Student Ethics Society
The Mudd Center Ethics Society is a new organization for W&L students who are passionate about discussing some of the most pressing ethical issues of our time. Society members will attend the Mudd Center's public lectures and gather in special events two times per term in order to consider, together, the Mudd Center's annual theme.
Ethics Society programs will be coordinated and mentored by Professors Omar Quiñonez and Fernando Zapata. Ethics Society members will be invited to meet with distinguished scholars who are contributing to the Mudd Center's lecture series.
In 2022-23, the Mudd Center's theme is "Beneficence: Practicing an Ethics of Care." In the lecture series, distinguished speakers will address conceptual and applied questions about beneficence and care from a variety of disciplinary and professional perspectives. For instance:
- How should we think about our responsibilities to care for ourselves, for other people that we know and love, and for others that we don't know, disagree with, or may have been harmed by?
- How are these responsibilities linked, in theory and in practice?
- How might we increase our capacity for care and compassion?
- What are some barriers to practicing care for self and others in personal, professional, and public contexts?
- How can we navigate the challenges of actualizing beneficence within flawed social structures and institutions?
The Mudd Center Ethics Society is a great opportunity to flex your critical and creative thinking skills with reference to some of life's big questions, just for the pleasure of it, with new friends from every corner of campus. We hope you will join us!
Ethics Society events will begin in early September of 2022.
| Date/Location Event | Event |
| January 30 @ 5 pm, Stackhouse Theater | John Lysaker: Become Who You Aren't: Friendship as Spectable |
| January 31 @ 12 pm, Hillel 101 | Lunch Discussion with John Lysaker REGISTER HERE |
| February 9 @ 5 pm, University Chapel | Seema Gajwani: Restorative vs Adversarial Justice: A New Paradigm for Addressing Crime and Conflict |
| February 13 @ 5 pm, Mattingly 101 | Ethics Society Beneficence Discussion: Do justice and morality need obligations and punishments? |
| March 3 @ 12 pm, Mattingly Living Room | Lunch Discussion with Lynny Chin |
| March 3 @ 5 pm, Stackhouse Theater | Lynny Chin: Belonging in the Bubble: How to Transverse the Indifferences that Divide Us (Reflections on What Caring as a Community Means at W&L) |
| March 9 @ 4 pm, Hillel 101 | Celine Leboeuf: How Can We Embody Self-Care? Lessons from the Body Positivity Movement |
| March 20, Details TBD | Student Ethics Society End-of-the-Year Reception! |
| March 21 @ 5:30 pm, VIRTUAL | Richard Weissbourd: Raising Caring, Justice-Minded Children in a Morally Troubled Time |