Sixth annual ethics lecture series begins Nov. 8

CONTACT: Ellen Chang
PHONE:
(713) 348-6777
EMAIL: ellenc@rice.edu

SIXTH
ANNUAL ETHICS LECTURE SERIES BEGINS NOV. 8

“Are There Some Things
Money Can’t Buy? Markets, Morals, and Civic Life” is the topic of the inaugural
lecture on Nov. 8 at Rice University’s sixth annual Ethics, Politics and Society
lecture series.

Michael Sandel, a
government professor at Harvard University, will explore the philosophical issue
of obtaining items in life that can not be bought with money from 4 to 5:30 p.m.
at McMurtry Auditorium, Anne and Charles Duncan Hall.

Sandel is a political
philosopher whose recent book “Democracy’s Discontent: America in Search of a
Public Philosophy” has prompted much debate about the theory and practice of
American democracy. His book “Liberalism and the Limits of Justice” contains a
now-classic critique of academic liberalism. He is a renowned and popular
teacher whose undergraduate course “Justice” typically enrolls some 800
students. Sandel is currently writing a book on the moral limits of markets.

“This year’s series is unusually diverse and interesting,” said Donald
Morrison, professor of philosophy at Rice. “We begin with an eminent Harvard
political theorist, Michael Sandel, speaking on a topic that concerns us all,
morals and markets.”

The second lecture will
take place on Feb. 21 and features Susan Gubar, who will be speaking on “The
Holocaust Is Dying: Why Poetry Matters.” An English professor at the University
of Indiana and a founder of feminist literary criticism, Gubar is currently the
Laurence S. Rockefeller Visiting Fellow at the Princeton University Center for
Human Values. Gubar is currently working on a book, “Poetry after Auschwitz:
Remembering What One Never Knew.” She has received numerous prestigious awards,
including the Pushcart Prize.

The last lecturer, Axel
Honneth, will discuss “The Need for Mutual Recognition: A Plural Concept of
Justice” on April 4. Honneth is a philosophy professor at the University of
Frankfurt and director of the Institute for Social Research. He is the foremost
German social theorist of his generation and the author of numerous books and
articles, including “The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social
Conflicts” and “The Fragmented World of the Social: Essays in Social and
Political Philosophy.”

The series is sponsored
by the Scholl Foundation and the dean of the School of
Humanities.