Keynote Speaker
James E. Coleman Jr.
A native of Charlotte, North Carolina, Professor Coleman's experience includes a judicial clerkship for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, a year in private practice in New York, and fifteen years in private practice in Washington, D.C., the last twelve as a partner in a large law firm.
[Read Full Bio]
Topics and Sessions
Topic: Abortion
The issue of abortion has dominated religious and political life in the United States for at least the past 3 generations. To prepare for your session, please take the quiz at the first link in the web-base reading below and familiarize yourself with state laws summarized in the second link.
Session Leaders:
- David Klein, M.D.
- Kyle Hudson, J.D., Ph.D.
Web-Based Reading:
Topic: Affirmative Action
Affirmative Action & College Admissions
There are many misperceptions about affirmative action and the college admissions process. This session will exam what affirmative action is, some commonly held misconceptions of its purpose and what it is not.
There are many misperceptions about affirmative action and the college admissions process. This session will exam what affirmative action is, some commonly held misconceptions of its purpose and what it is not.
Session Leaders:
- Lori Hackney
- Tom Clayton
Web-Based Reading:
Topic: Animal Rights
During these sessions, students will examine real life issues relating to animal rights and the care and use of animal in medical research and product testing.
Session Leaders:
-
Regina Williams and Ron Banks
Animal Research and Animal Rights
Students will be guided through a hypothetical, yet reality-based animal research case study. This activity allows students to examine real life issues relating to animal rights and the care and use of animals in medical research. If students have questions about the animal rights movement, or the care and use of animals in medical research or product testing, this is the session to attend.
Web-Based Reading:
- North Carolina Association for Biomedical Research: http://www.ncabr.org/biomed/faq2.html
- Animal Rights: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals: http://www.peta.org/about/faq.asp
Topic: Academic Integrity
What tools do students need to understand when they can use the work of others and when it is considered a violation of academic honor or ethics? These are issues that often difficult to design and understand but are worth considering in detail in high school.
Session Leader:
- Betsy Dawson and the student members of S.A.I.L.
Students Empowering Students: Building an Honor System at your School. An interactive session between students designed to facilitate student efforts to create a culture of honesty and integrity at their schools developed by students at East Chapel Hill High School with their teacher, Betsy Dawson.Web-Based Reading: none required
- Jan Boxill
Ethics in Sports: This discussion will look at how sports play a significant role in the lives of millions of people throughout the world, as participants, fans, spectators, and critics and how it provides a unique model for understanding our own society. We certainly saw this during the Sydney and Beijing Olympics. Even those who are uninvolved, bored or critical of sports are often affected by them. Sport is a microcosm of society, but it is more than that. Sport doesn't just mirror society; sports reflect, but sport also affects what it is a reflection of. Indeed sport likely affects society more than any other activity and unlike any other activity.Web-Based Reading:
Topic: The Ethics of Cloning and Modern Genetics
Session Leader:
- Kristy Crooks, Ph.D., "Ethical Issues in Genetics"
This session will touch on a variety of ethical concerns in modern genetics, particularly issues relating to cloning, genetic testing and stem cell research. For genetic testing, we will talk about when testing is ethically appropriate, the rights of teenagers to make their own decisions regarding whether to be tested, and specific issues that come up when considering prenatal genetic tests. For stem cell research, we will discuss the science behind both embryonic and non-embryonic stem cell extraction, and the issue of the personhood of the embryo.Web-Based Reading:- Background Information
- Stem Cell Controversy
- In addition, we'll be talking a lot about the science of modern genetics, so if you are having a hard time recalling things like pedigrees and DNA and autosomal dominant inheritance, you can brush up by viewing the following online slideshow, offered by the Duke Center for Human Genetics:
Click here then Click on Introductory Genetics. Only lessons 1-3 are relevant to our discussion. They're all quick and well-written.)
- Krystle Nomie, "Stem Cells and Cloning: Science and Ethics"
We will discuss the science behind cloning and stem cell research. We will also address the moral and ethical implications involving this type of research.Web-Based Reading:
Topic: Legalization of Drugs
These sessions will review current topics concerning the legalization of marijuana and other "recreational" drugs while strongly encouraging discussion debate.
Session Leader:
- Seth Bordner
Minimum Age 21: Paternalism or Prudence?
Recently, a group of college and university presidents joined together to call for public officials to reconsider the current laws prohibiting the consumption of alcohol by anyone under 21. We will examine the arguments for and against the minimum legal drinking age of 21.Web-Based Reading: - Suzanne Sikes, Ph.D.
Implication of Legalization and Decrimilization of Recreational Drugs
This session will explore the implications for drug legalization and decriminalization in the United States. Our discussion will include economic, medical, and social issues surrounding this controversial topic. Students may wish to familiarize themselves with some of the arguments used for and against the legalization of drugs.Web-Based Reading:
Topic: Environmental Ethics
These sessions will provide students with the historical background necessary to understanding issues, stakeholders, principles and strategies involved in the environmental justice movement over the past two decades. Students will also explore strategies to address current and future environmental justice issues.
Session Leader:
- Thomas Hill
Human Excellence and Preserving Natural Environments
The moral significance of preserving natural environments is not entirely an issue of rights and social utility, for a person s attitude toward nature may be importantly connected with virtues or human excellences. The question is, What sort of person would destroy the natural environment or even see its value solely in cost/benefit terms? The answer I suggest is that willingness to do so may well reveal the absence of traits which are a natural basis for a proper humility, selfacceptance, gratitude, and appreciation of the good in others.
Web-Based Reading:
Topic: Euthanasia
Is there a time when it is acceptable and ethical to kill another human being to keep them from suffering particularly when they suffer with little or no hope of recovery? These sessions will explore the ethics dimensions of these issues from the point of view of patient and health care provider.
Session Leaders:
- Steve Warshaw
Euthanasia Is there a time when it is acceptable and ethical to kill another human being to keep them from suffering particularly when they suffer with little or no hope of recovery? These sessions will explore the ethics dimensions of these issues from the point of view of patient and health care provider.
Topic: Other
These are topics that explore ethical issues that do not easily fit into the standard categories.
Session Leaders:
- Adam Cureton, "Choosing Disabled Kids"
Through a discussion of the true case of Sharon Duchesneau and Candy McCullough, a deaf lesbian couple who chose to conceive their child with sperm from a deaf friend whom they knew to come from a long line of deaf people, we will consider various ethical issues that arise from our newfound ability to decide what kinds of children to have. We will particularly emphasize questions about choosing whether or not to have disabled kids, along with who, if anyone, should be making these choices.Web-Based Reading:
- Mark Dubois, "Just War Theory"
This session will discuss the just war tradition. We will ask what ethical considerations should affect both a country's decision to go to war and how that war is prosecuted. Time permitting, we may discuss the current tension between the U.S. and Iran and assess the ethical questions surrounding the potential use of military force.
Students should read all of the topics listed under the "Just War" heading in the middle of the page. This includes Introduction, What is a Just Cause, etc.Web-Based Reading:
- Clair Morrissey, "Moral Obligations and Global Poverty"
In 1972 Peter Singer published a famous piece, "Famine, Affluence and Morality," that argues that the wealthy (in all countries) have the moral obligation to alleviate suffering from poverty, no matter where that suffering occurs (within your country, or in another country). In this session we will closely examine and evaluate Singer's argument.Web-Based Reading:
- Mark Phelan, Ph.D., "Doing it on Purpose"
When the question is put to us abstractly, many feel that whether or not someone did something bad and whether or not they did it on purpose are two separate issues. Recently, however, some experimental research has revealed that, when presented with concrete cases, we take the morality of an act into account in deciding whether or not it was performed on purpose. In thesis section we will examine the ordinary concept of purposeful -- or intentional -- action and the role it should play in abstract theorizing about intentionality.Web-Based Reading:
- Ryan Preston, Ph.D., "Philosophy of Religion: Tolstoy's Confession and the Meaning of Life"
In A Confession, Leo Tolstoy wrestles with the worry that human life has no meaning. In this session, students will address some of the main questions that Tolstoy raises in this work: Do our lives have meaning? Does life's meaning somehow depend on the existence of God or on human immortality? Does a scientific understanding of the world threaten the view that life has meaning?Web-Based Reading:
