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Ethics

Of how to live and what to do.

Bioethics

The forum for moral sciences is a major hub of research in bioethics. We conduct cutting-edge research on the ethical frontiers of human life, and investigates both how scientific advancements should be used to improve human life and what should be done for patients at the sunset of life. Bio-engineering and enhancement has the potential to make us stronger, smarter, more emotionally receptive, and maybe even better people. Should we use science to improve ourselves in these ways, or does that threaten the possibility of an authentic human life? And what should we do when the science runs out and patients are faced with the inevitability of death? What care do we owe the terminally ill? What care do we owe those who are not in danger of dying soon but whose unimprovably bad health state make life unbearable to them?

Principal researchers

Leads: Emma Gordon, Ben Colburn

Phd students: Alison Nunziante

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Virtue ethics lab

Virtue ethics studies the significance of moral character and how it endows value on the world. Living a successful moral life is not merely a matter of doing what’s right or desiring what’s good. It is also and perhaps most fundamentally a matter of being a good sort of person — a person who relates well to others, who is well attuned to their needs, has discerning judgment and a good sense of proportion and who has the courage to make hard choices. How can one cultivate these virtuous character traits? Which character traits even are virtuous and worth cultivating? And how should a concern for cultivating virtue properly inform our choices and sense of priorities?

Principal researchers

Leads: Glen Pettigrove, Michael Brady, and Nicolas Côté

Phd students: Sarah Heitler

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Moral psychology lab

Our research stream in moral psychology explores the role of emotions in our moral life, as well as the psychology of pain and suffering. Our major stream of research concerns the epistemology and normativity of the moral sentiments: what makes emotions such as love, resentment, and forgiveness appropriate? What role do they play in motivating us to action? And what role do they have, if any, in supporting our claims to moral knowledge? Our second major stream of research concerns the nature of pain and suffering: what are they? What is the normative status of pain’s unpleasantness? Is suffering always bad for you?

Principal researchers

Leads: Glen Pettigrove, Robert Cowan, Emma Gordon, Michael Brady

Phd students: Sarah Heitler, Carina Engler, Esther Meeks, Michael Quinn

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Ethics & technology

Technology has transformed our relationships with each other and with ourselves, and the rapid growth of A.I. portends a brave new world in which the place of human beings in the society we have built may become utterly unrecognizable to us. Artificial intelligence also challenges our traditional concepts of understanding and assertion: does ChatGPT understand what it says, for example? And what should we say about its “hallucinations” — is ChatGPT really hallucinating, or is it bullshitting us? What guardrails should there be on the use and development of intelligent technologies like generative A.I. and autonomous robots?

Principal researchers

Leads: Joe Slater, Emma Gordon, Ben Colburn

PhD students: Will Gopal, Ding Yiheng, Danni Deans

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