The United States Supreme Court recently ruled that laws requiring juveniles (persons under 18 years of age) convicted of murder to be sentenced to life-without-parole are unconstitutional in that they violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Currently, approximately 2,500 inmates throughout the US penitentiary system are serving life sentences for crimes they committed while juveniles. The vast majority of these inmates were convicted under the mandatory life-sentencing laws recently prohibited by the Supreme Court. Many of these inmates will now be eligible for a new hearing, with the possibility (though not the certainty) of diminishing their current sentences.

The two cases before the Supreme Court that led to this ruling were (1) Jackson vs. Hobbes and (2) Miller vs. Alabama. The first case (Jackson vs. Hobbes) focused on the life-without-parole sentencing of Kuntrell Jackson at the age of 14. Jackson was sentenced to life-without-parole for participating in the robbery of a video store, during which a video clerk was shot and killed (Jackson did not shoot and kill the clerk). The second case (Miller vs. Alabama) focused on the life-without-parole sentencing of Evan Miller at the age of 14. Miller (and an accomplice) beat, robbed and set fire to the house of a neighbor, who subsequently died.

Discussion Questions: Should the sentences of these juveniles be overturned? Should juveniles, at the age of 14, be considered as legally responsible for their crimes as adults? Why (and in what ways) do we regard juveniles differently from adults in matters of moral responsibility, that is, in the assignment of praise and blame for actions?
 

 
Animal welfare vs. animal rights in research
This session will address ethical concerns related to the care and use of laboratory animals in biomedical research. Students will be guided through a reality-based animal research case study that allows them to examine societal and personal factors that influence their opinions about animal research and the animal rights movement. 

What does it mean to "own the rights to" a piece of software or a piece of art?  In what situations does the current model of Copyright in the United States serve us well and where might it be improved? What do Copyleft, Creative Commons and Open Source mean and how are they changing the way new works are created and shared?  How do you balance an "author's rights" with the knowledge that all creative work is, to some extent, based on the work that's gone before it?

Description: What should we eat? Do we have an obligation to eat locally grown food, or to refrain from eating meat, or to provide the means to get food to those people who are worse off than ourselves? In this session, we will explore the various ethical considerations that bear on these questions. Several prominent theorists have recently suggested that environmental and health considerations ethically mandate certain food practices. We will consider the merits of and objections to these theorists' views.

We are often told that democracy is good, that more democracy is better, and that in order for democratic forms of government to function well, we should encourage as many people as possible to vote.  All of these assumptions are questionable.  Consider the incentives voters face: if the probability of casting the winning vote in a large election is about the same as the probability of getting hit by lightning on the way to the polls, how much information are voters likely to gather?  And how likely are they to make serious attempts to overcome their biases?  If voters have poorly formed preferences, should we still encourage them to vote?  Is it actually immoral for uninformed and un-reflective citizens to vote?  We will discuss these questions and more, as well as the different ways people tend to behave in market contexts (where each person accrues the costs and benefits of her own choices) and political contexts (where there is no appreciable connection between how an individual votes and the political consequences that ensue).
 

Is there a time when it is acceptable and ethical to kill another human being to keep them from suffering particularly when they suffer with little or no hope of recovery? These sessions will explore the ethics dimensions of these issues from the point of view of patient and health care provider.

Jonathan Stewart calls the Daily Show a “fake news program.”  Nevertheless, a large percentage of Americans, especially young Americans, identify The Daily Show and its partner in crime, The Colbert Report, as their primary sources for news about what is going on in the country.  On June 25th, Mr. Stewart had Senator Mark Rubio of Florida on his show, ostensibly to discuss the Senator’s new book.  Thirty minutes later, the two had spent over half an hour discussing politics and the state of America from their own particular vantage points.  Mr. Stewart, a confirmed liberal, and Senator Rubio, a passionate conservative were able to engage in a lively discussion of a variety of issues.  However, given that The Daily Show is a “fake news program,” can anyone take this discussion seriously?
 
In this session we will examine whether LEADERS have an obligation to separate satire from substance, parody from purpose, and ridicule from reality.  Using the Stewart/Rubio interview as our “text,” we will be looking to identify when political disagreements become nothing more than a comedian’s jokes and comparing the frequency of wit with the substantive positions both gentlemen used to explain and advocate for their beliefs.  We will close the session by discussing whether it is enough for us as LEADERS merely to sit by and laugh at the comedy or whether we need to push ourselves to a new level where we work hard to understand both sides’ positions on issues outside of the jokes offered at their expense.

In addition to making descriptive claims about the world, both science and religion shape our ideas about human values, character, concepts of right and wrong, good and evil, well-being, and so on. Some argue that much if not all of what typically falls under the category of ‘morality’ can and/or should ultimately be explained in terms of one particular kind of knowledge – scientific or religious. Others suggest that science and religion can be reconciled to offer a fuller understanding of the world and foster a deeper, coherent moral vision. This session aims to clarify some of the questions raised by scientific and religious approaches to understanding morality, and to introduce present and future leaders to resources needed to engage contemporary moral challenges with informed judgment.

There is no doubt that nanotechnology is already all around us in the form of electronics and surface modified materials.  Nanotechnology remains a rapidly developing science with potentially unknown and undefined effects to the well-being of the humans population, in particular as it relates to human enhancement.  In this session we will examine  current research activity in nanotechnology applications for human enhancement as well as their societal impacts