PROGRAMS
Character and Action
The seminars offered in this series have a special focus on moral dimensions of human life and the role of good character in navigating these dimensions well. Participants in these seminars will think through these issues by engaging with philosophical, literary, and religious texts. These extracurricular, faculty-led seminars meet 2-4 times a quarter for around 1 ½ hours each session. They are open to all University of Chicago students, though space is limited. Advanced reading [...]
Speaking of Character (with Anne Snyder, David Brooks, and Candace Vogler)
Program Description: Many different cultures treat developing good character as one of the central challenges in human life. Your character draws together strengths that help you to pursue and promote good reasonably, avoid bad responsibly, and participate in the collective movements toward common good that shape the social world in which you find yourself. Good character is, as one says, a proof against rewards--a good person does not, for instance, betray her [...]
Chicago Moral Philosophy Project
The Chicago Moral Philosophy Project brings an esteemed scholar specializing in ethics to visit the University of Chicago’s Department of Philosophy each spring. The scholar teaches one graduate-undergraduate course, leads a faculty-doctoral student reading group, and provides special advising to students. The program enhances the curriculum in moral philosophy for graduates and undergraduates and fosters productive and rigorous discussion about ethical topics within the Department of Philosophy and beyond. The Project: Spring 2017 [...]
Virtue, Happiness, and the Meaning of Life
Principally funded through a grant from the John G. Templeton Foundation, the Virtue, Happiness, and the Meaning of Life project is an international collaboration between philosophers, religious thinkers, and psychologists. The project investigates whether self-transcendence—a connection to something beyond a person’s own immediate concerns (like to one’s family, one’s spiritual practice, or one’s work for social justice)—is part of living a happier, more meaningful life. The Hyde Park Institute will co-sponsor the projects’s 2017 Summer [...]
Emerging Scholars Cohort
The Emerging Scholar Cohort (ESC) will select 15-20 students—pre-med undergraduates, medical students, and other health professional students—to serve as the Student Scholars for the academic year 2017-2018. These students will interact with leading practitioners and scholars in the fields of medicine, sociology, moral psychology, philosophy, ethics and theology to explore answers to the unique challenges that medicine faces in the context of late modernity. The central question is: How does one become a “good physician” [...]
