Shannon E. French, Ph.D. – Director, Inamori International Center for Ethics and Excellence
Friday September 26, 2008
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Crawford Hall – Room 9
Inamori Center
Case Western Reserve University
Dear Colleagues,
Our campus just hosted a Constitution Day program on torture. There could hardly be better evidence that response to terrorism poses serious ethical challenges. Yet the U.S. is hardly the only country to have ever faced such issues, and the question is at least as pressing for the American military as for any other members of our society. Shannon French, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Inamori International Center for Ethics and Excellence, brings unusual expertise and perspective on the subject: before joining our faculty, she was Associate Chair of the Department of Leadership, Ethics and Law at the United States Naval Academy, where she wrote The Code of the Warrior: Exploring Warrior Values, Past and Present.
As usual, we will gather in Room 9 of the Inamori International Center for Ethics and Excellence, on the lower level of Crawford Hall, for free cookies, beverages, and brown bag lunch.
Best regards,
Joe White
About Our Guest
Shannon E. French, Ph.D., began her tenure as director of the Inamori International Center for Ethics and Excellence and Inamori Professor of Ethics at Case Western Reserve University on September 8, 2008.
Prior to leading the Inamori Center, French was the associate chair of the Department of Leadership, Ethics and Law at the United States Naval Academy, where she had been a member of the civilian faculty since 1997.
At Case Western Reserve, she’ll serve as a tenured faculty member in the philosophy department in the College of Arts and Sciences in addition to her leadership duties at the Inamori Center.
French’s research and scholarly interests are primarily in the area of military ethics, but also include leadership ethics, professional ethics, moral psychology, biomedical and environmental ethics. She has contributed articles and chapters on present-day conduct of war issues such as defining terrorism, the use of torture, warrior transitions and the moral responsibility of leaders not to erode values that provide the foundation for restraint and limit the awful scope of war. Her 2003 book, The Code of the Warrior: Exploring Warrior Values, Past and Present, features a forward by Senator John McCain.
Currently working on her second book, French has published numerous other works and is an associate editor for the Journal of Military Ethics and the Encyclopedia of Global Justice.
French has presented papers at prestigious international conferences around the globe. In 2004, she helped design and present four-day training seminars on moral reasoning and ethical advisement for the U.S. Navy’s Chaplain Corps at Navy and Marine Corps bases around the United States and in Italy and Japan. The success of that program resulted in the development and presentation of a similar series of seminars on the subject of character development in 2006.
French received her bachelor’s degree in philosophy, classical studies and history from Trinity University in San Antonio in 1990. She was recognized in 1990 as one of the 20 “Best and Brightest College Students in America” by USA TODAY. She went on to earn her Ph.D. in philosophy from Brown University before joining the Naval Academy faculty.
Friday Lunch Upcoming Topics and Speakers:
October 3: Health Policy in the 2008 Election with Joe White, Professor of Political Science.
October 10: Presidential Ecotheologies with Tim Beal, Professor of Religion.
October 17: Biological Bases of Moral (or Immoral) Behavior, with Gary Marchant, Lincoln Professor of Ethics in Law and Emerging Technology, Arizona State University.
October 24: Seniors in the 2008 Election with Robert H. Binstock, Professor of Aging, Health and Society.
October 31: Halloween Special: Election Preview with Karen Beckwith, Professor of Political Science; Justin Buchler, Assistant Professor of Political Science; and Andrew Lucker, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Political Science.
November 7: Responding to the Foreclosure Crisis with Jim Rokakis, Cuyahoga County Treasurer.
November 14: Charging for Car Insurance by the Mile: Good Business and Good for Energy and the Environment? With Richard Hutchinson, General Manager for the “My Rate” program, Progressive Insurance.
November 21: TBA
November 28: Thanksgiving Break
December 5: TBA
The Friday Lunch discussions are held on the lower (ground) level of Crawford Hall. Visitors with mobility issues may find it easiest to take advantage of special arrangements we have made. On most Fridays, a few parking spaces in the V.I.P. lot in between Crawford Hall and Amasa Stone Chapel are held for participants in the lunch discussion.
Visitors then can avoid walking up the hill to the first floor of Crawford by entering the building on the ground level, through the garage area under the building. The further door on the left in that garage will be left unlocked during the period before the Friday lunch. On occasion, parking will be unavailable because of other university events.
For more information about these and other Center for Policy Studies programs, please see http://policy.case.edu.