University introduces certificate in Values and Public Life

The program, which is directed by politics professor Melissa Lane, who is also acting director of the Program in Political Philosophy, aims to develop students’ ability to critically analyze ethical decisions in the public sphere.

After completing the program, Lane said, students will have “an integrated perspective that draws on a range of disciplines in a coherent way.”

Philosophy major Daniel Schiff ’12 said that he is pursuing the certificate because it is a better fit for him than the political philosophy track in his department because it incorporates both the theory and application of ethics.

“I want to have a positive impact on the world,” Schiff said. “I’m more of a policy-type person than say a social worker. I want to make change on that kind of level.”

Ben Cogan ’12, another certificate student, explained that “every sort of public policy issue you can think of has some sort of ethics portion.” He added that this is one of the few certificates that contains a normative component, exploring how people should act rather than how they do act.

The three core requirements include PHI 202: Introduction to Moral Philosophy, a relevant seminar, and one of two courses on ethics and public policy.

Students must also take two thematic courses in a specific subfield and write a senior thesis relevant to the field or an independent paper along with a thesis in their concentration.

Most of the program’s students, according to Lane, are interested in the subfield of global justice, but religion and society, constitutional law, and bioethics are also popular.

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Lane noted that “we stressed in the application program that we would be flexible in the requirements for the certificate, especially for seniors,” who will earn the certificate “as long as they have a program that overall meets the goals and the spirit of the program.” Current sophomores will apply in the spring for the next year’s class.

The program also features a dinner series and group service projects. As many as five certificate students will also receive summer grants of up to $1,000 for internships or projects.

Successful applicants to the certificate program must have a 3.0 grade point average and a B-plus or better in one of the core courses by the end of their sophomore year, and they must also write an essay and complete an interview.

Though the program has been in the planning stages for three years, it was not approved until a faculty meeting in May.

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Bioethics professor Peter Singer, a member of the program’s executive committee, explained that “we finally got to the point where we thought we had the faculty to do it.”

The Center for Human Values celebrated its 20th anniversary this year. “It was always in the long-range plans of the center to want to ... involve undergraduates in the life of the center” beyond co-sponsored courses and forums, Lane said.

“We wanted to do something that would bring the academic resources of the center much more to bear on undergraduates,” Lane said.

Singer said that there are many current and upcoming issues on which ethics will have an impact, from the now-prominent debate on health care reform to the use of genetic advances to allow parents to select embryos based on their traits.

Cogan said that ethics issues will also affect future generations. “We often talk about how we treat others who exist, but there are a lot of interesting questions about whether it would be wrong to create various individuals and how we should evaluate ethical issues in which the people involved don’t even exist yet,” he said.