At the Center
Capturing the lively discussions, presentations, and other events that make up the daily activities of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.
-
 Nutrition and Hydration for Patients in a Permanent Vegetative State
Wednesday, Apr. 30, 2008
at 1:18 PM
Gerald Coleman, SS., vice president for corporate ethics at the Daughers of Charity Health System, and Margaret R. McLean, the Center's director of biotechnology and health care ethics gave a presentation this week on a 2004 allocution by Pope John Paul II about the rights of patients in a permanent vegetative state, and how that talk is affecting practice by individual Catholics and Catholic hospitals. In that talk, the Pope argued that nutrition and hydration "should be considered in principle ordinary and proportionate, and as such morally obligatory."
Responding to the question, "Has the Vatican changed the rules?" they focused on the difference between an understanding of nutrition and hydration as medical care or, as the Pope expressed it, "a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act."
-
Autonomy in the Physician-Patient Relationship
Monday, Apr. 28, 2008
at 1:20 PM
-
Immigration and Amnesty
Friday, Apr. 25, 2008
at 12:52 PM
Immigration was in the news again today as members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus criticized the leadership for failing to take on comprehensive reform. The Ethics Center got a chance to look at the issue from a variety of perspectives during a full day of immigration events, April 24.
The featured speaker was Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, who gave background on the employer sanctions legislation in her state and some of the other circumstances that have made her state the epicenter for the immigration debate.
One focus the day was the issue of amnesty, which many believe has been the sticking point in instituting a reasonable, comprehensive policy. An Ethics at Noon panel focused on that issue from a Catholic perspective provided by Kevin Appleby, director of the Office of Migration and Refugee Policy of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and Erica Dahl-Bredine, Catholic Relief Services-Mexico country representative.
Appleby and Dahl-Bredine then joined a group of distinguished scholars and policy makers for a discussion of amnesty. Included in the group were representatives from Zoe Lofgren’s and Mike Honda’s offices, community organizations, and scholars from SCU, University of San Francisco, the Jesuit School of Theology. The group is crafting a statement on the amnesty issue.
-
Evil Traps for Good People
Wednesday, Apr. 23, 2008
at 2:57 PM
Philip Zimbardo, author of “ The Lucifer Effect” met with the Center’s Business and Organizational Ethics Partnership today to talk about how some of his seminal work on evil, and the conditions that favor it, can be applied in a business context. A Stanford University professor of psychology, Zimbardo first attracted notice in 1971 with the “Prison Experiment,” in which average students descended into abuse when they were randomly assigned to be “guards” over other student “prisoners.” This work, as well as other studies of systems like Abu Ghraib prison, has led Zimbardo to identify systemic factors that make good people do bad things. Among these, he lists “starting the path toward the ultimate evil act with a small, insignificant first step” and “offering an ideology so big that a big lie provides justification for any means to be used to achieve the seemingly desirable, essential goal.”
-
The Pope's Talk at the UN
Monday, Apr. 21, 2008
at 12:47 PM
Eric Hanson, creator of the Religion, Ethics, and Politics in World Affairs section of the Center’s Web site, commented for Religion and Ethics Newsweekly on the Pope’s speech at the United Nations last week. Hanson focused on the Pope’s views on human rights and globalization, and discussed the role believers might play on the international scene:
“While secularism might have been the better political course for the West following the Thirty Years War, today's incredibly complicated global society can only escape its increasing economic stratification, multiplying civil conflicts, and environmental degradation with increased motivation and participation of all believers.”
-
Sexual Ethics
Thursday, Apr. 17, 2008
at 4:12 PM
The Ethics Center has been privileged this year to work with Santa Clara University senior Jessica Coblentz mentoring her in a project on the way religion influences the sexual ethics of SCU students. Jessica, winner of one of the Center’s Hackworth Fellowships, has been interviewing students individually, as well as holding panel discussions on such issues as abortion, interfaith dating, and premarital sex—always coming at these hot button topics from the point of view of ethics and religion. She has drawn crowds of 80 students at a time and managed to involve them in serious discussion. Recently, she wrote about the project for “The Santa Clara,” the University’s student newspaper in an article exploring the diversity of views within the population of Catholic students. She also wrote an op-ed that concluded:
In response to the genuine ethical concerns I have heard in interviews and the student panel discussions I have facilitated with the Faith, Sex and Ethics Project this year, I would like to suggest that students start talking about sex seriously.
This is not to say that sex talk shouldn't be fun, but it should not compromise the hopes and expectations we have for one another. Our conversations contribute to the environment in which we must attempt to make ethical sexual choices.
-
Raising an Ethical Child
Wednesday, Apr. 16, 2008
at 2:34 PM
The Ethics Center Advisory Board got a taste of the Center’s parent education programs when Character Education Director Steve Johnson gave them a mini-presentation of his popular “Raising an Ethical Child” series at their quarterly meeting Tuesday. Pairing up for exercises in how to communicate with a teenager, Board members saw first hand how some parental tactics like eyeballing a child or giving too much advice may not be a good strategy for helping instill ethics. Johnson also gave practical tools young people can use when friends try to involve them in doing something wrong. Slides from this and other presentations in the series are available online.
-
Papal Visit
Monday, Apr. 14, 2008
at 2:32 PM
The pope’s visit to the United States was the focus of today’s Emerging Issues Group. Former group member Thomas Reese, S.J., spoke to Voice of America about the papal trip, commenting,
"His message is going to be that international relations should not just be governed by power and money - military power and money - but should be guided by ethical principles, by moral values. He is going to talk about the importance of working for justice and peace. I think he will repeat what [Pope] John Paul [the Second] said that there is no peace without justice and no justice without reconciliation. This is what he world needs on the international level - peace, justice and reconciliation - and that is going to be a strong message from him."
The Emerging Issues Group talked about what other ethical issues the pope might address, what role charisma should play in religious leadership, and Benedict's longterm interest in the pluralistic culture of the United States.
-
Health Care Ethics Internship
Thursday, Apr. 3, 2008
at 12:43 PM
The Ethics Center is recruiting a new crop of undergraduate health care ethics interns for its eighth year of providing this unique program introducing students to the everyday ethical dilemmas facing medical professionals. Students shadow doctors, nurses, social workers, and chaplains at O’Connor Hospital in San Jose, as they confront issues from withdrawal of treatment to cross-cultural medicine and palliative care. The internships often help students clarify whether they want to pursue a career in the medical field.
-
The Private Lives of Public Officials
Wednesday, Apr. 2, 2008
at 11:19 AM
“It’s none of your business … that is something that is personal to my family. I’m sure there are things that are personal to your family that you don’t think are anyone else’s business either.”
That was Chelsea Clinton’s response to a question about her father’s relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Clinton’s comment, the second recent refusal to address this topic with questioners, is only one example of the age-old question: How much of the private lives of government officials should the public have the right to know about? The sexual exploits of former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer and Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick have been other recent instances. The Ethics Center’s Emerging Issues Group addressed those issues in a discussion led by the Center’s Senior Fellow in Government Ethics Judy Nadler.
-
Build. Plant. Grow.
Wednesday, Mar. 26, 2008
at 10:58 AM
The Sundays of Easter will find users of the Center’s “ Build.Plant.Grow.” faith formation program pairing the lectionary readings for each week with the children’s books No Bad News, Josiah, Hold the Book, Zen Shorts, and Grandma Lena’s Big Ol’ Turnip. “Build. Plant. Grow.,” part of the Center’s Character Education Program, follows threads that pass through the Sunday readings, suggesting how we might live our daily lives as Christians at our best.
The program takes its name from a passage in Jeremiah:
Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce...multiply there and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into
exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare, you will find your welfare.
The April overview is currently on-line, and weekly lesson plans will follow.
-
Charracter Education in Alternative Schools
Tuesday, Mar. 25, 2008
at 2:05 PM
According to a recent report from the California Drop-out Prevention Center, “Fewer than three quarters of California's students are graduating from high school, and in some areas, such as Los Angeles, the graduation rate is below 50 percent.” ( reported in the Modest Bee) The highest percentage of drop-outs across the state is in the alternative schools.
The Ethics Center offers two different sessions of its popular summer program, Ethics Camp, for teachers, counselors, and administrators in alternative school settings. The 4-day workshop teaches educators how to integrate character education and literacy instruction.
-
Therapeutic Cloning
Monday, Mar. 24, 2008
at 1:14 PM
-
Creating a Culture of Ethics in Public Institutions
Thursday, Mar. 20, 2008
at 9:04 AM
Judy Nadler, Center senior fellow in government ethics, has been traveling around the country encouraging public institutions in their efforts to create a culture of ethics and values. She addresses the Dallas, Texas, City Council April 2 on “Building Public Confidence.” Nadler was invited by the council and mayor to introduce “critical issues and national trends in government ethics” and to set the stage for the city to develop a sustainable, ongoing ethics program.
She visited Minneapolis in January to offer workshops for the League of Minnesota Cities and will speak about ethics with the Inspector General’s Office of the U.S. Department of the Interior in May.
-
University President an Advocate for Ethics
Wednesday, Mar. 19, 2008
at 12:56 PM
The announcement that Paul Locatelli, S.J., will step down next year as president of Santa Clara University to take on extended responsibility for Jesuit higher education worldwide was met with both pride and sadness at the Ethics Center.
Center Executive Director Kirk Hanson acknowledged the enormous role Locatelli has played in the Center’s development:
"In his 20 years as president and his many earlier years of service as a professor and VP Academic Affairs, Paul has been an unceasing advocate for applied and practical ethics. When he became president in 1988, he took the fledgling Center for Applied Ethics and built his vision of "Centers of Excellence" around it, raising the Center's importance on campus and in the community. He shepherded the Center as one of "his" projects, contributing significant seed funding from the university and his personal time and support.
"Under Paul's leadership, Santa Clara has become the very best place to do applied ethics. We are grateful for his leadership and for crafting the opportunity we all have to work with and through the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. He has already suggested a number of ways we can reach out and serve a global need for applied ethics in cooperation with his new role. We trust our relationship with Paul will not end, but simply enter a new creative phase as he takes on his expanded global role."
-
Pharmaceutical Marketing
Monday, Mar. 17, 2008
at 2:20 PM
-
Conflicts of Interest in the Medical Care Supply Chain
Wednesday, Mar. 12, 2008
at 2:26 PM
Center Executive Director Kirk Hanson just returned from Chicago where he addressed 20 CEOs of health care corporations gathered at the Midwest Health Care Executive Summit, sponsored by the Center for Corporate Innovation. Hanson talked with the CEOs, representing vendors, hospitals, service organizations, and insurers, about conflicts of interest in the medical care supply chain.
Hanson raised three main areas of ethical concern:
1) Companies designing devices or developing pharmaceuticals may take advantage of physician expertise and must compensate physicians for their services, but they must do so in a way that does not compromise physicians' ability to make clinical choices in the best interest of their patients.
2) Companies must distinguish between educating physicians about new products and marketing, which would inducements (from free pens to free trips) for physicians to use their products.
3) Throughout the sales process, companies must insure extensive transparency about all dollar flows so that providers (hospitals and clinics) can provide Medicare and other insurers with a clear accounting of all their costs.
-
Pandemic Influenza Ethics Tool
Monday, Mar. 10, 2008
at 3:00 PM
The primary ethical responsibility for communities confronting the possibility of a pandemic is to plan. Santa Clara County's Public Health Department is fulfilling that responsibility by creating Public Health Emergency Preparedness Toolkits, among which is an ethics tool created by Margaret R. McLean, the Ethics Center's bioethics director. The tool looks at issues like the fair distribution of scarce resources, restraints on freedom of movement, and transparency in planning.
-
Stem Cells
Wednesday, Mar. 5, 2008
at 12:46 PM
Is the ethical controversy over the development of medical therapies from stem cells justified by promising science? That was the question tackled by Jan Nolta, director of the UC Davis Stem Cell Program, at an Ethics at Noon presentation ( podcast) yesterday for the Center. Nolta noted that the ethical issues cluster in three areas:
Basic questions about the morality of using embryonic stem cells
Over-hyping, with researchers and others sometimes raising unrealistic expectations about what stem cell medicine can accomplish and how soon it will be available
Outright quackery, including offshore, non-FDA approved treatments that exploit the desperation of patients and their families.
Nolta’s presentation, a clear description of the potential of stem cell therapies, is part of a series, Science and Health Horizons, which, this year, is looking at stem cells and human cloning from a variety of different perspectives.
-
Can Politicians and Lobbyists Be Friends?
Monday, Mar. 3, 2008
at 2:34 PM
Weighing in on the recent public debate over the role of lobbyists in political campaigns, the Center’s Emerging Issues Group talked today about conflicts of interest and the appearance of such conflicts when politicians have close personal ties with those who appear before them to advocate for particular interest groups. Center Senior Fellow in Government Ethics Judy Nadler began by framing why lobbying raises ethical issues, and the group, representing disciplines from business to law to political science to philosophy, looked at fairness, transparency, and how the common good might best be served. Listen to the podcast of that discussion.
|
