-= NMSU PANORAMA - Winter 2006 =- Alum Joins New Ethics Program

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Alum Joins New Ethics Program

By Mary A. Benanti '84

Vessel

It's important to decide how one ought to live one's life.

So says Jean-Paul Vessel '93, the newest addition to the Philosophy Department at NMSU. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 2003 and has returned to campus as an assistant professor. His specialty includes ethical theory and practical and applied ethics. Vessel is enthusiastic about the ethics minor the Philosophy Department has developed.

"Most people don't have a reasoned ethics foundation on which to develop a moral position," he says, his passion for the topic filling the air around him as he talks. "Most are indoctrinated by their parents or perhaps their church."

Developing one's own ethical positions requires looking at all positions, understanding them and understanding why one agrees or not, Vessel says. Sometimes in a classroom setting it means challenging students' positions and submitting them to critical analysis to give them space to fully develop and build their own more solid code of ethics.

Vessel says this is not a purely academic exercise.

"Ethical expertise is being sought by many professions: government, engineering, journalism. Scientists are concerned about ethics in many areas," he says.

And that concern is not just about stem cell research or the Terri Schiavo right-to-die case. Vessel brings up the case of a woman doctor whose baby is born with a serious brain defect as well as an inability to take nutrients. She refuses the operation which could enable it to eat. Thus the infant painfully starves to death.

Vessel still describes as "horrific" the Enron case in which 10-20 administrators stripped the retirement from 5,000 workers.

"We want our young people to have a moral stance," he says. "When they clearly understand and have developed their own ethical positions, they will have autonomy. They will be able to recognize situations in which something questionable may be going on. They will have the power to take a stand and defend those positions no matter where they are."

Ethics classes give students the ability to make better decisions for their families, their children and their jobs. They will be able to decide how we can make the world as great a place as is possible.

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