Kenan Institute for Ethics
The Kenan Institute for Ethics is an interdisciplinary home for faculty, students, and staff dedicated to understanding and negotiating the moral challenges of our time through the energetic and capacious pursuit of good.
Good judgment, good character, good citizens, good government, the greatest good, the common good… We speak often of good, but in the absence of agreement about what we mean when we deploy the word. Good pursuits are passionate arguments about what it means to be human—about who we are, what we are doing, and what we ought to do.
Read more about good pursuits in this letter from our director, and explore stories about our programs below.
Good Life
Offering transformational educational experiences to students, alumni, and the public
An Inspiring Gift to Help Students Grow
The Kenan Institute for Ethics has received a major gift from Danielle Moore T’85 and the Mary Alice Fortin Foundation to support the institute’s educational initiatives for undergraduate students.
Teaching Engineering Students to Navigate the “Gray”: Robotics Course Focuses on Ethical Decision-Making
As part of Character Forward, a program of The Purpose Project at Duke that seeks to incorporate ethics into the engineering curriculum, Siobhan Oca teaches robotics courses that ask students to consider the ethical dilemmas they’ll face as engineers.
Good Community
Building bridges from classroom and campus to local and regional communities
Designing Healthcare Solutions with DukeEngage Uganda
Through DukeEngage Uganda, biomedical engineering students from Duke University and Makerere University collaborate on healthcare solutions. The students design prototypes of medical devices to meet the needs of local hospitals, using only low-cost materials that are available in Uganda.
For Students, a DukeEngage Program in a Small French Town Is a New Experience — but for the Faculty Director, It’s Home
During their summer in Saint-Avold, a former coal mining town in northeastern France, DukeEngage students worked with local organizations striving to improve economic and social conditions in the community. For them, it was a new experience — but for their faculty program director, Germain Choffart, it was a return home.
Good Society
Assessing and imagining institutions that meet the needs of our common life
Photography Exhibit Explores “Coexistence” between Humans and Elephants in Thailand
An exhibit of photography by Chelsea Decaminada Memorial Fellow Dhruv Rungta depicts the fraught relationship between Thai pineapple farmers and the elephants who devour their crops.
Showcasing American Indian Cultures through Comic Books
In a recent Duke Today interview, Research for Indigenous Studies and Engagement in the United States (RISE-US) director Courtney Lewis talks about co-curating a Perkins Library exhibit on American Indian graphic art and what it can teach viewers about Indigenous peoples in the United States today.
