Center for the Study of Ethics & Human Values

Grant Application Process | Faculty Grants Awarded 2005
Faculty Grants Awarded 2004 | Affiliated & Interested Faculty

Faculty Grants for Projects on Ethical Issues
Projects Approved for Funding 2002-2003

Faculty Involved	Schools Represented	Brief Description of Proposed Project	Type of Project
Henry Schvey, Nancy Berg, Fatemeh Keshavarz	A&S	Discussion and study of the play Shooting Magda A series of interactive sessions with Joshua Sobol, the playwright, students and faculty at Washington University, and community leaders. This program will be presented in conjunction with an Assembly Series lecture by Mr. Sobol. The play presents one of the most powerful and pressing ethical issues of our time: how to understand, arbitrate, and evaluate competing claims of identity, honor, and land held by Israelis and Palestinians	Workshop with community leaders and small group meeting with WU students and faculty.
Barry Markovit, Robert Nelson, Rosemary Roberts, Philip Ludbrook, Larry May, Rebecca Dresser, Wendy Auslander, Michael DeBaun	Medicine Law A&S Social Work	Caught in the Middle: Children in Clinical Trials. Most drugs commonly used to treat children are not approved by the FDA for this age range, however, conducting clinical research on a vulnerable population raises its own ethical concerns. Our proposal will bring together researchers, practitioners, and medical students in training to learn about the efforts underway to protect children and improve the quality of medications available to them.	One-day symposium with invited speakers, WU faculty, and patient participation.
Andrew Rehfeld, John Bowen, Howard Brick, Iver Bernstein, Linda Nicholson, Joel Anderson, Marilyn Friedman, Pauline Kleingeld, Larry May, Lisa Baldez, Jack Knight, Mark Rank	A&S Social Work	Workshop on Politics, Ethics and Society. This proposal is for the creation of an interdisciplinary workshop on political and social theory devoted to on-going research by Wash. U. faculty and graduate students, and other guests from outside the University. By "Politics, Ethics and Society" we mean to distinguish a set of questions that address how individuals or groups of individuals value their various collective enterprises, such as, for example, their families, government, or religion	Workshop series meeting monthly throughout the year.
Walt Schalick, David Gray, Robert Pollak	A&S Medicine Business	Disabilities and Human Values: An Interdisciplinary Faculty Grant Proposal. We propose to sponsor a monthly, faculty-centered, but audience-open (including interested professional, graduate and undergraduate students as well as medical fellows and residents), discussion group concentrating on the place of disabilities in human values. After a preliminary introductory session, subsequent sessions will concentrate on presentations by members in the group of their current work, with a goal to increase interdisciplinary reactions and perspectives on that work. Once formed the next goal will be to reach out to Harvard to further explore the possibility of a National Endowment for the Humanities Interdisciplinary Grant. This will be facilitated by an exchange of faculty (i.e. two guest speakers sponsored at each campus) to improve inter-university, interdisciplinary perspective and promote planning of the inter-university grant.	Workshop series meeting monthly throughout the year.
Charles McManis, Ursula Goodenough, Andrew Mertha, Glenn Stone, Gautam Yadama	Law A&S Social Work	Workshop Series on Ethical and Legal Norms Governing Ethnobotanical Research in Developing Countries. We propose to organize an interdisciplinary faculty/student workshop or series of workshops in the 2002 Fall Semester to 1) discuss the emerging ethical and legal norms governing ethnobotanical research in developing countries; 2) evaluate the impact of these norms on academic field research; and 3) explore the role of academia in ensuring that genetic resources and traditional knowledge of indigenous and local communities in the developing world. The project will be preparatory to an international interdisciplinary conference on the general topic, "Biodiversity and Biotechnology," that is to be held at Washington University School of Law in the Spring Semester of 2003 and co-sponsored by the Missouri Botanical Garden, and the Donald Danforth Plant Sciences Center.	Workshop series meeting in the fall semester as preparation for a major conference in the spring
M. Klingensmith John Curci Jeremy Goodman Emily Winslow	Medicine Medical Residents	Development of Effective Strategies for Teaching Ethics and Human Values to Surgeons-In-Training. While ethical practice and morally sound judgment are arguably some of the most important characteristics of physicians, medical schools have traditionally not offered formal instruction in these topics. The American College of Surgeons has recently begun developing an ethics guidebook and we propose to develop a series of small seminars focused around key ethical themes and designed specifically for surgeons-in-training.	Development of training materials and lecture program in ethics for medical residents.
Carl Craver, Marilyn Freidman, Dorothy Edwards, Warren Lux, Joel Anderson, Jim Wertsch, Mitchell Sommers, Carolyn Baum, Rebecca Dresser, Michael Diringer, Emma Kafalenos, Walt Schalick, Jesse Prinz	A&S Medicine Law	The Neuro-Ethics of Brain Damage. One of Washington University's areas of distinctive research strength is in the study of the human mind/brain. Yet many of the ethical implications of our understanding of the brain, our predictive powers regarding its states of health and disease, and our ability to intervene to correct or improve its functioning have yet to be explored. We propose to bring together WU faculty from across several schools and departments for a one-day, in-house symposium on the ethical issues posed by the clinical syndromes of brain damage and our potential clinical interventions with individuals who have suffered brain damage. An interdisciplinary discussion is especially necessary at this early stage to bring clinical, experimental, legal and philosophical perspectives to these complex ethical issues.	One-day symposium with invited speakers, WU faculty, and patient participation.
Mark Rank, Matthew Howard	Social Work Medicine Law A&S	Exploring the Ethical Dimensions of American Economic Inequality. One of the unique characteristics of American society is the exceedingly high levels of economic inequality. The ethical implications of these inequalities have received less attention in the academic and general community. We propose to offer a lecture series that would consist of six lectures from Washington University faculty. We will ask each presenter to develop their lecture into a book chapter. A key feature of the lecture series and edited book will be its interdisciplinary nature. We will include faculty from the Medical School, Law School, Arts and Sciences, School of Social Work, etc. We anticipate that both the presenters and the audience will consist of individuals from many different disciplines.	Lecture series with WU faculty and invited speakers leading to publication of new text.
Randy Larsen	Medicine A&S	Quality of Life as a Basic Value in Psychology, Philosophy, and Medicine. Quality of life is an important variable or concept in many disciplines. One unifying reason is that quality of life is valued, is seen as good, and is even thought of as a right (a basic value) by some scholars. In different disciplines researchers have sometimes used different terms to describe the underlying notion implied by quality of life, e.g., satisfaction with life, subjective well-being, or even happiness. Most disciplines that deal with humans or human nature maintain the importance or value of having a life that contains within it what might be called quality experiences. I propose to organize a one-day event, where I would invite leading researchers in quality of life from three different fields: Psychology, Philosophy, and Medicine. They would be asked to present a paper on how quality of life is conceived in their respective field, what makes up quality of life, its nature and function, what impacts on quality of life, and, if possible, to discuss how they think quality of life might best be assessed.	One-day symposium with invited speakers, WU faculty, and students
John Morris, Thomas Bird, Robert Green, Alison Whelan, Alison Goate, Rebecca Dresser	Medicine Law	Mini-symposium on the Ethics of Genetic Testing in Dementing Illnesses. With the identification of genetic causes and risk factors on early-onset familial dementia there is increasing availability of genetic testing for family members. In this emerging and significantly important area of medicine our symposium will bring together medical faculty and students to discuss the fundamental ethical issues for family members.	Half-day symposium with invited speakers, WU faculty, students and physicians.

C. Valencius	A&S Medicine	Current Questions in the History of Medicine. I propose to develop an interdisciplinary course. I will teach the basic underlying historical narratives and invite colleagues both in the university and in relevant connected fields to share their expertise. Using historical tools, we will grapple with a small number of pressing ethical issues in contemporary medicine. These problems will prompt us to explore gender and professional roles in medicine, medical education, power dynamics within a medical institution, and changes in health care.	Undergraduate course development.
Susan Appleton, Carolyn Baum, Brian Carpenter, Dorothy Edwards, Diane Elze, Peggy Perkinson	Law Medicine Social Work A&S	Ethics Facets of Decision Making Within Families. We propose to organize a reading group in which we will explore the ethical facets of decision making in families, examining not only some topics in which ethics play a role, but also the process by which families make decisions and the multiple levels of influence that come to bear on that process. We plan to meet for eight discussions throughout the fall 2002 semester. Faculty, graduate students, undergraduate students, staff, and community members will be invited to attend. Prior to the first meeting, the organizing faculty will assemble a reading packet that provides participants with readings in advance of each discussion.	Workshop series for faculty, students, and meeting eight times during the fall semester.
Ryan Balot, Pascal Boyer, Eric Brown U. Goodenough, Robert Hegel, Charles Starkey, Lewis Wall	A&S Medicine	Moral Experience and Moral Motivation. We propose a monthly evening meeting of faculty to explore ways to forge intellectual links between humanists studying traditions that locate virtue and morality in human nature (in contrast to theistic sources) and biologists and anthropologists who think about the evolution of human nature and the emergence of mental and moral experience.	Workshop series meeting monthly throughout the year.
Kenneth Freedland, Robert Carney, Edith Chen, Ray Clouse, V. Davila-Roman, Edwin Fisher, Robert Fucetola, Frank Gilliam, Barry Hong, Patrick Lustman, Gregory Miller, Michael Rich, Stephen Rivtvedt, Eugene Rubin, Judith Skala	Medicine A&S Social Work	The Washington University Forum on Behavioral Bioethics. We propose to conduct a series of interactive sessions during the 2002-2003 academic year on ethical questions confronting researchers in behavioral medicine. Each session will focus on a specific topic and assist medical students in understanding the moral values involved in these key areas of medicine.	Workshop series meeting monthly throughout the year.
Frank Flinn	A&S	"Does the Darwinian Theory of Evolution Destroy Religious and Ethical Values?" Ethics night at Holmes Lounge: An evening panel discussion with faculty to engage students in a discussion on this much disputed topic. Fields of religion, biology, and philosophy would be represented	Panel discussion with WU faculty and students.