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| About
the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy |
| The
Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy, a part of
the School of Public Affairs at the University of
Maryland, was established in 1976 to conduct research
into the values and concepts that underlie public
policy. Most studies concerned with public policy are
empirical: they assess costs, describe constituencies,
and gather data with the goal of making predictions.
Though the Institute frames its research questions by
looking carefully at empirical data, its own work is
primarily conceptual and normative. It investigates the
structure of arguments and the nature of values relevant
to the formation, justification, and criticism of public
policy. Through its publications and its Web site, the
Institute seeks to clarify and contribute to public
discussion.
In 1998
the Institute, in conjunction with the Department of
Government and Politics, the Department of Philosophy,
and the School of Public Affairs, formed the Committee
on Politics, Philosophy, and Public Policy, an
interdisciplinary graduate specialization and research
consortium at the University of Maryland. Under the
auspices of the Committee, Institute scholars teach with
other faculty in a proseminar for graduate students from
various disciplines, focusing on such topics as theories
of justice, institutional and constitutional design, the
nature of democracy, and rational choice theory. They
also participate in a biweekly workshop in which
faculty, visitors, and graduate students present their
research. In several departments of the University,
Institute scholars have long taught graduate and
undergraduate courses in philosophy of law, political
philosophy, and bioethics. |
| Research |
| The
Institute examines topics of current interest as well as
those that promise to be important in public policy
debates in the coming decades. Research is conducted by
individual resident scholars and by interdisciplinary
working groups composed of philosophers, political
scientists, sociologists, and historians. This diversity
permits a comprehensive examination of the complex issues
that the Institute explores. |
| Politics
and Civic Life |
| In
recent years, the Institute has devoted considerable
attention to civil society -- the realm of
voluntary associations conceptually distinct from the
market and the state -- and its role in fostering the
norms, habits, and attitudes that support democracy. Much
of this work has taken place under the aegis of the
National Commission on Civic Renewal, whose 1998 report, A
Nation of Spectators, examined long-term trends in
political participation, social trust, voluntarism, and
family stability. In addition to providing staff support
for the Commission and producing its Index of National
Civic Health, the Institute convened a scholars' working
group whose members explored the relationship between
civil society and the state, the moral effects of
associational life, historical patterns of civic
participation by women and African Americans, and the
analytical framework offered by civil society theorists
such as Robert Putnam.
Institute
scholars have studied the American political system and
its tendencies to encourage or frustrate public
participation. Recent articles have looked at campaign
finance, the influence of political consultants, and the
role of public deliberation in policy making. In essays on
media ethics and the advent of public journalism, the
Institute has critically examined standard conceptions of
the journalist's social responsibilities and the meaning
of objectivity. Current research focuses on the relation
between the Internet and civil society, the ways in which
scientists and non-experts interact in the context of
public deliberation, the function of labor unions in a
democracy, value pluralism and liberal theory, and the
influence of sports on moral character and civic life. |
| Diversity,
Identity, and Equal Opportunity |
| Institute
scholars have written extensively about the nature of, and
remedies for, discrimination on the basis of race or
ethnicity, gender, and disability. In 1997, an entire
issue of the Institute's quarterly Report was
devoted to "The Affirmative Action Debate," with
articles on the legal history of affirmative action in
employment and education, the practical and ethical
complexities surrounding merit-based selection, and the
invocation of diversity as a rationale for affirmative
action. That same year, an Institute research group
(collaborating with a University of Maryland demographer)
assessed a controversial proposal to include a
"multiracial" category on the U.S. Census form.
In a memorandum to the Office of Management and Budget,
which oversees the Census, the Institute group endorsed an
alternative proposal, arguing that people should be given
the option to "mark one or more" of the existing
racial categories. OMB ultimately adopted this
alternative.
The
Institute has recently begun to address a broad range of
issues in the conceptualization and social perception of
disability and impairment, and to evaluate competing views
of what constitutes justice for people with disabilities.
Much of its research in this area has focused on the
Americans with Disabilities Act, which seeks to end a long
history of "pervasive discrimination." Institute
scholars have compared the forms of social restructuring
required by the ADA with those mandated by other civil
rights legislation, as well as those required by various
schemes of distributive justice. They have also begun to
examine quality-of-life measures for people with
disabilities, asking what these measures assume about the
impact of impairment on well-being and how they might
affect allocation of health care and other social goods.
Issues of
diversity and equality have also entered into the
Institute's work on education policy. One current project
considers the ethics of university admissions, assessing
the role of higher education in promoting social mobility.
A 1994 collection of essays examined the impact of
multiculturalism on the teaching of history and
literature, and more generally on civic and moral
education. A work in progress explores the links between
multiculturalism and leading trends in postmodernist
thought. |
| Human
Rights, Development Ethics, and International Justice |
| Early
in its history, scholars at the Institute produced a
series of books and articles on the nature of human rights
and their relevance to the conduct of American foreign
policy. More recently, the Institute has assessed
challenges to the universality of human rights --
challenges made in the name of cultural diversity as well
as national sovereignty. It has also examined the complex
relations between human rights protection, economic
development, and democratization. Recent articles have
analyzed arguments for giving priority to social and
economic rights over civil and political rights (or vice
versa). Other related work has focused on women's rights
in developing countries, nationalism, and international
obligations with respect to world hunger.
In 1997,
the Institute initiated an ambitious project on the
ethical dimensions of transitional justice. This project
focuses on the dilemmas confronting new democracies as
they decide what, if anything, they should do about past
violations of human rights, whether these violations were
committed by a prior government, by its opponents, or by
combatants in an internal armed conflict. The Institute
seeks to clarify the goals of transitional justice, to
explore trade-offs between these goals in particular
contexts, and to assess the various instruments -- from
criminal tribunals to truth commissions to public
monuments -- that nations may adopt in their efforts to
reckon with past wrongs. By collaborating with scholars
and political leaders in emerging democracies, the
Institute hopes to foster the institution-building and
public deliberation that transitional justice in these
nations will require.
The
Institute has also become an important forum for
international development ethics, challenging conventional
understandings of what constitutes successful development
and offering a normative assessment of relations between
rich and poor countries. This work has provided an
intellectual foundation for major research projects on
population and consumption. In a 1994 conference on
"Consumption, Global Stewardship, and the Good
Life," and in a subsequent anthology, Institute
members and guest scholars have analyzed and offered an
ethical assessment of global consumption practices,
investigating the impact of these practices on the
environment, quality of life, and international justice. A
current project examines whether it would be feasible to
measure the standard of living in a society not by
calculating how much money people earn, but by looking at
the extent to which their income is adequate to satisfy
core economic needs. |
| Biotechnology
and Genetic Research |
| The
Institute has analyzed the impact of biotechnology on a
wide range of moral concepts and social practices. One of
its goals has been to articulate and assess public
anxieties about biotechnology, while identifying serious
concerns that have been neglected in the public debate. In
particular, Institute scholars have considered the effects
of the new reproductive technologies on definitions of
family and parenthood. A widely noted essay on the
prospect of human cloning examined morally relevant
differences between this technology and other forms of
assisted
reproduction. It also observed how the cloning debate had
been shaped by public perceptions regarding the centrality
of genes to human development and identity.
In
related work, Institute scholars have published widely on
the challenges posed by contemporary genetics to
established notions of privacy and confidentiality, and on
the responsibilities of health care professionals with
respect to genetic information. Are the results of genetic
tests any more private or confidential than other types of
medical and personal information? Must genetic counselors
refrain from expressing value judgments in order to
safeguard their patients' autonomy? Is there such a thing
as a patient's "right to know" the results of
genetic tests, or are there cases in which physicians can
ethically withhold information?
Other
projects have examined controversial applications of
genetic technology to criminal justice. For example,
Institute scholars were among the first to point out the
powerful exculpatory potential of DNA typing, and the need
to assess its impact on prevailing investigative and
adjudicative practices. The Institute has also addressed
the public controversy over research attempting to
identify genetic factors in criminal behavior, assessing
the historical legacy of such research, its objectives and
intended applications, and the bases of scientific and
political opposition to it. Looking beyond the immediate
controversy, Institute scholars have considered whether
the discovery of genetic influences on impulsive,
aggressive, and violent behavior would pose any greater
threat to the ascription of responsibility, or have any
greater potential to mitigate blame or punishment, than a
recognition of environmental pressures and constraints. |
| Health
Policy and the Goals of Medicine |
| The
Institute has long been interested in how scientists and
policy makers define health and disease, and how
definitions might change in response to advances in
medical diagnosis and explanation. For example, certain
conditions that were once regarded as a normal part of
aging are now regarded as diseases. As a result, the
distinction between growing old and acquiring diseases
threatens to disappear. Meanwhile, it is increasingly
clear that some conditions, such as asymptomatic genetic
susceptibilities, do not easily fit into the category of
health or disease. Uncertainties in our
classification schemes are significant because they may
affect how we understand the goals of medicine. New
conceptions of aging may influence the nature of, and
motivation for, the care we provide to the elderly. Our
view of what constitutes a disease or disability may
determine whether we regard certain uses of genetic
techniques and other medical interventions as therapy or
enhancement.
The
Institute has recently expanded its interest in this area
to examine conceptual and ethical issues in the
measurement of health and disease. Health economists and
demographers are now developing quantitative measures of a
population's health, for a variety of comparative
purposes. These summary measures will play a critical role
in shaping health policy and in evaluating the
distribution of health care resources. Institute scholars
are examining the conceptions of health and disease that
underlie these metrics and their relation to prevailing
medical conceptions of health and disease. Their work
investigates whether health should be understood narrowly,
in terms of biological functioning, or whether it involves
a much richer notion of human flourishing or well-being,
which may be less amenable to quantification. |
| Natural
Environments, Human Communities |
| The
Institute has conducted a sustained review of the
approaches taken by ecological science and economics to
environmental protection. In a variety of projects,
Institute scholars have argued that environmental policy
raises important and difficult questions in politics,
ethics, and aesthetics that are too often misconstrued as
narrowly scientific or technical. They have also explored
issues common to environmental protection, on the one
hand, and the preservation or restoration of human
cultures and communities, on the other. What does it mean
to "restore" an ecosystem or a city, when it is
neither possible nor desirable to return it to a prior
historical state? Can we be faithful to the past without
attempting to replicate it? In their efforts to make these
questions more concrete, Institute scholars have worked
closely with organizers of ecological and urban
restoration projects, looking at their implicit criteria
of success and exploring the conflicts and trade-offs they
face.
The
Institute has also looked at the social and political
context of environmental decision making. As part of their
ongoing research into civil society and the role of
expertise in the formulation of public policy, Institute
scholars have studied the devolution of environmental
regulatory authority from federal agencies to local
jurisdictions or stakeholder groups. This research
examines the legitimacy of trends toward negotiated
regulations, decentralization of decision making, and
transference from the private to the public sector of
various organizational strategies intended to secure
greater effectiveness, flexibility, and accountability.
In other
studies, Institute scholars have considered how advances
in biotechnology may be altering conceptions of nature,
undermining familiar distinctions between the natural and
the cultural, the wild and the domestic. One series of
essays explores the patenting of genes and other products
of nature as human inventions. Another considers aesthetic
and ethical problems that arise when biotechnology
"perfects" nature, for example, in devising
flowers that will not fade and fish that can withstand
disease and pollution. Biotechnology as applied to
agriculture has posed questions concerning food safety and
labeling, which the Institute is studying in a project on
the implementation of the Food Quality Safety Act. |
| Publications |
| BOOKS:
The following books were written or edited by Institute
staff members. Some that were published in the early 1980s
are now out of print; prices are given for all books that
are currently available from the publishers.
Agency
and Alienation: A Theory of Human Presence,
by Jerome M. Segal (Rowman and Littlefield, 1991). Cloth,
$49.50; paper, $19.95.
Basic
Rights: Subsistence, Affluence, and U.S. Foreign Policy,
by Henry Shue, 2d ed. (Princeton University Press, 1980).
Paper, $17.95.
Civil
Society, Democracy, and Civic Renewal,
edited by Robert K. Fullinwider (Rowman and Littlefield,
1999). Cloth, $69.00; paper, $26.95.
Creating
the Palestinian State: A Strategy for Peace,
by Jerome M. Segal (Lawrence Hill Books, 1989).
Disability,
Difference, Discrimination: Perspectives on Justice in
Bioethics and Public Policy,
by Anita Silvers, David Wasserman, and Mary B. Mahowald (Rowman
and Littlefield, 1998). Cloth, $54.00; paper; $18.95.
Ethics of
Consumption: The Good Life, Justice, and Global
Stewardship,
edited by David A. Crocker and Toby Linden (Rowman and
Littlefield, 1998). Cloth, $84.50; paper, $27.95.
Florecimiento
humano y desarrollo internacional: La nueva etica de
capacidades humanas
[Human Flourishing and International Development: The
New Ethic of Human Capabilities], by David A. Crocker
(Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica, 1998). Contact
the Institute for ordering information.
Food
Policy: The Responsibility of the United States in the
Life and Death Choices,
edited with an introduction by Peter G. Brown and Henry
Shue (Free Press, 1977).
Graceful
Simplicity: Toward a Philosophy and Politics of Simple
Living, by Jerome M. Segal (Henry Holt, 1999). Cloth,
$26.00.
Human
Rights and U.S. Foreign Policy: Principles and
Applications,
edited by Peter G. Brown and Douglas MacLean (D.C. Heath
Co., 1980).
Justice
and the Human Good,
by William A. Galston (University of Chicago Press, 1980).
Lawyers
and Justice: An Ethical Study,
by David Luban (Princeton University Press, 1988). Paper,
$19.95.
Legal
Modernism,
by David Luban (University of Michigan Press, 1994).
Cloth, $59.50; paper, $25.95.
Living
without Philosophy: On Narrative, Rhetoric, and Morality,
by Peter Levine (SUNY Press, 1998). Cloth, $68.50; paper,
$22.95.
Nietzsche
and the Modern Crisis of the Humanities,
by Peter Levine (SUNY Press, 1995). Cloth, $57.50; paper,
$18.95.
NOMOS
XXXIV: Virtue,
edited by John W. Chapman and William A. Galston (New York
University Press, 1993). Paper, $17.50.
Praxis
and Democratic Socialism: The Critical Social Theory of
Markovic and Stojanovic, by David A. Crocker (Humanities
Press, Harvester Press, 1983).
The
Preservation of Species: The Value of Biological Diversity,
edited by Bryan G. Norton (Princeton University Press,
1986).
The
Reverse Discrimination Controversy: A Moral and Legal
Analysis,
by Robert K. Fullinwider (Rowman and Littlefield, 1980).
Paper, $24.00.
Rural
Development in the United States: Connecting Theory and
Practice,
by William A. Galston and Karen J. Baehler (Island Press,
1995). Paper, $32.00.
A Sword
for the Convicted: Representing Indigent Defendants on
Appeal,
by David T. Wasserman (Greenwood Press, 1990). Cloth,
$59.95.
A Tough
Row to Hoe: The 1985 Farm Bill and Beyond,
by William A. Galston (University Press of America, 1985).
Values
and Public Policy,
edited by Claudia Mills (San Diego: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich College Publishers, 1992). Paper, $29.50.
Why
Preserve Natural Variety?,
by Bryan G. Norton (Princeton University Press, 1987).
Paper, $18.95.
| Maryland
Studies in Public Philosophy |
Books in
this series are published by Rowman and Littlefield,
Lanham, Maryland.
The
Border That Joins: Mexican Migrants and U.S.
Responsibility,
edited by Peter G. Brown and Henry Shue, 1983. Cloth,
$62.00; paper, $37.50.
Boundaries:
National Autonomy and Its Limits,
edited by Peter G. Brown and Henry Shue, 1981.
Conscripts
and Volunteers: Military Requirements, Social Values, and
the All-Volunteer Force,
edited by Robert K. Fullinwider, 1983.
Energy
and the Future,
edited by Douglas MacLean and Peter G. Brown, 1983.
The Good
Lawyer: Lawyers' Roles and Lawyers' Ethics,
edited by David Luban, 1984. Second edition in
preparation.
Income
Support: Conceptual and Policy Issues,
edited by Peter G. Brown, Conrad Johnson, and Paul Vernier,
1981. Cloth, $59.00.
Liberalism
Reconsidered,
edited by Douglas MacLean and Claudia Mills, 1983. Paper,
$28.00.
The Moral
Foundations of Civil Rights,
edited by Robert K. Fullinwider and Claudia Mills, 1986.
Cloth, $61.50; paper, $25.50.
The
Security Gamble: Deterrence Dilemmas in the Nuclear Age,
edited by Douglas MacLean, 1984.
To
Breathe Freely: Risk, Consent, and Air,
edited by Mary Gibson, 1985.
Values at
Risk,
edited by Douglas MacLean, 1986. Paper, $27.95.
| Cambridge
Studies in Philosophy and Public Policy |
General
Editor: Douglas MacLean
Books in
this series are published by Cambridge University Press.
Democracy
and the Mass Media: A Collection of Essays,
edited by Judith Lichtenberg, 1990. Paper, $24.95.
The
Economy of the Earth: Philosophy, Law, and the Environment,
by Mark Sagoff, 1988. Paper, $22.95.
Liberal
Purposes: Goods, Virtues, and Diversity in the Liberal
State,
by William A. Galston, 1991. Cloth, $69.95; paper, $24.95.
Nuclear
Deterrence and Moral Restraint: Critical Choices for
American Strategy,
edited by Henry Shue, 1989. Cloth, $85.00; paper, $27.95.
Public
Education in a Multicultural Society: Theory, Policy,
Critique,
edited by Robert K. Fullinwider, 1996. Cloth, $64.95;
paper, $22.95.
WORKING
PAPERS: The Working Papers Series distributes the research
of working groups and staff members in a more timely
manner than formal publication permits. The Institute
makes working papers available at a cost of $2.50 per
copy. Discounts are available for large quantities
purchased for classroom use.
REPORT:
To make its research accessible to a broad audience, the
Institute publishes the quarterly Report from the
Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy. The Report,
which is available at no charge, supplements and
summarizes Institute scholarship, and features other
selected philosophical work on public policy questions.
WEB SITE:
The Institute posts recent issues of its Report, a
complete list of publications, and other materials on the
Internet at http://www.puaf.umd.edu/ippp. |
| Staff |
William
A. Galston, Director
David A. Crocker, Research Scholar
Robert K. Fullinwider, Research Scholar
Peter Levine, Research Scholar
Xiaorong Li, Research Scholar
Judith Lichtenberg, Research Scholar
Mark Sagoff, Research Scholar
Jerome M. Segal, Research Scholar
Robert Wachbroit, Research Scholar
David Wasserman, Research Scholar
Robert Costanza, Adjunct Research Scholar
Herman E. Daly, Adjunct Research Scholar
David Luban, Adjunct Research Scholar
Douglas MacLean, Adjunct Research Scholar
Verna Gehring, Editor
Carroll Linkins, Administrative Assistant
Barbara Cronin, Business Manager |
| Support |
| The
Institute has received support from the Lynde and Harry
Bradley Foundation, the Exxon Education Foundation, the
Ford Foundation, the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, the
Charles F. Kettering Foundation, the John D. and
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the John and Mary R.
Markle Foundation, the Maryland Bar Foundation, the
Maryland Humanities Council, Maryland Sea Grant, the
National Endowment for the Humanities, the National
Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation,
the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Prudential Foundation,
the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Rockefeller
Foundation, the Florence and John Schumann Foundation,
the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Spencer Foundation,
the United States Institute of Peace, and the University
of Maryland. |
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