The Center for Bioethics Presents: Spring 2024 Colloquium Series

The Value of Life, the Value of Virtue, with Dr. Johann Frick
Wednesday, April 3rd
2:00 pm – 3:30 pm
Location TBD

It is sometimes said that, just as Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires, the field of population ethics is the graveyard of moral theories. Ethical views that appeared promising when theorizing about fixed-population contexts often struggle to provide satisfactory answers to questions involving the creation of new people.

In this talk, I attempt to turn this trope on its head. I explore what insights might be gleaned for our general moral theorizing by viewing some of its traditional questions through the lens of population ethics. I want to ask: “What can population ethics ‘give back’ to moral philosophy?”

I will begin by recapitulating some of my earlier work on one of the central problems of population ethics – the so-called Procreation Asymmetry: How can we explain the widespread intuition that while we have strong moral reason not to create a future person whose life would foreseeably be miserable, there is no corresponding moral reason, let alone an obligation, to create a future person just because her life would be happy? In Jan Narveson’s phrase, why is it that we are ‘in favor of making people happy, but neutral about making happy people’?

Then, in the second and third parts of my talk, I will seek to persuade you that there are striking parallels between the puzzle of the Procreation Asymmetry and a number of other, seemingly disparate ethical questions – questions about the value of manifesting certain virtues and of fulfilling our desires. I will argue that, once these parallels are noted, this opens up elegant new solutions to these venerable philosophical problems, while at the same time bringing several new questions into sharper focus.

Johann Frick (B.Phil., Oxford; Ph.D., Harvard) is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at UC Berkeley.  His main interests span a range of topics in moral and political philosophy, practical reason, and applied ethics. His current work focuses on population ethics, the ethics of risk, moral dilemmas and moral luck, the notion of interpersonal justification, and the ethics of immigration and national partiality. His publications include “Contractualism and Social Risk” (Philosophy & Public Affairs, 2015), “What We Owe to Hypocrites” (Philosophy & Public Affairs, 2016), “On the Survival of Humanity” (Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 2017), “National Partiality, Immigration, and the Problem of Double-Jeopardy” (Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy, 2020) and “Conditional Reasons and the Procreation Asymmetry” (Philosopical Perspectives, 2020).

RSVP Here!

The 4th Annual NYU Philosophical Bioethics Workshop

May 3-4, 2024
Deutsches Haus
42 Washington Mews
New York, NY 10003
RSVP Here!

Featured Speakers

• Shelly Kagan (Yale University) – Keynote Speaker
• Jack Harris (Boston University) – Graduate Student Prize Winner
• Nicholas Makins (University of Leeds, England)
• Shivani Aggarwal (University of Cambridge, England) 
• Travis Timmerman (Seton Hall University)
• Susan Kennedy (Santa Clara University)
• Sean Aas (Georgetown University)

Guardrails: Guiding Human Decisions in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

8 March 2024
4.00 – 6.00 PM EST

New York University
708 Broadway (Global Public Health School).  

The event is co-hosted by The GovLab, The Center for Urban Science + Progress, The Center for Responsible AI and the NYU Center for Bioethics

Speaker: Urs Gasser, Professor of Public Policy, Governance, and Innovative Technology at the Technical University of Munich, where he serves as Dean of the TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology and Rector of the Munich School of Politics and Public Policy. (see bio below).

Moderator: Stefaan Verhulst, Co-Founder, The GovLab

Respondent: Julia Stoyanovich, Director of the Center for Responsible AI.

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Join us for a book talk with Urs Gasser as he delves into his latest work, “Guardrails.” In this talk, Gasser will explore the ways in which societal norms shape our decision-making processes in an era saturated with data and dominated by rapidly advancing technologies like artificial intelligence. 

Drawing from a deep foundation in cognitive science, economics, and public policy, “Guardrails” presents an innovative approach for enhancing decision-making by acknowledging human agency within its societal context.

Gasser, alongside co-author Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, focuses on how to steer the adoption of technological solutions that may lead to unintended consequences. They advocate for societal “guardrails” that are more apt for the digital age—ones that bolster individual autonomy while considering collective welfare, promote adaptability amidst evolving scenarios, and guide us towards more informed choices as we confront formidable global challenges such as injustice and climate change.

This talk is a must-attend for anyone interested in a critical examination of the role of technology in decision-making and how to adopt a more human-centric approach to creating a fairer and more equitable world. 

The talk will open with a presentation by Urs Gasser, followed by a conversation moderated by Stefaan Verhulst and Julia Stoyanovich. It will close with Q&A and a brief mingling and networking session.

➡️ RSVP by confirming your attendance by completing the form here. If you have any difficulties, please contact Andrew J. Zahuranec at azahuranec@thegovlab.org. 

New York University’s Center for Bioethics
MA Information Session
Virtual Open House

Friday, February 23rd 2024
12:00 pm — 1:00 pm EST