May
24
Thu
Working Papers in Ethics and Moral Psychology @ Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Anneberg 12-15
May 24 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm

Working Papers in Ethics and Moral Psychology is a speaker series conducted under the auspices of the Icahn School of Medicine Bioethics Program. It is a working group where speakers are invited to present well-developed, as yet unpublished work. The focus of the group is interdisciplinary, with an emphasis on topics in ethics, bioethics, neuroethics, and moral psychology. The meetings begin with a brief presentation by the invited speaker and the remaining time is devoted to a discussion of the paper. The speakers will make their papers available in advance of their presentation to those who sign up for the Working Papers mailing list.

All speakers:

9/28/2017:
Eric Chwang
/Rutgers University-Camden

11/2/2017:
Phoebe Friesen
/CUNY Graduate Center

12/14/2017:
Adam Kolber
/Brooklyn Law School

2/8/2018:
Paul Cummins
/Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

3/8/2018:
Elizabeth Victor
/William Paterson University

4/19/2018:
Melissa Moschella
/Columbia University

5/24/2018:
Camil Golub
/Rutgers University-Newark

JOIN THE WORKING PAPERS MAILING LIST AND RSVP TO:

nada.gligorov@mssm.edu

Oct
4
Thu
The Gift and Weight of Genomic Knowledge: In Search of the Good Biocitizen @ Feil Hall, Forchelli Conference Center, 22nd Floor
Oct 4 – Oct 5 all-day
This knowledge is irrevocable.” So reads an opening line in the terms-of-service agreement for 23andMe, a leading direct-to-consumer genetic testing company. This remarkable phrase attests to an increasing recognition of the role genomic knowledge plays in shaping human life. On the one hand, genomic knowledge is a gift, creating novel insights into the genetic drivers of disease and into the geographical paths of our ancestors. On the other, it is a weight, creating new obligations, new forms of social classification, and new forms of surveillance. Thus, we are faced with a fundamental question: how can we live well in the face of knowledge that can change the criteria, conditions, and lived experience of life? Or, as we formulate that question for this conference, what is a good biocitizen?
This conference aims to take a step back and ask: In what ways can genomic knowledge promote human flourishing, and in what ways might it thwart it?  What are the conditions that shape the biocitizen today, and how ought one act in light of these? Heeding not only the lessons of this history, but also our contemporary socio-political context, we wish to gain clarity on how genomics has shaped and is shaping lived experience. How, against the background of such knowledge, might we leverage genomic knowledge toward a life lived well in health for all?

DATES:

October 4 and 5, 2018

LOCATION:

Feil Hall, Forchelli Conference Center, 22nd Floor, 205 State Street Brooklyn, New York

Sponsored by The Hastings Center and Brooklyn Law School’s Center for Health, Science and Public Policy; co-sponsored by Columbia University’s Department of Medical Humanities and Ethics and Harvard Medical School’s Center for Bioethics

Access the conference flyer here.


SPEAKERS: 

Catherine Bliss (University of California, San Francisco) Alondra Nelson (Columbia University)
Catherine Clune-Taylor (Princeton University) Carolyn Neuhaus (The Hastings Center)
Eva Kittay (SUNY Stony Brook) Jenny Reardon (UC Santa Cruz)
Melinda Hall (Stetson University) Sandra Soo-Jin Lee (Stanford University)
Colin Koopman (University of Oregon) Joe Stramondo (San Diego State University)
Leslie Larkin (Northern Michigan University) Jessica Kolopenuk (University of Alberta)

CONFERENCE SCHEDULE:

Thursday, October 4, 8:15 am – 5:00 pm

REGISTRATION AND CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST: 8:15-9:00

SHORT BREAK: 10:20-10:40

  • 10:40-11:40 Lesley Larkin “On Contemporary Literature and the ‘Good Bionarrative Citizen”

LUNCH: 11:40-1:00

  • 1:00-1:50 Sandra Soo-Jin Lee “How Is Social Networking and Direct-To-Consumer Genetic Testing Shaping The Choices and Conundrums of the Biocitizen?”
  • 1:50-2:40 Melinda Hall “On The Language of Risk and the Marginalization of Bodies”

BREAK: 2:40-3:10

  • 3:10-4:00 Catherine Clune-Taylor  “What Does The History of Medicine Teach about the Advent of Genomics as “Truth” Concerning Categories of Embodiment such as Sex and Sexuality?”
  • 4:00-5:00 Joseph Stramondo “How Does Genomics Shape Categories of Disability and How Might the Virtuous Biocitizen Respond?”

Friday, October 5, 2018, 8:15 am – 5:00 pm

REGISTRATION AND CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST: 8:15-9:00

  • 9:00-9:50 Jessica Kolopenuk “How Does Colonialism and Racism Inform Genomic Knowledge and How Might Such Legacies Be Undermined?”
  • 9:50-10:40 Catherine Bliss “Given Genomics’ Potential for Reinscription of Erroneous Notions of Race, How Should One Think about Race Ethically in the Genomic Age?”

SHORT BREAK: 10:40-11:00

  • 11:00-11:50 Eva Kittay “How Much of a Gift or Weight Is Genomics from the Perspective of Care?”

LUNCH 11:50-1:00

  • 1:00-1:50 Carolyn Neuhaus “On the Rhetoric that Exaggerates the Weight and Elides the Gift”
  • 1:50-2:40 Alondra Nelson “The Politics of Genomics in the USA: the OSTP and the PMI”

SHORT BREAK: 2:40-3:00

  • 3:00-4:00 Jenny Reardon “How Should We Understand the Relationship between Genomics, Justice, and Democracy?”
  • 4:00-5:00 Roundtable Discussion

REGISTER HERE


This conference will have live on-screen captioning and will be livestreamed. Send inquiries about the conference and any accessibility-related requests to reynoldsj@thehastingscenter.org. Requests for a reasonable accommodation based on a disability to attend this event should also be made to Louise Cohen, the BLS Reasonable Accommodations Coordinator, at louise.cohen@brooklaw.edu or (718) 780-0377. 

Oct
11
Thu
Working Papers in Ethics and Moral Psychology @ Icahn School @Mount Sinai, Annenberg 12-16
Oct 11 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm

Working Papers in Ethics and Moral Psychology is a speaker series conducted under the auspices of the Icahn School of Medicine Bioethics Program. It is a working group where speakers are invited to present well-developed, as yet unpublished work. The focus of the group is interdisciplinary, with an emphasis on topics in ethics, bioethics, neuroethics, and moral psychology. The meetings begin with a brief presentation by the invited speaker and the remaining time is devoted to a discussion of the paper. The speakers will make their papers available in advance of their presentation to those who sign up for the Working Papers mailing list.

Upcoming Speakers:

11 Oct: Jordan Mackenzie, NYU

8 Nov: Susana Nuccetelli, St. Cloud State

13 Dec: Michael Brownstein, John Jay

14 Mar: Kyle Ferguson, CUNY

18 Apr: Jeff Sebo, NYU

23 May: Johann Frick, Princeton

Oct
26
Fri
Perceptual Capacities and Pyschophysics @ Rutgers Philosophy Dept
Oct 26 – Oct 27 all-day

Perceptual Capacities and Pyschophysics

Saturday, October 26-27, 2018, 09:30am – 06:00pm

Location Rutgers Philosophy Department, 106 Somerset St, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA

Oct
29
Mon
Evaluating Chronic Pain in Neuroscience, Ethics, and Law – Seminars in Society and Neuroscience @ Faculty House, Columbia U
Oct 29 @ 4:15 pm – 6:15 pm

Speakers:
Amanda Pustilnik, Professor of Law, University of Maryland
Tor Wager, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder

Moderators:
Federica Coppola, Presidential Scholar in Society and Neuroscience, Columbia University
Lan Li, Presidential Scholar in Society and Neuroscience, Columbia University

We will provide additional information as soon as possible.

Free and open to the public, but RSVP is required via Eventbrite. This event is part of the Seminars in Society and Neuroscience series.

Nov
8
Thu
Working Papers in Ethics and Moral Psychology @ Icahn School @Mount Sinai, Annenberg 12-16
Nov 8 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm

Working Papers in Ethics and Moral Psychology is a speaker series conducted under the auspices of the Icahn School of Medicine Bioethics Program. It is a working group where speakers are invited to present well-developed, as yet unpublished work. The focus of the group is interdisciplinary, with an emphasis on topics in ethics, bioethics, neuroethics, and moral psychology. The meetings begin with a brief presentation by the invited speaker and the remaining time is devoted to a discussion of the paper. The speakers will make their papers available in advance of their presentation to those who sign up for the Working Papers mailing list.

Upcoming Speakers:

11 Oct: Jordan Mackenzie, NYU

8 Nov: Susana Nuccetelli, St. Cloud State

13 Dec: Michael Brownstein, John Jay

14 Mar: Kyle Ferguson, CUNY

18 Apr: Jeff Sebo, NYU

23 May: Johann Frick, Princeton

Dec
13
Thu
Working Papers in Ethics and Moral Psychology @ Icahn School @Mount Sinai, Annenberg 12-16
Dec 13 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm

Working Papers in Ethics and Moral Psychology is a speaker series conducted under the auspices of the Icahn School of Medicine Bioethics Program. It is a working group where speakers are invited to present well-developed, as yet unpublished work. The focus of the group is interdisciplinary, with an emphasis on topics in ethics, bioethics, neuroethics, and moral psychology. The meetings begin with a brief presentation by the invited speaker and the remaining time is devoted to a discussion of the paper. The speakers will make their papers available in advance of their presentation to those who sign up for the Working Papers mailing list.

Upcoming Speakers:

11 Oct: Jordan Mackenzie, NYU

8 Nov: Susana Nuccetelli, St. Cloud State

13 Dec: Michael Brownstein, John Jay

14 Mar: Kyle Ferguson, CUNY

18 Apr: Jeff Sebo, NYU

23 May: Johann Frick, Princeton

Feb
7
Thu
Reality is Not As It Seems @ The New York Academy of Sciences
Feb 7 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Despite remarkable strides across virtually all scientific disciplines, the nature of the relationship between our brain and our conscious experience—the “mind-body problem”—remains perhaps the greatest mystery confronting science today. Most neuroscientists currently believe that neural activity in the brain constitutes the foundation of our reality, and that consciousness emerges from the dynamics of complicated neural networks. Yet no scientific theory to date has been able to explain how the properties of such neurons or neural networks actually translates into our specific conscious experiences.

The prevalent view in cognitive science today is that we construct our perception of reality in real time. But could we be misinterpreting the content of our perceptual experiences? According to some cognitive scientists, what we perceive with our brain and our senses does not reflect the true nature of reality. Thus, while evolution has shaped our perceptions to guide adaptive behavior, they argue, it has not enabled us to perceive reality as it actually is. What are the implications of such a radical finding for our understanding of the mystery of consciousness? And how do we distinguish between “normal” and “abnormal” perceptual experiences?

Cognitive scientist Donald D. Hoffman and neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan join Steve Paulson to discuss the elusive quest to understand the fundamental nature of consciousness, and why our perception of reality is not necessarily what it seems.   

*Reception to follow


This event is part of the Conversations on the Nature of Reality series.

Moderated by journalist Steve Paulson, Executive Producer of Wisconsin Public Radio’s To the Best of Our Knowledge, this three-part series at the New York Academy of Sciences brings together leading scientists and thinkers to explore the fundamental nature of reality through the lens of personal experience and scientific inquiry.

To learn more about each lecture and to purchase tickets, click on the links below.

Feb
8
Fri
Bioethics Colloquium: Hanna Pickard on The Puzzle of Addiction @ NYU, rm tba
Feb 8 @ 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm

The orthodox conception of drug addiction is a neurobiological disease characterised by compulsive drug use despite negative consequences. But this conception depends on three core ideas that are rarely clarified: disease, compulsion, and negative consequences. Pickard argues that it is only when the significance of negative consequences is appreciated that the puzzle of addiction comes clearly into view; and she discusses some conceptual and empirical grounds supporting scepticism about the claim that addiction can be accurately characterised as a form of compulsion, and agnosticism about the claim that addiction is a neurobiological disease. Addiction is better characterized as involving drug choices that, while on the surface puzzling, can be explained by recognizing the multiple functions that drugs serve, and by contextualizing drug choices in relation to a host of interacting and individualized factors. Alongside craving or strength of motivation to use, these factors include (1) psychiatric co-morbidity, (2) limited socio-economic opportunities, (3) temporally myopic decision-making, (4) denial and motivated irrationality, and, lastly, (5) a sense of self and social identity. She shall briefly explain the relevance of all five factors, but conclude by focussing on (5) in more detail, exploring the distinctive way that the human drive not only for social reward and belonging but also to know who one is can serve to cement addiction and impede recovery.

Hanna Pickard is Professor in Philosophy of Psychology at the University of Birmingham, UK, and a 3-year Visiting Research Scholar in the Program of Cognitive Science at Princeton University. In addition to her academic work, from 2007-17 she worked in a NHS specialist service for people with personality disorders and complex needs. Website: www.hannapickard.com.

Friday, February 8th, 2019
4:00 – 6:00 PM
Reception to follow
Location TBD; RSVPs will be notified via email

RSVP Here

Mar
14
Thu
Working Papers in Ethics and Moral Psychology @ Icahn School @Mount Sinai, Annenberg 12-16
Mar 14 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm

Working Papers in Ethics and Moral Psychology is a speaker series conducted under the auspices of the Icahn School of Medicine Bioethics Program. It is a working group where speakers are invited to present well-developed, as yet unpublished work. The focus of the group is interdisciplinary, with an emphasis on topics in ethics, bioethics, neuroethics, and moral psychology. The meetings begin with a brief presentation by the invited speaker and the remaining time is devoted to a discussion of the paper. The speakers will make their papers available in advance of their presentation to those who sign up for the Working Papers mailing list.

Upcoming Speakers:

11 Oct: Jordan Mackenzie, NYU

8 Nov: Susana Nuccetelli, St. Cloud State

13 Dec: Michael Brownstein, John Jay

14 Mar: Kyle Ferguson, CUNY

18 Apr: Jeff Sebo, NYU

23 May: Johann Frick, Princeton