NYU Center for Bioethics

As science, technology, and medicine advance, society will confront new ethical dilemmas at the nexus of public health policy and individual choice. The Master of Arts in Bioethics at the College of Global Public Health provides a strong philosophical foundation for navigating these urgent questions.

Past Events

Guest Speaker Adam Etinson: On Falling Short

Many of us should do more for others – that is, more than we currently do. And we know this; we know that we are morally imperfect. At the same time, this knowledge often fails to provoke any significant change in our behavior. Somehow, we find ways of tolerating, accepting, or “making peace” with our own moral guilt or imperfection. How do we accomplish this? And is there anything that can be said in favor of such acceptance? Is it ever right, in other words, to accept our own moral badness? Or is that an inherently irrational, and potentially even dangerous, idea? This presentation argues that some insight into these questions can be gained by focusing on the distinction between the reactive attitudes of (i) blame and (ii) condemnation.
 

Adam Etinson is a Lecturer in Philosophy in the School of Philosophical, Anthropological, and Film Studies at the University of St Andrews. He works on a range of topics in moral and political philosophy. Much of his recent research is in the philosophy of human rights, but he also works on topics in social epistemology (such as the problem of ethnocentrism) and is interested in the historical and theoretical foundations of liberalism. He recently became the Assistant Director of CEPPA – the Centre for Ethics, Philosophy, and Public Affairs at the University of St Andrews. For more, visit here. 

12:00 PM-1:30 PM
719 Broadway, Room 1221 New York, NY 10003

Lunch will be served

Guest Speaker Steve Clarke: Conscientious Objection and Consistency

 
In many countries a right to conscientiously refuse to perform particular professional duties that conflict with personally held moral values is granted to healthcare professionals and military personnel. However, no such right is granted to members of other professions, such as the law and policing, in which individual professionals may also be asked to compromise personally held moral values. Dr. Clarke investigates whether and how this apparent inconsistency could be justified.
 

Steve Clarke is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Charles Sturt University, in Australia, and a Senior Research Associate of the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford. For more, visit here. 

 

October 25, 2017
12:00 PM-1:30 PM
719 Broadway, Room 1221 New York, NY 10003

Lunch will be served

Attachment and Felt Necessity: Engaging with Value in Love and Addiction

 
Philosophers have employed two different varieties of felt necessity to explain central aspects of agency in addiction and love, respectively. In the case of addiction, the relevant felt need is often described in terms of an appetite, whereas love is characterized by necessities arising from a particular kind of caring. On Dr. Wonderly’s view, the extant literature offers an instructive, but incomplete picture of the roles of felt necessity in addiction and love. Dr. Wonderly argues that a third form of felt necessity – attachment necessity – often better captures central aspects of agency in love and addiction. Recognizing the role of attachment necessity will not only illuminate how felt necessity can impact the value of certain relationships, but it will also allow us to discern important features of addiction and love that remain obscured on extant approaches.
 

Monique Wonderly is the Harold T. Shapiro Postdoctoral Research Associate in Bioethics. She is primarily interested in puzzles at the intersection of ethics and the nature of emotions. She has published in the areas of applied ethics, philosophy of emotion, and history of philosophy. Her current research focuses on emotional attachment – and in particular, on questions concerning moral agency and ethical treatment that arise when considering certain attachment-related pathologies, including psychopathy and (some forms of) addiction. For more, visit here.

September 22, 2017
4:00 PM-6:00 PM
5 Washington Pl, Room 202 New York, NY 10003

Reception to follow

Implicit Moral Attitudes: Lessons from Psychology for Philosophy and Law

This talk describes and criticizes traditional approaches to moral psychology, which try to understand moral judgments through questionnaires. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong argues that it is more accurate and illuminating to use tests of implicit attitudes modeled on tests of implicit racial attitudes. Sinnott-Armstrong explains one such test that we have used with great success in predicting notonly personality variables but also behavior (charity donations and voting). Finally, he draws out potential lessons for traditional issues in moral philosophy and legal responsibility.

 

Walter Sinnott–Armstrong is Chauncey Stillman Professor of Practical Ethics at Duke University in the Philosophy Department, the Kenan Institute for Ethics, the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, and the Law School. He publishes widely in ethics, moral psychology and neuroscience, philosophy of law, epistemology, informal logic, and philosophy of religion. 

Friday, March 3, 2017 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM
5 Washington Pl, Room 202
New York, NY, 10003

Reception to follow

Guest Speaker Vardit Ravitsky: “Should Parents be Allowed to Map the Genome of Their Fetus?”

NYU Center for Bioethics Lunchtime Lecture Series

“Should Parents be Allowed to Map the Genome of Their Fetus? Ethical Reflections on the Future of Prenatal Testing”

Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT) is a new technology that allows genetic testing of a fetus with a simple maternal blood test, by isolating cell-free fetal DNA in the mother’s plasma. Introduced in 2011, it is now available globally, its cost is declining, and the number of conditions it can test for is increasing. Technically, this technology can be used to sequence the entire genome of a fetus early in the first trimester of pregnancy. Should this use of prenatal testing be banned? Limited? Offered? Encouraged? Covered by insurance? This talk will explore some ethical implications of this possibility. It will focus on reproductive autonomy and the transition from ‘knowledge is power’ to ‘knowledge is vulnerability’ in the context of informed choice.

Vardit Ravitsky, PhD, is Associate Professor at the Bioethics Programs within the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine of the School of Public Health at the University of Montreal. She is also Director of the Ethics and Health Branch of the CRE, an interuniversity research center in ethics. Prof. Ravitsky’s research focuses on reproductive ethics and the ethical aspects of genetic and genomics. Her research interests in bioethics also include health policy and cultural perspectives. She is particularly interested in the various ways in which cultural frameworks shape public debate and public policy in the area of bioethics. Her research projects are funded by CIHR, FRQSC, SSHRC, and Genome Canada. She published over 100 articles, book chapters and commentaries on bioethical issues, and is lead-editor of “The Penn Center Guide to Bioethics”.

Born and raised in Jerusalem, Ravitsky brings international perspectives to her research and teaching. She holds a BA in philosophy from the Sorbonne University in Paris, an MA in philosophy (with a specialization in bioethics) from the University of New Mexico in the US, and a PhD in philosophy (with a specialization in bioethics) from Bar-Ilan University in Israel. She was a post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Bioethics of the NIH and at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI).

Ravitsky is an elected Board member and Treasurer of the International Association of Bioethics (IAB). She is a member of Canadian Institutes of Health Research (the ‘Canadian NIH’) Standing Committee on Ethics. She is also member of the University of Montreal’s Public Health Research Institute (IRSPUM), the Quebec Reproduction Network (RQR), and of the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society (CFAS). Previously, she was faculty at the Department of Medical Ethics, School of Medicine, at the University of Pennsylvania. She was also a Senior Policy Advisor at CIHR’s Ethics Office and a GE3LS consultant to Genome Canada.

Monday, Feb. 27th, 2017
12:30-2:00pm
Kimmel Center for University Life Rm 405
60 Washington Sq S New York, NY 10012