) 727-5048 or mosborne@learnlink.emory.edu.

Message from the Director:
Global challenges of reconciliation

They hang the man and flog the woman
That steal the goose from off the common,
But let the greater villain loose
That steals the common from the goose.

The law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine.

English Folk Poem, circa 1764
From David Bolier, Silent Theft, 2002

In elementary school I had a splendid sixth grade teacher named Odessa Cooper. In our small town in North Carolina she wanted us twelve-year-olds to begin to understand ourselves as citizens of the world. She did not use the term “globalization”—it had not been invented then. But in her own indomitable way she opened our horizons to include international relations and a sense of the history of our country’s interactions with other nations.

Above all, she awakened us to an appreciation of the promise and the vital importance of the then young United Nations. She wanted us to develop a consciousness of, and commitments to, global interdependence and its responsibilities. In the intervening years since that era, global interdependence—and the political challenges it brings—have intensified immeasurably.

Getting to know you:
Introducing the new Ethics and Servant Leadership team

Edward Queen and Kate O'Dwyer Randall joined the Center for Ethics this summer as the new Ethics and Servant Leadership team (see article). We pulled them aside to talk about their dreams for the program.

Q. What first attracted you both to work with EASL?

Edward: The combination of the components of the program was most attractive to me. The opportunity to work with students, faculty, and staff and then the wider Atlanta community on issues related to ethics and servant leadership really presented some exciting opportunities. For me, that was the most attractive part of the overall position.

[ Posted by Chance Hunter on August 15, 2003 | Article Link | More Ethics and Servant Leadership articles | Comments (2) ]

Neuroethics:
A report of the 2003 faculty ethics seminar

By John Banja. Over the last decade the Center for Ethics has hosted a yearly faculty seminar around a theme of ethical interest. In years past, the seminars has featured topics like “Stem Cells and Genetic Technologies,” “Teaching Ethics,” and “The Ethics of Professionalism.” This year’s seminar—which occurred from May 14 to May 23 and was attended by 18 faculty—focused on neuroethics, that is, the recent contributions of the brain sciences to our knowledge of the nature of moral reasoning and moral behavior. In what follows, I’ll give a snapshot view of a few of the prominent issues that were studied and debated.

One of the most provocative approaches to studying moral reasoning has been through the use of magnetic resonance imaging, wherein the brain activity of human participants is captured while they are in the process of contemplating moral issues and dilemmas. This research has debunked one of the oldest moral observations around: that moral deliberation ought to be absolutely purified of one’s sentiments, passions, and emotions and be based on pure, emotionally detached reason alone.

All in the family?
Religion, ethics & globalization

By Chance Hunter. Ravaged by decades of religious wars, the great powers of Europe in 1648 signed the Treaty of Westphalia, signaling the rise of the sovereign, centralized nation-state as the key actor in international affairs. Religious rivalries of course continued, but wars would now be fought for king and country, not doctrine. Society increasingly secularized, religion becomes just one facet of civil society among others. Secular ideologies—sometimes uncannily similar to the theological forbears—mobilized the masses for total war. Until the collapse of the Soviet Union, rivalries between European nation-states (and their increasingly independent colonies) shook the world.

But now the global order based on the sovereignty of competing nation-states draws to a close. One nation-state towers over the rest. Called the “indispensable nation” by Madeline Albright, the United States demonstrated its dominance with now two wars with Iraq. But elsewhere, the nation-state seems lest robust.¹ The bonds of the expanding European Union grow closer, and a newly formed African Union hopes to follow in its footsteps. Periods of regional anarchy and genocide followed hard upon the collapse of failed nation-states in the Balkans, sub-Saharan Africa, and Central Asia. And no nation seems able to challenge the US’ lead in military technology for decades to come.

[ Posted by Chance Hunter on August 15, 2003 | Article Link | More Opinion articles | More Public Events articles | Comments (2) ]

First ethics minor graduate walks stage

By Melissa Snarr. As commencement 2003 drew to a close, Travis Wayne Blalock strode across the stage becoming Emory University’s first ethics minor. Majoring in Philosophy, Blalock declared his minor just after the College approved the new minor in the early spring. He was also part of the first tradition of the ethics minor as he was presented with a Center for Ethics Insignia Lapel Pin (golden flame on a blue background) to wear on his graduation regalia. Future ethics minor graduates also will be given pins for graduation to signify their participation in “igniting the moral imagination.”

Health care leaders challenged to foster ethical organizations

By Karen Trotochaud. With a strong recommendation for healthcare organizations to conduct an “organizational ethics audit,” Paul Hoffamn, DrPH, from Provenance Health Partners, challenged health care leaders and professionals to move toward an organizational culture of ethics beginning with an assessment of their ethical climate.

BASE strives for living, learning ideal

By Arri Eisen. I’ve been around universities all my life—my mom and dad taught at one, and I’ve been a student or teacher at one for twenty-two years. What’s become more and more apparent to me is that universities are the best places in the world to be. They’re full of new ideas, weird and wonderful people of all ages, arts, centers, serious stuff, funny stuff, and endless activities for the mind and body.

Edward Queen, Kate Randall join Center as new Ethics and Servant Leadership team

The Center for Ethics is pleased to welcome Edward Queen and Kate O'Dwyer Randall as the new leadership team of the D. Abbott Turner Program in 'Ethics and Servant Leadership' (EASL).
As new EASL director, Edward Queen brings with him his passion for undergraduate teaching, his nonprofit consulting experience, and his expertise in servant leadership. He joined the Center in mid-July.

[ Posted by Chance Hunter on August 15, 2003 | Article Link | More Ethics and Servant Leadership articles | Comments (3) ]

Friends of the Center for Ethics 2002-2003

Full listing (Adobe Acrobat file).

Miss Lizzie's Kitchen

Turnip greens, green beans, green tomatoes,
Grown in the garden just outside her kitchen door,
Mason jars of yellow-orange peaches, dense purple-red beets,
Sweet potato pies on the windowsill, their odor a siren call.
Chicken dripping off the bone after hours slow cooking,
She had raised the chicken, wrung its neck, watched it flap and flop all over the yard
soaking the ground with its blood.

An aroma of warmth filled Miss Lizzie’s winter kitchen,
The sticky southern summer caused beads of sweat to line her magnificent brow,
One-eighth Cherokee, she never mentioned it, and we were told never to as well,
She was taught it was dirty…Indian blood.
Her father had taken her out of school at ten, put her to work in the Georgia fields,
“Girls don’t need to learn to read.”
She remained angry seventy-five years later: “I could have been something!”

Miss Lizzie and my mother always went together to vote
once Miss Lizzie was allowed to register.
Their ages the same, their skin colors and stations different,
They named one another “sister,” sharing confidences across decades;
She stood once between my grandparents to prevent a blow.
Occasionally she’d come to “borrow a little change.” We knew for someone else,
but never asked…bail, brakes, a funeral, perhaps a back alley abortion, or to repair one.

A photograph of Miss Lizzie at eighty-five hangs on my wall,
She dressed especially for the occasion, some of her radiance camouflaged
by a purple dress and costume jewelry; loosed her crown of braids, her profile diffused.
Frail at ninety, she listened intently as one by one the stories found their way
To her kitchen, a sanctuary as beautiful as her newly churned butter rounds,
Marked in geometric pattern with the blunt end of a dinner knife,
As secure as her seasoned black iron skillet filled with hot corn bread.