With its lakes, hills and wineries, Ithaca is a great place to spend a summer. It鈥檚 also a great place to study moral psychology, with Cornell University鈥檚 renowned faculty experts, speaker series and a offered in the field.
These strengths combined as Cornell hosted the Summer Institute for Moral Psychology June 24 鈥 July 19, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).
Directed by 麻豆视频 and 麻豆视频 (A&S) faculty in psychology and philosophy, the institute featured presentations from many leading figures in moral psychology, which studies human thought and behavior in ethical contexts.
鈥淭he moment for the institute is perfect 鈥 urgent, really. We need sharing and expansion of intellectual resources for moral psychologists at all levels of the academy now,鈥 said , assistant professor of psychology (A&S), faculty director of the Dyson Leadership Development Program in the SC Johnson College of Business, and one of the institute鈥檚 three directors, along with , the Peter L. Dyson Professor of Ethics in Organizations and Life in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business and professor in the Sage School of Philosophy (A&S); and , Distinguished Professor of Arts & 麻豆视频 in Philosophy (A&S).
Graduate students at more and more institutions are focusing on the field, creating a need for more faculty members prepared to teach at the graduate and undergraduate levels, said Niemi.
The institute鈥檚 21 in-residence participants included graduate students, lecturers and tenured/tenure track faculty members from research universities, liberal arts colleges and community colleges. Their academic backgrounds were widely varied, including philosophy, psychology and criminology.
During the course of the four-week institute, 15 visiting faculty presenters from Harvard University, Princeton University, the University of Pittsburgh and others joined the three Institute directors in leading seminars four mornings each week on a wide range of topics, such as love, poverty, charitable giving and moral judgement, as well as the history of moral psychology.
Students read nearly 700 pages of required text, and most gave presentations of their own work.
鈥淚t was especially exciting to delve into students鈥 unique research projects and theories during their presentations of their own work on Fridays 鈥 this was top-rate interdisciplinary workshopping,鈥 said Niemi.
One participant, a faculty member, told Niemi that they learned more in a month than they probably could have learned working on their own for a year.
Cornell was the ideal place for a summer institute on moral psychology, said Doris, because of the university鈥檚 broad and collaborative approach to the field and its established program. 鈥淚n our view, Cornell is currently the best place for moral psychology in the world,鈥 he said.
Housed in the Department of Psychology, the moral psychology program鈥檚 minor offers courses through seven of the university鈥檚 colleges and schools. The program鈥檚 moral psychology speaker series attracts participants from across the university, many of whom do scholarly work focused on moral psychology.
The top goal of the summer institute was to encourage deeper cross-disciplinary engagement, Nichols said: 鈥淔or moral psychology to thrive in a responsible way, it needs to simultaneously build up its interdisciplinary strengths in philosophy and psychology. By having philosophers and philosophically-minded psychologists working in the field across disciplines 鈥 day-after-day, intensively, together 鈥 we hoped the Institute would break down barriers and increase the confidence of scholars to engage each other鈥檚 work.鈥
As part of that effort to encourage engagement, institute students and faculty enjoyed social outings to some of Ithaca鈥檚 summer best, including weekend hikes, visits to wineries, trips to the Lab of Ornithology, musicals and concerts.
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