Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics

The History of Ethics at Harvard In 1986, when President Derek Bok persuaded Dennis F. Thompson to come to Harvard, the serious study of practical ethics at colleges and universities was rare. In his much cited 1976 article "Can Ethics be Taught?," Bok argued that there was a pressing need for "problem-oriented courses in ethics" that would prepare students for the moral dilemmas and ethical decisions they would face throughout their careers. Bok asked Thompson to create a program at Harvard that would address the need for teachers and scholars who could develop those courses and become leaders in the study of practical and professional ethics. The Program for Ethics and the Professions It was a significant challenge. At that time, Harvard, like many other institutions, had few courses and even fewer faculty specializing in the subject. Moral philosophers rarely had experience applying ethical insights to real-world problems, while experts in fields such as medicine, law, government, and business lacked the training in ethics necessary for rigorous and systematic analysis of moral problems. There were, for example, no tenured ethics faculty members at the Business School, and only one Medical School professor who specialized in ethics. The early challenges were as much political as intellectual. With its decentralized structure, Harvard was not friendly to interfaculty initiatives, but Thompson was fortunate to be able to enlist some of the most respected of Harvard faculty: Michael Sandel, Thomas Scanlon, Martha Minow, Lynn Peterson and Thomas Piper. The senior fellows included Alfred Chandler, Leon Eisenberg, Kenneth Ryan, Andrew Kaufman, John Matthews, Don Price, Judith Shklar, John Rawls, Amartya Sen, and Lloyd Weinreb. By the end of its second year, the initiative had achieved consensus on its purpose, attained recognition as Harvard's first major interfaculty initiative, secured a substantial grant for curriculum development, and selected its first class of Faculty Fellows. The inaugural fellows were Arthur I. Applbaum, Ezekiel J. Emanuel, Robert Kinlock Massie, Jr., and Robert Eli Rosen. With continuing support from Bok, Neil Rudenstine, and Lawrence Summers, the Program grew into a Center, now permanently endowed as a result of gifts from the Edmond J. Safra Foundation and the estate of Lester Kissel. Over the years, the Center has created an intellectual community within Harvard where ethics scholars and students from throughout the world gather to exchange ideas and develop new courses, pursue research, and go on to establish similar programs elsewhere. Reflecting on the Center's second decade, Bok observed, "One of the best new developments in professional education is the wide and growing interest in resolving problems of ethics. Harvard's Center was instrumental in this effort, and it has exceeded even my own optimistic expectations."