PROGRAM ON ETHICS & PUBLIC LIFE
GENERAL INFORMATION
The critical issues of public life are inescapably ethical issues. In the economy, we face questions of equity and justice and questions about the relation between prosperity, the environment, and the quality of individual lives. In constitutional law, we confront dilemmas about civil rights, freedom of speech, privacy, and abortion. In politics and government, we wrestle with questions about campaigning, character, and compromise. And in international affairs, we encounter the complexities of war and peace, human rights, multilateral aid, and climate change.
The university-wide Program on Ethics & Public Life (EPL) is Cornell's initiative in the systematic study of the ethical dimension of specific public issues. EPL grew out of a conviction that these questions need something more than abstract philosophical discussion. In addition to the general study of values and principles that goes on in theoretical ethics, universities need to foster ways of thinking about the complex, uncertain, and urgent problems of the real world, ways of thinking that are realistic without sacrificing anything of their ethical character.
EPL does not intend to create either an undergraduate major or a graduate field in Ethics & Public Life. On the contrary, we seek to enhance and facilitate the discussion of ethical issues by students whose central educational interests lie elsewhere, but whose work and lives will nevertheless confront them with dilemmas and responsibilities for which a university education should prepare them. EPL aims, not to create yet another specialized department, but to enrich existing departments with courses that are intellectually serious and practically fruitful at the same time.
EPL Core Courses
PHIL 247 Ethics and Public Life
PHIL 294/GOVT 294 Global Thinking
PHIL 342 Law, Society, and Morality
PHIL 343 Political Obligation and Civil Disobedience
GOVT 469/Phil 369 Limiting War: The Morality of Modern State Violence
GOVT 412 Voting and Political Participation
GOVT 466/Womns 466/Law 648 Feminism and Gender Discrimination
GOVT 468/Phil 368 Global Climate and Global Justice
GOVT 491/691 Normative Elements of International Relations
Related Courses
CEH 356 Economics of Welfare Policy
CRP 549 Ethics and Practical Judgment in Planning Practice
ENGR 360/S&TS 360 Engineering Ethics
ILRHR 366 Women at Work
ILRCB 401 My Brother's Keeper
LAW 718 Ethnic Conflict and International Law
PHIL 246 Ethics and the Environment
Henry Shue, director, 119 Stimson Hall,
255-8515; Henry Shue, Wyn and
William Y. Hutchinson Professor of Ethics & Public Life; Kathryn Abrams, Associate Professor of Ethics & Public Life and Professor of Law.
