The Center for Ethics and Human Values is currently hosting its fourth COMPAS Program, this year on the theme of Inequality.
“Moral concern with inequality is about far more than economic inequalities,” said CEHV Director Don Hubin. “It is also about political, legal, educational, and health inequalities and how these interact with each other. And it’s about how these inequalities connect with underlying issues of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, LGBTQ status, geography, and other factors.”
The 2016/17 COMPAS program is exploring the complex ways in which inequalities in resources, opportunity, and treatment—for example, along lines of class, race, and gender—can produce or reinforce unequal outcomes in areas as diverse as health outcomes, criminal justice policy and practices, and political power.
The program is framed by two major interdisciplinary conferences. Our fall conference, “When Do Inequalities Matter?” (September 22-23), featured a keynote lecture by Richard Wilkinson, the co-author of The Spirit Level. The spring COMPAS conference will focus on understanding global inequality.
The COMPAS program also works with partners across Ohio State and in the community to organize stand-alone events related to our theme. We co-sponsored a talk by philosopher, social critic, and New York Times columnist Kwame Anthony Appiah, titled “Two Cheers for Equality,” as part of the President and Provost's Diversity Lecture & Cultural Arts Series. COMPAS has also sponsored a photo contest on inequality. A new type of event this autumn was a “giving game” in which participants were given real money to allocate to charities. Participants voted on how to distribute their funds after learning about four different charities and the merits of each.
This winter Piper Kerman, author of Orange is the New Black, will speak. In the spring, the Center’s post-doc Corey Katz is organizing a conference on Inequality and Sustainability: Non-Ideal Climate Justice, which will be held on February 10.
For more information on these and other events, please explore the links on this page. We welcome feedback and suggestions!
