Ethics education can strike people as an abstract or indulgent endeavor. But philosophy professor Debra Satz, director of the Bowen H. McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society, knows how to deliver a potent rebuttal.
She points, for instance, to a partnership between Stanford Continuing Studies and the center's Program in Ethics in Society. Faculty members teach a course in the humanities to residents of Redwood City's Hope House, a substance-abuse rehabilitation facility for women who previously were incarcerated. "These women are worried about making it from one day to the next, and Plato and Aristotle end up speaking to them in really powerful ways," says Satz, who has seen a handful of the women go on to employment at Stanford.
So Satz is ready for any skeptics; indeed, she knows they're out there. On the flip side, the center, which promotes a University-wide involvement with ethical issues in and out of the classroom, has attracted interest in some projects that has far exceeded expectations. One of the most successful is the Ethics of Food & the Environment initiative, which has presented notable speakers and film-and-discussion sessions with faculty experts. Topics have included food in schools, water use, and the role of local food and farms.
"Some of the talks have drawn 1,500 people," says Satz. "I think when we first started we thought that we'd be lucky if we got 50."
The center was founded in 2003 under the direction of law professor Deborah Rhode. Its name acknowledged the McCoy family in 2008, when the center received a $5 million gift from Bowen H. "Buzz" McCoy, '58, and his wife, Barbara. The family earlier had endowed the undergraduate honors program in Ethics in Society, which moved within the center. That program lets students blend a study of moral and political philosophy with a self-chosen major. It is directed by Rob Reich, MA '98, PhD '98, associate professor in political science. (Satz preceded him.)
Satz became director of the center in 2008 and says it has remained vigorous on many fronts, despite difficult cutbacks during the recent Stanford-wide endowment decline. The center sponsors panels on significant public topics, offers endowed lecture series and runs a program for postdoctoral fellows. The postdoc program has been limited by the money pinch, but Satz says the fellows have contributed "exponentially" to the center's activities.
Nicole Hassoun, an assistant professor in philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University, is among the 2009-10 fellows. She says she was attracted to Stanford by the quality of the faculty—"There's no place else I'd rather be for political philosophy"—and by how much energy supports the center's ambitions.
That vitality is evident in Satz's routine conversation. As she talks in detail about the value of ethical reflection, she'll stop and summon up a quote that epitomizes everything she has been discussing. Theodore Roosevelt, she notes, said, "To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society."
A lot of the emphasis in higher education, Satz says, is on practical and technical skills. But she says ethics-focused courses are rewarding to teach because students react so enthusiastically once they connect with the issues. "They want to do good," she says. "They rush to do good."
Exploring what's "good" or just or fair is a big part of the intellectual challenge. "We're not trying to get students to think in terms of one answer. We're trying to expose students to the multiple moral systems that try to answer the questions. We're trying to help them find their own answers."
National business scandals and a polarized political climate have put a spotlight on ethics considerations, often in the context of the need to overcome rampant moral cynicism. Satz is invigorated by the challenge.
