Charge to Task Force

September 2004
In recent years, Americans have witnessed a significant number of individual ethical lapses and organizational and systemic failures in key institutions of American life. These include highly visible instances of corporate malfeasance, the abuse of military prisoners in Iraq, sexual abuse by priests and woefully inadequate responses by the church hierarchy, unethical and corrupt acts by government officials, an apparent increase in cheating by students and fabrication of scientific evidence by researchers, violations of journalistic integrity, and violations of the standards of fair play in athletics. We have seen the erosion of accepted standards of conduct or their enforcement, undermining individual responsibility and civic values, harming innumerable individuals and generating a loss of public trust in the institutions of our society. In other areas, dramatically changing circumstances or technological advances have made existing norms seem inapplicable or inadequate for ethical guidance, leaving institutions and leaders searching for guideposts regarding complex emerging issues such as individual rights in the context of new concerns about national security, the implications of discoveries in the life sciences, the challenges to privacy that attend the expansion of information technology, and software, music and video piracy.

Concerns about ethics in public life frequently arise concerning behavior within the professions, many of which are represented among the University's professional schools. Others concern actions within government and illustrate the perpetual challenges of governing and organizing a democratic society. The University of Michigan is superbly positioned to contribute — theoretically, empirically, and practically — to public understanding, discourse and action on emergent crises of ethical behavior in the key institutions of our society. The UM Department of Philosophy has long been known for its contributions to scholarship and teaching concerning ethics. The University's community of professional schools has a breadth and excellence that is unmatched in the United States. Our social science departments, which rank among the nation's best, can provide vital insights into the individual and organizational dimensions of ethics in public life.

The University of Michigan wants to explore the synergies of education and scholarship on the issue of ethics in public life, contributing to and in some cases structuring a broader public discourse on these issues.

The committee is charged with developing recommendations for action by the president and provost as well as the deans and faculty. We ask you to consider the following, among other possible foci:

What are Michigan's key areas of strength regarding its ability to understand and provide reflective leadership on the ethical crises, conundrums, and breakdowns in the key institutions of our own society? In what areas do we currently make, or have the potential to make, unique contributions to understanding and practice? Are there emergent areas of concern in which we can have a significant impact? Building on this reading of UM's current strengths and potential, what bold steps should we take to foster rigorous scholarship on ethical issues in the public domain? How can an initiative in ethics in public life best incorporate both basic and applied scholarship, research and public service? Are there ways in which the University's professional schools can work separately and together to strengthen their students' understanding and commitment to ethics in professional life? Should we be more active on these issues in continuing education in the professions? What are ways in which we can expose undergraduates, many of whom will later seek professional training here and elsewhere, to the issues that confront them as citizens and will soon confront them as professionals? And what steps should we take to engage elected officials, business leaders, policy-makers, professional associations, heads of social and cultural institutions, and the public in discourse on these important issues? What organizational mechanisms and structures for advancing work on these issues should be created or developed — e.g., a major center, consortium, seed funding, coordinated faculty hiring, etc.?

In answering these questions and developing recommendations, we ask that the committee: