1 PROPOSAL TO ESTABLISH THE CENTER FOR ETHICS AND HUMAN VALUES AT THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY Donald C. Hubin Professor Emeritus, Philosophy & Founding Director of the Center for Ethics and Human Values 2 I. MISSION Among the central concerns of humanistic study are questions about how to live and what is of value in human lives. These are especially pressing questions for citizens of an open society, whose extensive freedoms provide both the opportunity and the responsibility to reflect upon them and to choose lives that contribute to the community in which they live. The Ohio State University Center for Ethics and Human Values is a research center that aims to advance the understanding of these questions by encouraging research and writing on topics of ethics and value, including the history of thought on these questions, and by providing a resource for public discussion of foundational and applied moral questions. The Center helps the University to fulfill its responsibilities to students, faculty, and the broader community by advancing and disseminating knowledge about these central aspects of human concern. It provides a venue and resource for ongoing discussion of ethical issues within and across disciplines, including issues that arise within the academic contexts of research and teaching, as well as issues that confront us all as human beings and citizens aspiring to live worthwhile and rewarding lives. The Center for Ethics and Human Values will develop a set of programs (see Appendix A) that together, constitute an ambitious vision of the University and the broader community reflecting on the foundational ethical questions that motivate and unify much of the research, teaching, and other work pursued at Ohio State. Although each program and activity will focus on particular ethical issues, a key aim of everything the Center does will be to foster norms of informed and respectful discussion that characterize deliberation in a healthy democracy. These norms are always under threat, and an ongoing role of universities is to represent the social value of free thought, reason, understanding, and tolerance amidst moral disagreement. The challenges that confront us are also opportunities to shape a better society, a healthier democracy, and a stronger university. Making the most of these opportunities requires the energy and expertise of morally concerned individuals across the University and in the broader community. The task of reflecting on our values, our social relationships, and our political institutions, as well as imagining the social possibilities made possible by new technologies, must be a collective exercise. As Ohio State develops interdisciplinary Discovery Themes, the need for sustained ethical reflection on fundamental questions becomes even clearer. We believe that recognition of this fact calls for a significant institutional commitment to interdisciplinary discussion and research concerning ethical challenges facing our society. A. The missions of the university (research, teaching, service or outreach) most relevant to the center The Center for Ethics and Human Values will contribute to the research, teaching, and outreach missions of the university. Research: The issues addressed by the Center for Ethics and Human Values can be adequately understood only by attending to the fundamental ethical values that give them their basic structure. The unique contribution of the Center is to facilitate interdisciplinary engagement around our most fundamental concerns—engagement that would not otherwise occur in such a productive and deeply reflective way. By bringing together OSU researchers from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, the Center will accomplish two complementary functions. First, it will deepen and enrich the research of those who approach ethical issues from a practical, applied perspective. Second, it will disseminate the research of those who approach ethical issues from a more abstract theoretical perspective. Those coming at ethical issues from these different perspectives have much to learn from each other and the Center for Ethics and Human Values will facilitate that learning. The OSU Center for Ethics and Human Values will also contribute to the university’s research mission by assisting OSU researchers who are seeking government funding through the National 3 Science Foundation and the National Institutes for Health and other granting agencies to strengthen their grant proposals by including enhanced discussion of the ethical impact of the proposed research. Teaching: The Center for Ethics and Human Values will contribute to the teaching mission of the institution in three main ways. First, by bringing together those teaching in the foundations of ethics and moral theory with those teaching in applied ethical fields, it will enhance teaching in both domains. The proposed Ethics Circle program (see Appendix A) will provide a fellowship opportunity to current faculty and administrators who wish to reflect on ethical issues and incorporate ethical considerations into their teaching and other activities. Second, the Center will create a repository of teaching materials to assist those teaching courses, including distance and e-learning courses, with significant ethical components. Finally, the COMPAS program (see Appendix A) includes an interdisciplinary course on the COMPAS topic and promotes existing OSU courses on that topic. In these ways, the Center for Ethics and Human Values will play a major role in helping the University live up to its motto: Disciplina in civitatem (Education for Citizenship). As staffing and funding permit, the CEHV has several plans for contributing to the teaching of ethics throughout the curriculum. First, we have had preliminary discussions with the Office of Research about ways that we can contribute to the University’s training concerning research ethics. This might involve developing a one- or two-credit course that students could take for credit, or a training program that would result in a certificate for professionals. In addition, we are interested in organizing talks and workshops that focus on specific aspects of research ethics. Second, as staffing and funding permit, we would like to develop a repository of teaching materials and modules that can be used by OSU faculty and other instructors to enhance their teaching. Outreach: The Center for Ethics and Human Values will also contribute to the University’s outreach mission. The Center plans to benefit not only OSU students, faculty, and staff, but to inform and facilitate local and national discussion of important social issues. Already our COMPAS program has successfully coordinated with a number of community and civic groups, such as the Columbus Mayor's office, the Mid-Ohio Food Bank, the Columbus Council on World Affairs, and Ohio Interfaith Power & Light. We are also engaged in productive discussions with the Kettering Foundation, which produces the National Issues Forum publications on matters of public concern to explore the possibility of aligning the National Issues Forum and the COMPAS Program in such a way as to significantly enrich both programs and extend the reach of the COMPAS program far beyond the Ohio State community. The Kettering Foundation is supplying copies of two of their National Issues Forum booklets for the Sustainability COMPAS and a pilot collaboration on a future issue book is scheduled to commence next year. A letter from William V. Muse, President of the National Issues Forum Institute, is attached in the supporting documents. B. The interdisciplinary nature of the center Ethical concerns arise across the campus, in both academic and administrative units. Indeed all human activities, including scientific research, raises ethical concerns, and much of the research of the Ohio State faculty is motivated by ethical values. The proposed ETHOS program (see Appendix A) seeks to highlight the ethical underpinnings of the research that is done at Ohio State. More significantly, researchers across many disciplines have a substantial direct concern with the understanding of ethics and human values. Within the arts and sciences, Biology, History, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, and departments focused on literature and culture all have a significant interest in the issues that will be addressed by the Center. Just as plainly, many of those in Business, Food, Agriculture, and Environmental Sciences, Law, Medicine, Public Affairs, and Veterinary Medicine are involved in research that addresses the issues on which the Center will focus in a very significant way. 4 As the University moves forward with the Discovery Themes Initiative—a project that is inherently interdisciplinary—the need for an interdisciplinary ethics center will become even more pressing. Underlying all of the Discovery Themes—Food Production & Security, Energy & the Environment, and Health & Wellness—are ethical concerns. Not only do these concerns motivate the research in the Discovery Themes areas, they are crucial to evaluating the manner in which we address the “grand challenges of the 21st century” on which the Discovery Themes Initiative is focused. The interdisciplinary nature of the Center is demonstrated by the diverse faculty who have expressed interest in affiliating with it. It is also illustrated well by the COMPAS program, which focuses on foundational moral and political questions by bringing together historians, economists, sociologists, philosophers, geographers, artists,