Winners of this year’s Abraham J. Briloff Prizes in Ethics & Ethics Week Reminder

March 18, 2024

Ethics Week begins with a celebratory announcement of the winners of the Abraham J. Briloff Prizes in Ethics. This year’s prize committee of three members of the faculty, one from each school, chose one winner each from the faculty and student submissions. The winners are:

Faculty Prize
Prof. Yingshihan Zhu, a member of the adjunct faculty in the Philosophy Department, won for her essay, The Moral Obligation of the Privileged to Resist Complacency about Their Own Oppression. The members of the prize committee wrote: “This paper is an excellent examination of moral responsibility to others who may be similarly but more severely disadvantaged as oneself.” The essay is currently under review for publication. The version that was submitted for the Briloff Prize is here.

Student Prize
The student prize goes to Ms. Anastasiia Semerianova, a sophomore, planning to major in either Economics or Accountancy. The committee selected her essay, The Harm from Antibiotic Usage, which she wrote for an ENG 2100T class taught by Prof. Constantin Schreiber. According to the prize committee, “This outstanding paper goes beyond the identifying a moral harm by suggesting steps to solve or ameliorate the identified problem.” The paper is available here.

*        *       *       *       *

Ethics Week Events

We ask that members of the faculty consider organizing some of their class time this week around ethical issues as they relate to their subject or discipline.

The following colleagues and distinguished visitors will be speaking on Ethics in open forums, as below:

TUESDAY, MARCH 19

NVC 14-220, 12:00 – 2:15 PM
Navigating Congestion Pricing: Balancing Mobility, Sustainability, and Equity

• Prof. David Rosenberg | Director, Robert Zicklin Center for Corporate Integrity and Department of Law, Baruch College
• Nicole Gelinas | Senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, Contributing editor of City Journal, and Columnist at the New York Post
• Charles Komanoff | Economist, President of the New York City Transportation Alternatives, and Director of Carbon Tax Center
• Arif Ullah | Executive Director, South Bronx Unite
  
  Join Baruch College’s Robert Zicklin Center for Corporate Integrity for an in-depth exploration of the benefits and drawbacks of the forthcoming implementation of congestion pricing in New York City. This program aims to provide participants with a comprehensive understanding of congestion pricing’s potential impact on mobility, sustainability, pollution, social equity, and the urban economy.
  Please click here to register.

NVC 14-270, 12:30 – 1:30 PM

Who decides? Balancing respect and care for the individual in Western and East Asian medical decision-making

Prof. Laura Specker-Sullivan | Fordham University
An Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University, Dr. Specker-Sullivan is a specialist in interdisciplinary and cross-cultural ethics who incorporates her experience in clinical ethics consultation and qualitative research into her philosophical work on autonomy, trust, and consent.

In Western countries like the US, doctors usually ask patients directly what they want to do. This shows respect for patients’ personal choices. But in East Asian countries, doctors often talk to patients’ families first, helping them understand the situation and deciding together what is best for the patient. This shows care for the patient, but does it come at the cost of personal choice?  What justifies these diverging practices? In this presentation, Prof. Specker-Sullivan will show how both ways of giving consent can be based on the same value: autonomy.

 Prof. Wenqing Zhao, Moderator, Department of Philosophy

THURSDAY, MARCH 21

 NVC 13-155, 12:30 – 1:30 PM

Are Frozen “Embryos” People?
Sponsored by the Department of Philosophy and the Baruch Philosophy Club, Professors Douglas Lackey and Vincent Peluce of Baruch’s Philosophy Department will debate the concept of person as applied to frozen embryos. RSVP here.

à Virtual Meeting via Zoom, 6:15-7:15 PM

Reimagining Ethical Care in Global Contexts of Trauma and Adversity

Register for Zoom: here

Dr. Adam Brown | The New School for Social Research

Prof. Sarah Bishop’s Global Communication Class, PAF 9420, will host Dr. Adam Brown, an Associate Professor of Psychology at and Vice Provost for Research at The New School. Dr. Brown has extensive experience developing programs to promote mental health awareness, providing trainings, technical guidance, and support in the creation, implementation, and evaluation of scalable mental health strategies. He has served as a mental health consultant for many international companies and organizations such as the United Nations, UNICEF, and Amnesty International, and is the recipient of grants from the National Institute of Health, USAID, Fulbright, and several private foundations. His work appears in numerous peer-reviewed journals and books.

Considerable gaps exist globally in the identification and treatment of mental health issues. An emerging strategy to help provide inclusive and accessible care is through the training of community members and lay-providers in the delivery of brief mental health interventions. This talk will present results from several contexts on the adaptation and implementation of community-led mental health care.

An annual event at Baruch since 2004,

Ethics Week evolved from curricula

in our three Schools that include emphases

on ethical reasoning and/or decision-making.

Ethics Week is generously supported by the

Charles Dreifus Ethics-Across-the-Curriculum Initiative.