What Philosophers Believe (about Ethics, and other things)
Kieran Healy, Associate Professor in Sociology and the Kenan Institute for Ethics, will be speaking March 4th as part of the Monday Seminar Series from 12:00-1:30 in room 101, West Duke Building.
Healy’s presentation will include results from a survey about the beliefs and intellectual commitments of professional philosophers. Although the data is noisy, some patterns emerge, particularly around questions of religious belief and scientific naturalism, as well as other areas relevant to ethics. These findings are linked to ongoing debates in the U.S. about the moral and political beliefs of faculty. Amongst philosophers, while some consensus is apparent, there is little evidence that the social location of philosophers (e.g., the prestige of their employer) is systematically connected to particular ideological commitments.
Healy’s research interests are in economic sociology, the sociology of culture, the sociology of organizations, and social theory. He is the author of Last Best Gifts: Altruism and the Market for Human Blood and Organs. Healy earned an undergraduate degree in sociology and geography at the National University of Ireland (Cork) and a Ph.D in sociology from Princeton University. His current focus is on the moral order of market society, the effect of quantification on the emergence and stabilization of social categories, and the link between these two topics.