Ethics and the Common Good Project
Mission and Values
Our Goals
Support people
in evaluating the social and ethical implications of beliefs, policies, and actions and in developing ethical values that guide both their personal and public lives.
Collectively learn
to take actions, inhabit practices, and pursue livelihoods that contribute to the common good.
Critically examine
the current implications, historical legacies, and future potentials of social institutions and economic systems.
Encourage the innovative
development of institutions, economic activities, and systems that contribute to the common good.
Help develop
new forms of collaboration among students, faculty, staff, and the wider community.
Values & Commitments
We believe in the following:
Equity
The social systems and institutions on which we all depend must work in a manner that benefits all parties and that ensures equitable access and voice for all. Conversely, such systems and institutions must not marginalize, exclude, exploit, or oppress any group, individual, organism, or element found in nature.
The Commons
Cultural, artistic, scientific, and natural resources should be valued and protected for their own sake, as well as preserved for current and future generations as part of our shared heritage.
Sustainability
We need to cultivate visions and practices of resilience and abundance that are rooted in concern for human and ecological flourishing. An economy driven by the accumulation of wealth among a very few has had devastating effects on people and our environment.
Community
A community is a collective rallied around shared ideals and identities. True communities resist insularity and exclusion, working instead to take mutual responsibility, create hospitable spaces, and enhance the permeability of their borders.
We therefore dedicate ourselves to:
Praxis
Identifying and working with the theory and practices that best serve the common good, especially when these are generated by those most affected by any given inequality. We commit to listen, to learn, and to join in the work.
Reflection and Accountability
Attending to both the values and actions we consciously endorse and those we unconsciously manifest. We commit to resist our own complicity in diminishing the common good.
Shared Leadership and Collaboration
Becoming collaborative leaders, co-practitioners of risk and imagination. We commit to build integrated networks of people, with varied resources and strengths, who are invested in new futures of care.
Starting with Ourselves and Our Own Communities
We commit to examine our own motivations and transform our own actions as the first step in a larger movement of change.