Each year the Philosophy Department and Colonial Philosophy Club sponsor talks, lectures, debates, and informal gatherings. These include the annual Elton, Goutman, and Thacher lectures, which are given by internationally recognized philosophers. Details for each event will be posted on this page as they become available.

Abstract: Stem cell research has the potential to revolutionize medicine. Because embryonic stem cells have the ability to develop into virtually any tissue in the body, they may be used to treat, or even cure, Parkinson's disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, osteoporosis, macular degeneration, cancer, heart disease, severe burns, and spinal cord injury. However, while the scientific and medical benefits are potentially enormous, the derivation of embryonic stem cells involves the destruction of the embryo, making hESCR morally unacceptable to those who regard human embryos as human subjects, who may not be harmed or killed in biomedical research. This talk examines the grounds for different conceptions of the moral status of the human embryo, and the implications for stem cell research.

Professor Steinbock's specialization is biomedical ethics, particularly reproduction and genetics. Professor Steinbock received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. She is a faculty member of the Alden March Bioethics Institute at Albany Medical College and the Union Graduate College – Mount Sinai School of Medicine Bioethics program. A Fellow of the Hastings Center, and the Chair of its Fellows Council, she is also a member of the Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproduction and Medicine (ASRM). She has served on a number of working groups in the United States and Europe, currently serving on “Pharmacological Treatment of Behavioral and Emotional Disturbances in Children: Engaging the Controversies,” and “The Ideal of Nature: Appeals to Nature in Debates about Biotechnology and the Environment.”

Recent articles have been on the moral status of embryos, embryonic stem cell research, prenatal genetic testing, and reproductive cloning. She is the author of Life Before Birth: The Moral and Legal Status of Embryos and Fetuses (Oxford, 1992; paperback 1996) and the editor of Legal and Ethical Issues in Human Reproduction (Ashgate Publishing, 2002) and The Oxford Handbook of Bioethics (Oxford, 2007). She is the co-editor (with John Arras and Alex John London) of Ethical Issues in Modern Medicine, 7th edition (McGraw-Hill, forthcoming) the co-editor (with Alastair Norcross) of Killing and Letting Die (Fordham, 1994), the co-editor (with Dan Beauchamp) of New Ethics for the Public's Health (Oxford, 1999), and the co-editor (with Ronald Bayer, Larry Gostin and Bruce Jennings) of Public Health Ethics: Theory, Policy and Practice (Oxford, 2006).

2007-2008 Elton Lecture:

Ezekiel Emanuel

Chair, Department of Bioethics

The Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health

A Proposal for Health-Care Reform

Tuesday, March 11

4pm

Marvin Center 308

Dr. Emanuel is biomedical ethicist and a breast oncologist. After completing Amherst College, he received his M.Sc. from Oxford University in Biochemistry. He received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and his Ph.D. in political philosophy from Harvard University. His dissertation received the Toppan Award for the finest political science dissertation of the year. In 1987-88, he was a fellow in the Program in Ethics and the Professions at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

After completing his internship and residency in internal medicine at Boston's Beth Israel Hospital and his oncology fellowship at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, he joined the faculty at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Emanuel was an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School before joining the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Emanuel developed The Medical Directive, a comprehensive living will that has been endorsed by Consumer Reports on Health, Harvard Health Letter, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. He has published widely on the ethics of clinical research, health care reform, international research ethics, end of life care issues, euthanasia, the ethics of managed care, and the physician-patient relationship in the New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, JAMA, and many other medical journals. His book on medical ethics, The Ends of Human Life, has been widely praised and received honorable mention for the Rosenhaupt Memorial Book Award by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. He has also published No Margin, No Mission: Health-Care Organizations and the Quest for Ethical Excellence and co-edited Ethical and Regulatory Aspects of Clinical Research: Readings and Commentary. Dr. Emanuel has written extensively for the popular press, with articles and op-eds appearing in The Atlantic, The New Republic, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and many other publications.

Dr. Emanuel has received numerous awards including election to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Science and the Association of American Physicians. Hippocrates Magazine selected him as Doctor of the Year in Ethics. He received the AMA-Burroughs Welcome Leadership Award, the Public Service Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the John Mendelsohn Award from the MD Anderson Cancer Center, and a Fulbright Scholarship (which he declined).

Dr. Emanuel served on President Clinton's Health Care Task Force, the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC), and on the bioethics panel of the Pan-American Healthcare Organization. Dr. Emanuel has been a visiting professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, UCLA, the Brin Professor at Johns Hopkins Medical School, and the Kovitz Professor at Stanford Medical School.

http://clinicalcenter.nih.gov/about/SeniorStaff/ezekiel_emanuel.html

2007-08 Friday Brown-Bag Series

These talks are informal presentations of works-in-progress, usually followed by a substantial discussion period. Interested guests from other departments or institutions are welcome to attend unless otherwise noted. Graduate students and undergraduates are also welcome, although the presentations are not ordinarily prepared with a student audience in mind. Unless otherwise noted, talks are held in the Philosophy Department seminar room, Phillips Hall 510. Sessions officially break up after one hour, although the room will usually be available for those who wish to continue the discussion.

2007
Friday, September 7, 4:00: Dr. Tom Morris, "How Socrates Benefits from Human Wisdom"
Friday, September 14, 2:00 (note new time): Dr. Richard Schlagel, "Seeking the Truth: How Science Has Contested Revelation and Faith as the Basis for Belief"

Friday, September 21, 12:15: Dr. Eric Saidel, "Insufficient Normativity" (working title)
Abstract: A theory of mental representation seems to require an account of misrepresentation. Misrepresentation requires normativity. Thus a theory which attempts to naturalize the mind needs to find a natural source of normativity. Teleosemanticists find this in evolution by natural selection. Hearts ought to pump blood, that’s what they are there for. Teleosemanticists suggest that we can say something similar for mental representations. I argue that in order for mental representations to acquire from natural selection the normativity necessary for misrepresentation certain conditions must be met. However, these conditions are not met. Furthermore, the normativity natural selection is able to supply to mental representations is not sufficient to account for misrepresentation.

Friday, October 5, 12:15: Dr. Roderick French, "Structured Reminiscences"
Friday, October 19, 12:15: Dr. Paul Churchill, "Cosmopolitans and Compatriots"
Friday, November 9, 2:15 (NOTE LATER TIME): Mr. Ralph Stavins, "Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau: The Foundation of Modern Political Philosophy" (download outline here)

Thursday, November 15, 12:30, Room 104, Hall of Government, 710 21st St. NW: Dr. Vitezslav Svejdar (Charles University, Prague/University of Notre Dame): "Modern Logic in Prague"
Abstract: Not a technical talk. Will discuss modern history of mathematical logic in Prague, starting around 1960. Stress put on the work of two outstanding logicians, Petr Vopenka and Petr Hajek, and their contribution to set theory and metamathematics of arithmetic.

Friday, November 30, 2:30: Mr. Joe Mourad, "Thinking About Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem." Not a technical talk.
Friday, December 7 (NEW DATE), 12:15: Mr. Zed Adams, "Ethical Objectivity"

2008
Friday, January 25, 12:30: Dr. Athanasios Samaras, 'The Social Structure of Plato's Laws and Its Implications for Plato's Political Philosophy"
Friday, February 15, 12:30: Dr. Frederick Kellogg, "Moral Generalism Versus Legal Particularism: Pragmatic Fallibilism’s Challenge to Ronald Dworkin" (download paper here)
Friday, March 14, 12:30: Dr. David DeGrazia, "Self-Awareness in Animals"
Friday, March 28, 12:15 (NOTE EARLIER TIME): Dr. Michael Pakaluk, Clark University, "Lessons of Aristotelian Courage"

Friday, April 4, 12:15: Dr. Michele Friend, "The Relationship Between the Philosopher of Mathematics and the Mathematician; Or: Should the Mathematician Listen to the Philosopher at all?"
Abstract:
        As rational agents we are sometimes forced to accept a conclusion which does not agree with us, simply because this is where the argument leads us. Much to my chagrin, I have to conclude that a practicing mathematician should not heed the advice of the philosopher too much. In the paper, I make the argument which leads to this conclusion, and discuss the ramifications of the conclusion.
        Let us begin with the simplistic, “false dichotomy”, construal of the relationship between philosophers and mathematicians. Either philosophers dictate to mathematicians or they listen to mathematicians. In the first construal, the philosopher prescribes mathematical practice; in the second, the philosopher describes. These simplistic relationships are unstable, but for different reasons. The first is unstable because it varies with the vagaries and findings of philosophy. The second is unstable because the compass of mathematical practice varies; so, we might say that the subject of description changes. The very instability of the relationship is enough to suggest to the mathematician that he, or she, pay only a passing attention to the philosopher.
        There are more stable, but more complex relationships between practicing mathematicians and philosophers of mathematics. The more complex relationship is characterised by a mixture of dialogue, description and prescription. Moreover, it is piecemeal and local. A stable relationship between the mathematician and the philosopher not only exists, but can locally lead to changes and modifications in both mathematics and philosophy. Because the exchange is local and piecemeal, individual mathematicians should pay attention to individual philosophers, and vice-versa; but mathematics should not pay too much attention to philosophy.

Friday, April 11, 12:15: Dr. Eric Saidel, "Attributing Mental Content to Animals"
Abstract:
        We easily and naturally attribute mental states to our pets and other non-human animals. But are these attributions true? Does Fido really rush to the door because he’s excited to see me? Does Mittens really curl up on my lap because she wants me to scratch her neck? These are claims about the causal antecedents of behavior, that particular mental states are among the causes of some (non-human) animal behavior. I will argue that two strands of evidence support these claims. First, that if it is true that some human behavior is caused the mental states of the behavers, then this is a consequence of an evolutionary history which includes the causes of (some of) the behavior of (some) non-human animals. And, second, that some non-human animals (including, for example, the notorious sweet potato washing macaques of Koshima Island, Japan) have exhibited learning behavior that can only be accounted for by mental states.

Friday, April 18, 1:15 [NOTE LATER TIME]: Mr. Michael Sigrist, TBA
Friday, April 25, 12:15: Dr. Paul Churchill, "Avarice and Virtue"
Friday, April 25, 2:00: Mr. Thom Gennaro (2007-08 Thacher-Reynolds Fellow), "Psychologism"

2008 Annual Undergraduate Philosophy Conference:

Featured Speaker:

John Mikhail

Georgetown University Law Center

Saturday, April 5

Marvin Center 301

9:00AM – 5:30PM

Call for Papers

Accepting paper submissions of philosophical papers by undergraduate students. Papers should be between 9 and 20 pages in length (double spaced, 12 pt. font). Students should send their work, in a form suitable for blind review, in rich text format to GWundergradconference@gmail.com. Emails should include a brief (150 word) synopsis of the submission.

Submission deadline: February 28, 2008

Questions may be directed to Thom Gennaro (tgennaro@gwu.edu)

Philosophy Club Lecture Series

Café Philosophique

These are open discussions, organized by the Colonial Philosophy Club in conjunction with the Department, focusing on topics of general public interest. Faculty "guest hosts" speak briefly to introduce the issue and provide a bit of context, and then everyone is invited to join in a spirited conversation. Light refreshments are provided, and everyone in the community is welcome to attend. Suggested readings are made available, for anyone wishing to read up on the issue in advance. For details, contact the Department or the Philosophy Club.

2007-08 schedule of events to be announced

University Seminar in the Human Sciences

These seminars are usually held from 1:00 to 3:00 in the Dean's Room, University Club, 1918 F St NW, and begin with a free lunch. If you plan to attend, PLEASE RSVP at least three days before the meeting to Jennifer Sieck, Rapporteur, Human Sciences Seminar, at jsieck@gwu.edu or (202) 994-8690. Please indicate whether you would like the organizers to order a lunch for you, and if you have any special dietary needs.