Center for Global Ethics George Mason University

Current Initiatives

Demonstration in Brazil

 

Under the leadership of Prof. Gould, director of the Center for Global Ethics, a collaborative research project is underway on "Global Democratic Transformation and Computer-Supported Dialogue." A research team including Prof. Arun Sood of the Computer Science Dept. and Prof. Peter Mandaville of the Center for Global Studies is attempting to clarify a set of normative, socio-cultural, and technical issues in the use of the Internet to facilitate democratic discourse and deliberation in the context of globalization.

Discussions have been ongoing with the School of Management which set up a Task Force on Ethics, under the leadership of Prof. David Kravitz, to review and plan for new curricular emphases on ethics issues. The task force devised a questionnaire for faculty teaching core courses to determine the role ethics plays in the syllabus, texts, lectures, discussions, and student assessment. On this basis, the School decided to hire a new faculty member in ethics for the 2006-07 academic year. In consultation with Prof. Gould and with the co-sponsorship of the Center for Global Ethics, the School has also presented several lectures on business and management ethics since fall, 2004.

The Environmental Science and Policy program is introducing an environmental ethics course as one of the requirements of its new undergraduate curriculum. This course will be taught in the philosophy department and cross-listed in ESP.

Linkages have been established locally with the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at the University of Maryland and with the Democracy Collaborative based there, and with the Center for Business Ethics and the Center for Democracy in the Third Sector at Georgetown, and with the Olssen Center for Applied Ethics at the University of Virginia, and internationally with the Center for the Study of Global Ethics at the University of Manchester and with the Globalism Institute at Monash University in Australia, which has established a network of centers concerned with globalization.

 

Updated: March 9, 2006