Event Details

 The Center for Ethics and Religion will present as this year's Witherspoon Lecturer Dr. Patricia Smith Churchland, speaking on "How the Mind Makes Morals," on Tuesday, March 27, 2012, at 7 p.m. in Ketner Auditorium, Sykes Building, on the Queens University of Charlotte main campus, 1900 Selwyn Avenue. The talk is free and open to the public; please read below for a campus map and parking.

 Dr. Smith works in the intersection of neuroscience and philosophy.  Her recent book, Braintrust: What Neuroscience tells us about Morality, focuses on morality and the social brain. What impact do scientific developments, such as the growing understanding of the brain and oxytocin, have for our understanding of ethics? 

Dr. Churchland is past President of the American Philosophical Society and is Professor of Philosophy emerita at the University of California, San Diego.  She explores the impact of scientific developments on our understanding of consciousness, the self, free will, ethics, and religion. She is author of the groundbreaking book, Neurophilosophy (MIT Press 1986), co-author with T. J. Sejnowski of The Computational Brain (MIT 1992), co-author with Paul Churchland of On The Contrary (MIT 1998). Brain-Wise was published by MIT Press in 2002. An extended interview with her can be found on Philosophy Bites.

 Ketner Auditorium is in the basement of Sykes Learning Center, which is near the intersection of Selwyn and Wellesley.   For a map of the campus, click here.  If you download the map from that page, Sykes is building 30.  Parking may be challenging, due to construction projects, but you can park in lots G or H on Wellesley (scroll down the internet page to see location), or in the lot at Myers Park Elementary School, between Wellesley and Radcliffe, closest to the Radcliffe Side.  For more information, call 704-688-2706.

 The mission of the Center for Ethics and Religion is to educate - through dialogue - the Queens community and the broader community on ethics and religion, paying particular attention to the intersection of those two aspects of our lives.    Past highlights include a partnership with Union Seminary, sponsoring a student Habitat build in China, and bringing to the University's historic Myers Park campus internationally recognized speakers such as Templeton Prize Winner The Reverend Dr. John Polkinghorne and Dr. Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project, who kicked off a four-lecture series on "Languages of God. For details about a few past activities of the Center click here.