Newsletter of the Center for Ethics and Public Affairs atthe Murphy Institute,Tulane University

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During the 2003 Winter semester, ChandranKukathas, Associate Professor of Politics at theUniversity of New South Wales, AustralianDefence Force Academy was visiting professorat the Center for Ethics. He team-taught a grad-uate philosophy seminar with Jerry Gaus andon January 17 gave a Center-sponsored publiclecture on “Anarcho-Multiculturalism: ThePure Theory of Liberalism.” At the end of hisstay, we asked Professor Kukathas to reflect onthe current state of the debate about multicul-turalism and diversity in higher education.

Q. Over the course of the last 20 years, Americanuniversities have become among the most diverseinstitutions in America. How should the question ofdiversity figure in a university education?

CK: Personally, I’ve never thought of diversity asa virtue in itself, or as something that ought tobe celebrated. It’s simply the way the world is.Certainly students should be made aware thatthey’ll be dealing with different kinds of peopleone way or another. But I don’t think an atti-tude of celebration is the right one.

The important thing is not so much encouraging students to confront diversitydirectly, as encouraging them to gather theintellectual resources they need to becomethinking and critical persons who can deal

with the world in whatever shape it comes.

Q: Why is diversity usually discussed in terms of theinternal diversity of individual institutions ratherthan diversity among a broad range institutions?One of the distinctive features of American highereducation, after all, is that it comes in a remarkablevariety of shapes and sizes. We have single-sex femalecolleges, we have religious colleges, and we have the military academies. Where are the defenders of the notion of diversity among institutions, among different kinds of institutions?

CK: That’s an interesting question. Frankly,apart from the leaders of the institutions youmention, I’m not sure who in the United Statesis drawing attention to diversity of that secondkind. I would certainly want to defend it, since I believe one of the marks of a diverse society isthat it tolerates people and practices that rejectdiversity as an end in itself.

Q: Various projects have been defended in the nameof multiculturalism. You have identified yourself as a proponent of “anarcho-multiculturalism.” How is“anarcho-multiculturalism” distinct from other morefamiliar kinds?

CK: My use of the term “anarcho-multicultural-ism” is slightly tongue-in-cheek. It speaks to akind of liberal multiculturalism that takes

A Conver sat ion with Chandran Kukathas

FALL 2003f o c u s

IT IS MY PLEASURE to report on the activities of theMurphy Institute’s Center for Ethics and Public Affairs atthe end of its first full year of activities, and the secondof its existence.

Thanks to generous support from both the TulaneMurphy Foundation and the bequest Tulane Universityreceived from the Lallage Feazel Wall Fund, I believe wehave established the foundations of a first-rate interdisci-plinary center designed to promote scholarly research,teaching and discussion of ethics and the ethical dimensions of public andprofessional life.The success of the new Center was visible on several fronts:• Some of the intellectual excitement of the year should be attributed toour first group of Graduate Fellows, who helped with selecting and hostinga distinguished group of visiting speakers for the Center’s 2002– 2003 lecture series. (See “Profiles” p. 3 and “Lectures and Conferences” p. 6).Wealso are very pleased to announce that Graduate Fellow Elizabeth Umphresshas accepted a position as assistant professor of business ethics at the MayBusiness School,Texas A&M University.• Another highlight of the year was the continuing development of our newacademic journal Politics, Philosophy, and Economics. As this newsletter goes topress, three issues of Volume 1 and the first two issues of Volume 2 have beenpublished. Contributors have included Brian Barry (Columbia),Allan Buchanan(Duke), David Miller (Oxford), Martha Nussbaum (University of Chicago), andJohn Roemer (Yale).The third annual PPE conference—on “Evolution andEconomics”—was held on the Tulane campus on March 14–15, 2003.• Finally, a distinguished group of scholars accepted invitations to serve on the Murphy Institute’s new External Advisory Board, established in partto provide expert counsel for the continuing development of the Center for Ethics within the Murphy Institute. Michael McPherson, President of theSpencer Foundation, and former President of Macalester College will serveas the Board’s first chair. Its other four new members are: John Ferejohn,Carolyn S. G. Munro Professor of Political Science, Stanford University;Geoffrey Galt Harpham, Director of the National Humanities Center;Bonnie Honig, Professor of Political Science & Director, Center for Law,Culture, and Social Thought, Northwestern University; and Stephen Macedo,Director,University Center for Human Values, Princeton University.

Looking forward, there is good reason to feel confident we will build onthe past year’s success.The Center has selected an impressive first group ofvisiting Faculty Fellows for the 2003–2004 academic year. (See list of FacultyFellows, p. 5). During Summer, 2003, the first floor of Tilton Hall will be re-modeled to create the Center’s new administrative office, as well as offices forour visiting faculty fellows.We’ve also received welcome news that the Boardof Tulane Murphy Foundation has put the Center on firm footing by approvingfunding for all program activity through 2006–2007.We are very grateful tothe Tulane Murphy Foundation for its continuing generous support.

f o c u sVol. 1, No. 1, Fall 2003

Center for Ethics and Public AffairsThe Murphy Institute, Tulane University

FAC U LT Y E X E C U T I V E C O M M I T T E E

Bruce Brower, Department of PhilosophyRichard Culbertson, School of Public Healthand Tropical MedicineEric Dannenmaier, Director, Tulane Institutefor Environmental Law & PolicyKay C. Dee, School of EngineeringGerald Gaus, Department of Philosophy & Murphy InstituteSteve Griffin, Law SchoolCathy J. Lazarus, School of MedicineGraham Owen, School of ArchitectureEric Mack, Department of Philosophy & Murphy InstituteRobert Martensen, School of MedicineJonathan Riley, Department of Philosophy & Murphy InstituteMartyn Thompson, Department of PoliticalScience & Murphy InstituteMichael Zimmerman, Department ofPhilosophy

C E N T E R A D M I N I S T R AT I O N

Richard F.Teichgraeber III, DirectorLisa Luongo, Program Coordinator

E X T E R N A L A DV I S O RY B OA R D

Michael McPherson, President, SpencerFoundation (chair)John Ferejohn, Carolyn S.G. Munro Professorof Political Science, Stanford UniversityGeoffrey Galt Harpham, Director, NationalHumanities CenterBonnie Honig, Professor of Political Scienceand Director, Center for Law, Culture, andSocial Thought, Northwestern UniversityStephen Macedo, Director, University Centerfor Human Values, Princeton University

F O C U S

Lisa Luongo, EditorAdam Newman, CommunicationsConsultant and Art DirectorTana Coman, DesignerMary Mouton, Public RelationsJackson Hill/Southern Lights, Photographer

Send editorial correspondence to Center for Ethics and Public Affairs,Murphy Institute, 108 Tilton Hall, TulaneUniversity, New Orleans, LA 70118.Telephone: 504-865-5317. Facsimile:504-862-8755. For questions and comments contact cepa@tulane.edu.Web site: www.tulane.edu/~murphy/.

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As world financial markets trembled witheach revelation of corrupt corporate account-ing practices this past year, Elizabeth Umphress’doctoral dissertation became all the more timely. Umphress was in the final year of workon “In the Name of the Company: UnethicalBehaviors Perpetrated by Employees inResponse to Fair Treatment,” a dissertation she completed this spring under the directionof Professor Arthur Brief at Tulane’s A. B.Freeman School of Business.

“I want to explain why people behave unethically to benefit their organization,” theSherman, Texas native explains. “Why do theyshred documents, lie to clients and customersto benefit the corporation?”

Umphress predicted that two factors coulddetermine an employee’s willingness to behaveunethically: “Accountability is one—whetherthere is pressure to justify one’s decisions toone’s boss, and the second involves organiza-tional justice—conduct and policies that bearon the question of how one is treated withinthe organization.”

And this is where Umphress’ findings aremost intriguing. “I found some evidence to support the curious hypothesis that if employ-ers treat employees fairly, their employees aremore likely to act for the benefit of the employ-er,” even if the actions are unethical.

Umphress is quick to insist she needs to domore research to explain why. “This is a puz-zling conclusion. There’s something else goingon here that needs to be explained.” Umphresssuggests one answer may lie in the exchangeprocess. “Tit for tat?” she asks. “If employeesare treated fairly, do they have reciprocate byengaging in unethical behavior for the benefitof the corporation?”

Umphress completed her undergraduatework at the University of Texas in Austin and

will join the faculty at Texas A&M in the fall asan assistant professor of management. One ofthe highlights of her year as a Graduate Fellowwas the opportunity to invite Ann Tenbrunsel(Business Administration, University of Notre Dame) to Tulane for a public lecture.Tenbrunsel's research has shown that in somecircumstances attempts to discourage forbiddenbehavior through external means do not in factpromote ethical behavior. Umphress gives theexample of a company slapped with environ-mental sanctions. “When a company is orderedto take a corrective measure, such as installinga monitoring device, the sanction removes thebehavior from a conscious moral framework.For this company, adherence to environmentalstandards ceases to be a conscious ethical issue,becoming instead a business decision thatmight lead to more unethical behavior.”

Umphress looks forward to a career of teaching and continued research into ways toeradicate unethical behavior in the workplaceand hopes that one day her research will help

organizations avoid unintentionally promotingunethical behaviors.

“What employers need to do is create a strongethical climate in the workplace, to send a mes-sage that no unethical behavior will be tolerated.If I can show that treating employees fairly leadsto unethical behavior, then one of the ways tostop it may be to be firm and tell employees, ‘youcannot act unethically in my organization’.”

profi les of graduate fellows

The Consequences of Fair Treatment

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“Current events certainly made my research timely,”

Umphress says of the increased attention given to corporate accounting

practices. “It’s made people pay more attention to ethics.”

Censorship can have a stunning influence onhistory, says Michael Redman. When censorshipis rampant, as it was in England during thereign of Charles I in the 1630s, questions ariseas to whether any contemporary historicalaccount can accurately reflect the times.

Redman’s doctoral dissertation, “Censorshipand Political Culture: Lying and Telling theTruth in Early Modern England,” explores acomplicated array of ethical issues—includinglying, sincerity, and trust—in an effort to devel-op a better understanding of the origins of theEnglish Civil War.

“There are big questions that have beendebated for a long time about events leadingup to the English Civil War,” Redman explains,“radical political ideas suddenly emerged in the1640s and many historians have wonderedwhere they came from. Were they always thereand simply censored, or did they arise out of aspecial moment in English history? And whywere events reported as they were?”

Therein lies the historiographical problem.During the 1640s, censors of the 1630s were

put on trial, most notably William Laud,Archbishop of Canterbury. Central to the deliber-ations about their fate was the right of unfetteredauthorship. Transcripts of the trials of the 1640swere not censored. In fact, the decade marks thefirst time verbatim trial transcripts were {not only}preserved {but also distributed by parliamentaryorder}. Redman’s dissertation examines how bothsides in the trials represented each other as

either truth-tellers or liars. “I’m using thesetranscripts to look at how major historical fig-ures reacted to each other, effectively putting inplace through conflict the historical images ofone another that we use today” he says.

The transcripts were among the develop-ments that suddenly revealed fissures in a socie-ty opened up after having been heavily censoredby Charles I, a monarch who sought to imposehis own religious beliefs on the Scots, and there-by triggered a civil war that led to his execution.

“The trial’s managers thought that the trialrecords would help advance their agenda, butpeople in fact read them their own way. Thisopened up a new means for ordinary individu-als to get involved in politics.” Redman’sresearch focuses both on how trial transcriptsprovided a new means for assessing the sinceri-ty and truthfulness of public figures and howthey shaped public memory in later decades.

Redman’s dissertation is being completedunder the direction of Professor Linda Pollockin Tulane’s Department of History. As part ofhis Graduate Fellowship, he helped to host apublic lecture by Annabel Patterson, SterlingChair of English Literature at Yale University,and a leading expert on the literary and cultur-al history of early modern England. “ProfessorPatterson helped me reshape ideas,” saysRedman, “Her visit was a great opportunityafforded me by the Center for Ethics andPublic Affairs, because it gave me access to suchan important person in my field.”

In the classroom, Matthew Oberrieder confronts undergraduates with thorny andsometimes controversial contemporary questions about ethics and morality, exploring“hot button” issues such as censorship, abor-tion, and the death penalty. In his research,Oberrieder considers a fundamental questionunderlying all ethical issues — what does itmean to be human? For insight into this question, he turns to ancient Greece and, inparticular, the philosopher Plato.

In Plato’s dialogue Protagoras, Socrates andthe sophist Protagoras debate whether or not

The Histor y of Truth Tel l ing

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Ancient Advice for Modern Di lemmas

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FELLOWS 2002–2003G R A D UAT E F E L L OW S

MATTHEW OBERRIEDERGraduate School of Arts and Sciences (Philosophy)

MICHAEL REDMANGraduate School of Arts and Sciences (History)

ELIZABETH UMPHRESSA. B. Freeman School of Business,Tulane University

V I S I T I N G P R O F E S S O R S

CHANDRAN KUKATHASAssociate Professor in Politics, University of New South WalesAustralian Defence Force Academy

DENNIS C. MUELLER Professor, Department of EconomicsUniversity of Vienna,Austria

FELLOWS 2003–2004FAC U LT Y F E L L OW S

ULRIKE HEUERAssistant Professor, Department of PhilosophyUniversity of Pennsylvania

GUIDO PINCIONESimon Visiting ScholarFlorida State University College of Law

LEIF WERNARLecturer, Department of PhilosophyUniversity of Sheffield

G R A D UAT E F E L L OW S

BENJAMIN CROWEGraduate School of Arts and Sciences (Philosophy)

JULINNA OXLEYGraduate School of Arts and Sciences (Philosophy)

KRISTIN SMITH-CROWEGraduate School of Arts and Sciences (Psychology)and A. B. Freeman School of Business

CHRISTI SUMICHGraduate School of Arts and Sciences (History)

FAC U LT Y A F F I L I AT E

JENNIFER MERCHANTAssociate Professor, Universite de Paris IIPantheon-Assas (Law School)

virtue can be taught. Socrates says no;Protagoras argues that it can. Oberriederpoints out that, as in Plato’s other dialogues,Socrates never asserts his views directly. Theymust be gleaned by close examination of hisexchange with Protagoras, and of the toolseach figure uses to make his argument, such asthe creation myth in Protagoras’ case and quo-tations of Homer in Socrates’.

Oberrieder explains that while the dialoguedoesn’t explicitly answer the basic question ofwhether or not virtue can be taught, it does soimplicitly. Plato seems to suggest that whilevirtue isn’t teachable, it can be gained throughreflection and self-examination. And it is pre-cisely this ability to engage in a philosophicalexamination of one’s own being, Plato tells us,that establishes our humanity.

Oberrieder’s Graduate Fellowship at theMurphy Institute’s Center for Ethics and PublicAffairs has helped him to complete work onhis dissertation “Shame, Self-Knowledge, andthe Human in Plato’s Protagoras,” under thedirection of Professor Ronna Burger in theDepartment of Philosophy. Oberrieder’s fellow-ship also allowed him to invite Thomas Pangle(University of Toronto) to speak at Tulane dur-ing the winter semester of 2003. While Panglespoke on a contemporary topic—“ShouldConvicts Have the Right to Vote?”—he is aleading expert in ancient moral and politicalphilosophy, and Oberrieder was delighted tohave the chance to discuss his own work andexchange ideas with Pangle.

And does the study of ancient philosophyinform the ethical considerations of the mod-ern world? Oberrieder says it does. “I tend toagree with Plato—and Pangle—that humanexcellence and virtue lie in the investigation of philosophical questions—and most relevantof these is ‘what does it mean to be a humanbeing?’. “There couldn’t be anything moreimportant,” he adds, “or more relevant toflourishing as a human being, than to reflecton what it means to live your life. It’s not theoretical, but practical.”

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Can Ethics Be Taught?G A RY PAV E L A , Director, Judicial and StudentEthical Development Programs, University ofMaryland–College ParkCo-sponsored with Office of Student Affairs

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Attending to ReasonsC H A R L E S L A R M O R E , Tripp Professor ofHumanities & Professor of Philosophy and PoliticalScience, University of ChicagoCo-sponsored with the Department of Philosophy

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Architecture’s Paradox of Value: Buildings ,Ethics , and the Ecology of WealthT H O M A S F I S H E R , Dean, College of Architectureand Landscape Architecture, University ofMinnesotaCo-sponsored with the School of Architecture

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The Organization Made Me Do It:Situational Influences on Unethical BehaviorA N N E . T E N B RU N S E L , Associate Professor,College of Business Administration, University ofNotre Dame

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Rent, Profit, and WorkJ A N N A RV E S O N , Professor, Department ofPhilosophy, University of WaterlooCo-sponsored with the Department of Philosophy

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Anarcho-Multiculturalism:The Pure Theory of LiberalismC H A N D R A N K U K AT H A S , Associate Professor of Politics, University of New South Wales,Australian Defence Force AcademyCo-sponsored with the Department of Philosophy

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On Thin Ice: John Donne and the Dangers of CompromiseA N N A B E L PAT T E R S O N , Sterling Professor ofEnglish,Yale UniversityCo-sponsored with the Department of History

F E B RUA RY 7 , 2 0 0 3

Kant on PunishmentT H O M A S H I L L , Kenan Professor, Department ofPhilosophy, University of North Carolina, Chapel HillCo-sponsored with the Department of Philosophy

F E B RUA RY 1 9 , 2 0 0 3Friendship and Justice in AristotleL O R R A I N E S M I T H PA N G L E , Department ofPolitical Science, University of TorontoCo-sponsored with the Department of Philosophy

F E B RUA RY 2 0 , 2 0 0 3Should Convicts Have the Right to Vote?T H O M A S L . PA N G L E , University Professor,Department of Political Science, University ofToronto

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T H O M A S F I S H E R

L E C T U R E S A N D C O N F E R E N C E S

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M A RY C . PA R K E R YAT E S L E C T U R E

The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in the Age of TerrorM I C H A E L I G N AT I E F F, Carr Professor & Director,Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, KennedySchool of Government, Harvard University

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P O L I T I C S , P H I L O S O P H Y & E C O N O M I C SC O N F E R E N C E

“Philosophy, Economics , and Evolution”

Ken Binmore (University College, London):“Natural Justice”

Geoffrey Hodgson (University of Hertfordshire):“Social Darwinism in Anglophone Academia”

Dennis Mueller (University of Vienna):“Models ofMan: Neoclassical, Behavioral, Evolutionary”

Alexander Rosenberg (Duke University):“On the Priority of Intellectual Property Rights,Especially in Biotechnology”

Michael Ruse (Florida State University):“Is Darwinian Metaethics Possible (and if it is,is it well taken?)”

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r. R o b e r t M a r t e n s e n is an observer, constantly extrapolating and evaluating. The“art of observation,” he insists, is critical in thepractice of medicine. “What is said and what isnot said is very helpful when assessing patients,”says Martensen, whose goal is to inspire stu-dents to form their own interpretive framework

as they enter the increasingly complex world ofmedicine and healthcare. “Students will hearopinions for the rest of their lives—how thingsought to be,” says Martensen. “The dynamic ischanging so quickly that doctors now feel blindsided—there are a lot of demons and fingerpointing. Ethics helps solve these dilemmas.”

Martensen, the recently appointed James A. Knight Chair of Humanities and Ethics inMedicine, hopes to convey to students the importance of observation as a means to pro-mote professionalism, ethics and communication.Martensen, also a member of the FacultyExecutive Committee at the Center for Ethicsand Public Affairs, plans to integrate these doc-trines into curricula at both the uptown anddowntown campuses.

Martensen draws upon philosophy, history,and anthropology for guidance. The Center for

Ethics and Public Affairs is a catalyst for these discussions, and he envisions an opportunity forjoint programs for undergraduate students andmedical students. “Bringing moral and historicalinsights to doctors-in-training at the graduate andundergraduate level will help them understandwhat is at stake in the debate so they can betternavigate the waters and help decode the compli-cated social milieu in which modern diagnoses,health and medicine work.”

One of the country’s foremost medical histo-rians, Martensen won a prestigious Guggenheimfellowship last year. He is formerly Chair of the Department of History and Philosophy ofMedicine at the University of Kansas School ofMedicine, as well as Director of the ClendeningLibrary of the History of Medicine. He com-pleted his undergraduate studies at Harvard,graduated from Dartmouth Medical School andholds a PhD in History of Health Sciences fromthe University of California, San Francisco.

Martensen estimates that he has seen close to 100,000 patients as an emergency room physi-cian and a doctor’s ability to properly observe apatient results in more accurate diagnoses. “Badobservers can spend thousands of dollars onunneeded tests because they haven’t paid atten-tion to something that’s relatively obvious.”

The quest for better insight has takenMartensen and some of his fourth year medicalstudents to the New Orleans Museum of Art for aseminar entitled, “The Art of Observation.”Through the examination of portraits and photo-graphs, students look for clues about the healthstatus of the subjects—visual indicators of healthstatus. “It’s not art history,” insists Martensen.“The course challenges students by asking: ‘byfocusing physical cues, what can we tell whensomebody comes before us, particularly in thecontext of doctor and patient?’” His method ismulti-disciplinary, borrowed from college campus-es. “The good work in these fields is happeningon liberal arts campuses,” explains Martensen.“Ethics can identify all the voices in the room and evaluate the moral valence of the claims.Anthropology is good at attuning people to cul-tural blind spots that other cultures don’t take forgranted. Historians are skeptics—very good at

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assessing competing claims of the truth to inter-pret evidence. All of these fields are outside thetraditional routines of medical education. Youhave to participate in this intellectual tradingzone to avoid living in an intellectual ghetto.”

Martensen cites escalating research figures asevidence of the rapid rate of change. In 1948,the research budget at the National Institute ofHealth was approximately $6 million. In 2003,the NIH budget is $22 billion. This phenomenalexplosion triggered complex issues affectingpatients, research subjects, physicians, and inves-tigators. The changing landscape includes issuesrelated to stem cell research and informationtransparency—the fact that medical knowledgeis no longer controlled by doctors. Improvedtechnology is able to perform fast and accuratediagnoses previously reserved for specialists.The competition for public and private dollarshas commercialized much of the research sec-tor, even at the academic level. According toMartensen, these changes are challenging tradi-tions, including the most basic—the way inwhich physicians care for patients.

Martensen views his role as one of teacher,scholar, and community servant. Within monthsof his arrival at Tulane, he was consulted by col-leagues and members of the community on ethi-cal predicaments. He hopes to share his insightswith others and envisions community programsfor ethics and professionalism. A vision he hopeswill teach others how to observe so they are bet-ter prepared to see the many challenges ahead.

“Bringing historical insights

to doctors-in-training at the

graduate and undergraduate

level will help them understand

what is at stake in the debate

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complicated social milieu in

which modern diagnoses, health

and medicine work.”

The Murphy Institute’s Center for Ethics andPublic Affairs at Tulane University is pleased toannounce residential Faculty Fellowships forthe 2004-2005 academic year. These fellowships,made possible by grants from the Tulane MurphyFoundation and from the bequest the Universityreceived from the estate of Lallage Feazel Wall,are available to support outstanding faculty whoseteaching and research focus on questions of ethicsand moral choice in such areas as architecture,business, government, law, medicine, urban designand planning, and engineering. While fellows willparticipate in conferences and seminars organizedby the Center, they will be expected to devotemost of their time to conducting their ownresearch. Stipends will vary in accordance withindividual circumstance, but will not exceedUS $35,000. Center Faculty Fellowships are opento all, regardless of citizenship.

Further information about the Fellowships andapplications may be obtained from the Centerpage on the Murphy Institute web site atwww.tulane.edu/~murphyor may be requested by contacting:

The Center for Ethics and Public AffairsThe Murphy InstituteTulane UniversityNew Orleans, LA 70118504.862.3236 tel504.862.8360 faxcepa@tulane.edu

FacultyFellowships2004-05

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GERALD GAUSContemporary Theories of Liberalism: Public Reasonas a Post-Enlightenment Project. London: Sage, 2003

RICHARD CULBERTSON,Associate Professor,School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine,was named “Professor of the Year 2002” by theTulane chapter of the American College ofHealthcare Executives.

KAY C. DEE,Associate Professor, School of Engineering, was named 2002 “Professor of theYear” for the State of Louisiana by The CarnegieFoundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

STEPHEN GRIFFIN, Rutledge C. Clement Jr.Professor in Constitutional Law and Vice ofAcademic Affairs,Tulane University Law School,received the 2002 Felix Frankfurter DistinguishedTeaching Award.

CATHY LAZARUS,Associate Professor, receivedthe 2003 Presidential Medal of Excellence forGraduate and Professional Teaching,TulaneUniversity School of Medicine.

ROBERT MARTENSEN, Knight Chair ofHumanities and Ethics, School of Medicine, was aGuggenheim Fellow during 2002–2003.

JONATHAN RILEY, Professor of Philosophy,received a residential 2002–2003 Fellowship from

the National HumanitiesCenter.

MICHAEL ZIMMERMAN,Professor of Philosophy,received the InterdisciplinaryTeacher of the Year Award,Tulane University, 2002–2003.

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HONORS AND AWARDS

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toleration very seriously, that insists we tolerate everyone, even those who might reject multi-culturalism itself. Or put another way, embrac-ing “anarcho-multiculturalism” would have us tolerate ideas which in the end might becompletely intolerant of toleration itself.

Q: Why have Americans come to think of diversityprimarily in cultural terms, as a matter to be under-stood in terms of race, ethnicity, and gender?

CK: The answer may have something to do withthe absence of controversy about other equallyimportant forms of diversity. In the UnitedStates, I don’t think there is, for example, heateddebate about religious diversity, because by andlarge this is a Christian country. And to theextent that there are other non-Christian reli-gions present, there’s not much debate aboutreligious freedom and religious toleration either,since they are enshrined in the Constitution.

Linguistic diversity has never really beenmuch of an issue either, though at times therehave been debates about what should be thenational language. English has been dominantfor a very long time, and even with the rise ofthe Hispanic population, it doesn’t look likethat’s going to change. So I don’t see a debate

in terms of linguistic diversity either. In othercountries, things of course are rather different.

Q: A final question about diversity and sameness in America. There are still observers who stress thecultural homogeneity of America more than its nowmuch vaunted variety. After spending a semester living and teaching in New Orleans, where do youstand on this issue?

CK: This may sound like I’m dodging the question, but I’ve always been struck by boththings in the United States. And I don’t thinkit’s implausible that a country could be both

strikingly diverse and strikingly united.In the United States, what’s striking is how

much there really is an ethos of “beingAmerican.” It’s something that certainly strikesme because there isn’t the equivalent inAustralia, Britain, or Malaysia, which are soci-eties that I know quite well. In the UnitedStates, one quickly gets a very strong sense inwatching television and reading newspapers, as well as in talking to ordinary people andobserving public figures, that says: “We’ve builtourselves into a nation, and this is somethingthat we’re especially proud of.”

By contrast, in Australia, it is impossible toimagine people standing up with their handsover their hearts when the national anthem isplayed. Not that Australians wouldn’t stand forthe national anthem at a football game. Butthere simply isn’t the same kind of passion associated with national sentiment.

All that said, I’m also struck by how dramati-cally different the different regions of Americaare. In Australia, if you go to Perth or Brisbaneor to Melbourne, you will not notice significantregional variation. Maybe one or two wordsused differently, maybe some minor differencesin accent. Whereas in the United States, New

Orleans is very different from Utah, which inturn is very different from California. TheNortheast is very different from the Southwest.The United States is a different country in dif-ferent parts of the country in a way that simplyisn’t the case in Australia. It’s also striking justhow diverse some places are in themselves.Utah may not be a diverse place by Americanstandards. But New Orleans clearly is, and New York is just an extraordinary place in thisrespect. Viewed in its entirety, it’s hard not to be struck by both the sameness and thediversity of the United States.

“I believe one of the marks of a diverse society isthat it tolerates people and

practices that reject diversityas an end in itself.”

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the murphy institute108 tilton halltulane universitynew orleans, la 70118-5698

center for ethics and public affairs

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