News

Peter Singer Project Syndicate op-ed: How (Not) to Fight COVID-19
Sept. 18, 2020

In his Project Syndicate op-ed "How (Not) to Fight COVID-19," Professor Peter Singer and co-author Joanna Masel argue that "public-health experts who adhere to rigid rules for containing the pandemic…

Kim Lane Scheppele discusses virtual teaching on University homepage
Sept. 14, 2020
In this article, Professor Kim Lane Scheppele discusses her insights from last semester's pivot to virtual learning and how she continues to innovate in her “Classical Sociological Theory” graduate seminar this fall.
Ben Bramble weighs in on the ethics of challenge trials for a coronavirus vaccine
Sept. 1, 2020

In his opinion piece for The Conversation, former LSR Fellow Ben Bramble writes "Challenge trials for a coronavirus vaccine are unethical – except for in one unlikely scenario." 

 

Kim Lane Scheppele discusses Victor Orbán’s rise to power
Sept. 1, 2020

In the Open Democracy article "Dark money, dirty politics and the backlash against human rights," Professor Kim Lane Scheppele discusses Victor Orbán’s rise to power.

Corey Cusimano discusses research findings in PsyPost article
Aug. 26, 2020

Corey Cusimano, a postdoctoral research associate in cognitive science of values, found that individuals tend to view themselves as less capable than other people of voluntarily changing their beliefs. His research was recently published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and is discussed…

The Case for Human COVID-19 Challenge Trials
Aug. 18, 2020
In this Project Syndicate article, Professor Peter Singer and Isaac Martinez argue that "Regulators should permit and begin to prepare for “human challenge” vaccine trials in order to end the COVID-19 pandemic. In these trials, fully informed volunteers would be injected with potential vaccines (or with a placebo) and then intentionally exposed to the virus."
LSR Fellow Ben Bramble publishes book on COVID-19 pandemic
Aug. 17, 2020

2019-20 LSR Fellow Ben Bramble published "Pandemic Ethics: 8 Big Questions of COVID-19". The book is open access, so it can be downloaded and read for free by all those who are interested in the following issues questions and issues:

Joseph Chan, UCHV Global Scholar and Visiting Professor, quoted in The New York Times
July 28, 2020

In response to the firing of his law colleague by The University of Hong Kong, Joseph Chan was quoted in The New York Times article "Hong Kong University to Fire Law Professor Who…

Ethics Classes Change Behavior - Peter Singer & co-authors publish study
July 27, 2020

Professor Peter Singer published a co-authored study on "Do ethics classes influence student behavior? Case study: Teaching the ethics of eating meat" in Cognition, a leading international peer-reviewed journal.

According to Singer, the study is "the first-ever controlled trial to show that teaching philosophy can change behavior, not…

Elizabeth Harman's Daily Princetonian Op-Ed, "Racist research must be named, but often allowed"
July 27, 2020

Elizabeth Harman is Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Philosophy and Human Values. To read her Op-Ed about academic freedom and racist research, click here.

Kim Lane Scheppele research featured in Washington Post
July 21, 2020

Professor Kim Lane Scheppele's paper, co-authored with David Pozen (Columbia Law School), is the topic of this Washington Post op-ed "As the Trump disaster gets worse, a new political theory helps explain it" written…

UCHV is pleased to announce our Postdoctoral Research Associates for the 2020-21 academic year
July 17, 2020

Corey Cusimano is a cognitive scientist investigating how people evaluate their own and others’ mental states. His research asks questions like: how do ordinary people decide that an emotion or belief is good or justified? And: when, and why, do people hold others responsible for their thoughts,…

Announcing our Laurance S. Rockefeller Visiting Faculty Fellows for 2020-21!
July 15, 2020
Laurance S. Rockefeller Visiting Professor for Distinguished Teaching 2020-2021

Christia Mercer, Columbia University
Christia Mercer is the Gustave M. Berne Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, editor of Oxford Philosophical Concepts, and co-editor of Oxford New Histories of Philosophy, a book series devoted to making…

Andrew Chignell discusses the ethics of veganism and omnivorism
July 10, 2020

Listen to Professor Andrew Chignell discuss the ethics of veganism and omnivorism on this Sigma Radio podcast

Annette Zimmermann interviewed about algorithmic justice on Policy Punchline podcast
July 9, 2020

UCHV postdoc Annette Zimmermann was interviewed for a recent episode of Princeton University's Policy Punchline podcast. The podcast addresses the following questions: What is…

“Is Age Discrimination Acceptable?” A Project Syndicate Op-Ed by Peter Singer
June 12, 2020

In his recent Op-Ed, Peter Singer explores the question, should we value all human lives equally?  To read the full piece, click here.

 

Black Lives Matter: A message from Melissa Lane, Director of the University Center for Human Values
June 9, 2020

The University Center for Human Values affirms as a fundamental human value that Black Lives Matter.  We call for justice for all those who have been the victims of police violence and of other forms of oppression and inequality which are unequally visited upon people of color, and for the systemic changes that are needed to prevent their…

Melissa Lane writes about teaching Plato in the pandemic
June 8, 2020

Melissa Lane, the Class of 1943 Professor of Politics and director of the University Center for Human Values, writes about teaching Plato in the pandemic.  To read the article, click here.

Andrew Chignell discusses ‘good hope’ in dark times in the podcast "We Roar"
June 5, 2020

To read the article, including a link to the podcast, click here.

UCHV GPF Stephanie Fan awarded Josephine de Karman Fellowship
June 2, 2020

Graduate Prize Fellow Stephanie Fan  awarded a Josephine de Karman Fellowship.  The Josephine de Karman Fellowship Trust was established in 1954 by the late Dr. Theodore von Karman, world-renowned aeronautics expert and teacher and first director of…

Sophia Taylor '20 on the 99th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre
June 1, 2020

June 1, 2020, was Princeton’s Class Day.  It was also the 99th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921.  Sophia Taylor, a graduate in the Princeton Class of 2020, wrote her senior thesis in Politics, with a certificate in African American Studies, on this event and its aftermath.  She shared her thoughts on its role in the traumatic and…

UCHV Short Movie Prize Winner is Ilene E ’21 and Honorable Mention to Athena Chu ‘23
May 27, 2020

The University Center for Human Values is delighted to announce that the winner of the 2020 UCHV Short Movie Prize is Ilene E for “Home | 家”. Athena Chu was awarded Honorable Mention for “In a Beautiful Country, Mothers Grow".  Follow the links below to watch their movies.

Winner:  Ilene E '21 for Home | 家 […

The Princeton-CEU Workshop Report by Théophile Deslauriers and Johan Trovik, with contributions from Melissa Lane
May 20, 2020

The Princeton-CEU Workshop on the topic of Democracy and Autocracy took place on May 1 and 2, organized by Jan-Werner Mueller of Princeton’s Department of Politics and hosted on a virtual platform by the University Center for Human Values (UCHV), to launch a planned two-year research interchange…

Jacob Berman, Kelton Chastulik, and Jonathan Haynes named winners of the 2020 Spirit of Princeton award.
May 11, 2020

Congratulations to the following Center’s HVF and VPL students for receiving the 2020 Spirit of Princeton award:

Jacob Berman, fellow at the Human Values Forum

Kelton Chastulik, a junior in the Values and Public Life undergraduate certificate program

Jonathan Haynes, a senior in the Values and Public Life…

Op-Ed by Peter Singer and Kian Mintz-Woo links current COVID-19 pandemic with climate policy
May 11, 2020

"Put a Price on Carbon Now!", an op-ed in Project Syndicate, Peter Singer and Kian Mintz-Woo link the current COVID-19 pandemic with climate policy by suggesting that the pandemic, and the current low…

UCHV Announces 2020-21 Graduate Prize Fellows
May 6, 2020

The University Center for Human Values is pleased to announce the award of the Laurance S. Rockefeller 2020-21 Graduate Prize Fellowships to twelve advanced graduate students who are working on interdisciplinary dissertations in the area of ethics and human values. 

Min Tae Cha is a fifth-year…

Ben Taub '14, VPL Alumnus, awarded Pulitzer Prize
May 6, 2020

Congratulations to The New Yorker's Ben Taub '14 for winning a Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing for his piece “

Jan-Werner Mueller's Op-Ed "Where is the Local News about COVID-19?"
May 1, 2020

In an opinion piece in Project Syndicate, Jan-Werner Mueller questions, "Where is the Local News about COVID-19?"

Jan-Werner Mueller's Op-Ed "There is no point talking to Trump. We need to talk past him".
April 27, 2020

Jan-Werner Mueller's Op-Ed in The Guardian "There is no point talking to Trump. We need to talk past him" suggests a "parallel polis" to provide alternative leadership as we navigate the coronavirus crisis.

Simulation of the dynamics of the COVID-19 virus and the possible impact of it on social policies, built by Marc Fleurbaey, Hélène Fleurbaey and Richard Bradley
April 17, 2020

To better understand the dynamics of the virus and the impacts of policies, including a rough social welfare function assessment, click here to access the simulator. An article by Marc Fleurbaey about the simulator in Le Monde can be read…

Jan-Werner Mueller’s op-ed for Project Syndicate, "Beware Viral Enabling Acts"
April 10, 2020

Jan-Werner Mueller’s op-ed “Beware Viral Enabling Acts” about the line between government and opposition in addressing the public health crisis.
 

Kim Lane Scheppele interview with Vital Interests on autocratic legalism
March 18, 2020

Professor Kim Lane Scheppele interviewed about tracing autocratic legal innovations and their spread around the world in "

"The Two Dark Sides of COVID-19" A Project Syndicate Op-Ed by Peter Singer
March 2, 2020

In his recent op-ed, "The Two Dark Sides of COVID-19", Peter Singer comments on the probable source of the coronavirus.

Philip Pettit has been elected as a Corresponding Member of l’Académie des Science Morales et Politiques, in the Philosophy Section
Feb. 26, 2020

This French academy has five sections, each with 10 full members and ten corresponding members; places become vacant only with the death of an existing member. With four other academies in the arts and sciences, it constitutes l’Institut de France.