The Road Through the Paris Climate Agreement

Last December over 190 countries met in Paris for the 21st meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change where they succeeded in creating a new international climate agreement. Many have heralded the outcome as a groundbreaking achievement for international diplomacy and global climate action. Others have argued that the climate commitments that parties brought to the table in Paris are ultimately too weak to achieve the agreements’ lofty aspirations. To better understand the significance of the new Paris Agreement we will review the recent history of the UN climate negotiations, and how this outcome evolved from earlier failed attempts in this process. A more important question however may be what new future for global climate cooperation is now required of us after Paris. To close the current gap between the Paris pledges for emission reductions, and what is needed to achieve our long-term goals for climate stabilization, we may need to look beyond the UN system to find new opportunities for enhanced climate action. The Road Through the Paris Climate Agreement - Read More…

Care vs. Autonomy: Nudging for Health and Relational Judgment in Reflective Professional Practice

The lecture will discuss the tensions between the ethical obligation to respect autonomy and the ethical obligation to provide care and promote human flourishing. It identifies the question this relationship poses for bioethics, psychology, and the helping professions such as medicine, nursing, social work, counseling, and public health. The pros and cons of three ways to resolve this tension are considered: (1) by appeal to reason, (2) by designing or curating contextual conditions influencing choice (often called “choice architecture” or “nudging”) in ways that constrain autonomy but do not violate its core value, and (3) by appeal to relational judgment in communicative and reflective professional practice. Care vs. Autonomy: Nudging for Health and Relational Judgment in Reflective Professional Practice - Read More…

Co-sponsored Event - Western Bombs, Eastern Societies: The Destruction of Nations and Responsibility to Protect

After the fiasco of the Iraq War of 2003, the West pushed for a new mandate through the UN called the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in 2005. This new mandate revived ideas of humanitarian intervention that had been called into question from the detritus of Iraq. No lessons were learned. After R2P came Libya, a society now in ruins, and then came Syria, a country whose civil war had been fanned along even as no good outcome seemed on the horizon. This talk will explore the landscape of intervention and its perils. Co-sponsored Event - Western Bombs, Eastern Societies: The Destruction of Nations and Responsibility to Protect - Read More…

Co-Sponsored Event: Beating Injustice: Police Killings, Mass Incarceration, and Making Real Change Happen Right Now

A Rhodes scholar and the youngest person ever to lead the NAACP, Ben Jealous is known for being one of the most effective civil rights leaders of our day. However, it was not always clear that he would follow this path. In this speech, Jealous tells the inside history of more than 50 years of great civil rights battles, both known and unknown. He offers insight both into what our nation's greatest change agents have in common, and shows how we can all dramatically increase our capacity to make the world a better place. Co-Sponsored Event: Beating Injustice: Police Killings, Mass Incarceration, and Making Real Change Happen Right Now - Read More…

Idioms of Ethical Life: A Conference in Honor of the Work of Dr. Dennis J. Schmidt

The Idioms of Ethical Life is an invitation to think with the work of philosopher, Dennis Schmidt. Schmidt has argued that the transformative character of thinking that constitutes the ethical is a matter of the idiom, that is, it is worked out in the singularity of situations. For Schmidt, ethics belongs to the very nature of thinking, properly understood. Dennis Schmidt, who was actively involved in the Rock Ethics Institute, is now Professor of Philosophy at Western Sydney University. This conference brings together some of the leading philosophers in the area of continental philosophy to reflect on the importance of his contributions to the profession. Idioms of Ethical Life: A Conference in Honor of the Work of Dr. Dennis J. Schmidt - Read More…

Co-sponsored Event: 4th Annual Rural Studies Student Conference - Reconceptualizing Rural Contexts

This is open to graduate and undergraduate students from all disciplines and all institutions who study rural areas. New this year is workshopping sessions for those hoping to get feedback on unfinished or ongoing work. There will also be two keynote speakers! Registration is now open! This year, registration is FREE for all attendees, but still REQUIRED. Registration will close on September 30, 2016. Co-sponsored Event: 4th Annual Rural Studies Student Conference - Reconceptualizing Rural Contexts - Read More…

A lecture with Dr. Paul Thompson, W.K. Kellogg Chair in Agricultural Food, and Community Ethics at Michigan State University

A Harold K. Schilling Memorial Lecture: Big Data, Ethics, and Philosophy

Daniel Susser, assistant professor of philosophy at San Jose State University, will discuss ethical and political interventions in distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable uses of information that is collected about each of us. A Harold K. Schilling Memorial Lecture: Big Data, Ethics, and Philosophy - Read More…

Brownbag Series - Food Power and Food Ethics: Food Security in a Complex World

There is a widespread assumption that the American food system after World War II was transformed—toward an increasingly industrialized production of crops, more processed foods, and diets higher in fat, sugar, and calories—as part of a unified system. In this talk, Bryan McDonald brings together the history of food, agriculture, and foreign policy to explore how food was deployed in the first decades of the Cold War to promote American national security and national interests, a concept referred to as food power. Brownbag Series - Food Power and Food Ethics: Food Security in a Complex World - Read More…

The Richard B. Lippin Lecture Series: A lecture with Dr. Carolyn Hildebrandt, Professor, Department of Psychology at the University of Northern Iowa