CONFERENCE ON SCIENCE AND VIRTUE AT BERRY

Peter Lawler and Marc Guerra are pleased to announce the first of three conferences on TOWARD A TRUE SCIENCE OF BEING STUCK WITH VIRTUE. These conferences and associated activities are funded by the Science of Virtues Project at the University of Chicago

The first conference, held at Berry College (Mount Berry, GA) on November 4-5, will focus on Descartes’, Locke’s, and Darwin’s distinctive contributions to our modern understandings of science and virtue.

The conference will have four featured speakers: 1) Thomas Hibbs, Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Culture and Dean of the Honors College at Baylor University, who has published widely on both Thomas Aquinas and popular culture and has made over 100 appearances on nationally syndicated radio; 2) Larry Arnhart, Presidential Research Professor of Political Science at Northern Illinois University, who has written two books and numerous articles defending “Darwinian natural right” as the true science of virtue; 3) Diana Schaub, professor of political science at Loyola University in Maryland, former member of President Bush’s Council on Bioethics, and author of EROTIC LIBERALISM; and 4) Jeffrey Bishop, M.D., Ph.D. (philosophy), Episcopal priest, and endowed chair and chair of the department of medical ethics at St. Louis University, whose publications include the forthcoming OTHERNESS, DEATH, AND MEDICINE.

There will also be panels focusing on contemporary cultural trends that have been influenced by Descartes, Locke, and Darwin. These panels will also examine Alexis de Tocqueville’s and Walker Percy’s analyses of our pop Cartesianism as well as Tom Wolfe’s portrayal of the way science undermines virtue in the contemporary university. There is still time for would-be participants to be included on these panels.

We hope that the conference will attract a variety of people interested in the place of virtue in our technological and biotechnological time. Berry is America’s largest and most beautiful campus, located 70 miles from both Atlanta and Chattanooga.

The presentations at the conference will be published in several different places. For more information, please contact Peter Lawler at plawler@berry.edu.

The following two conferences will be held in April and November, 2011-both at Berry.

The second conference concerns contemporary schools of thought on the relationship between science and virtue. The third conference concerns related public policy issues-such as health care, an aging society, and organ markets.