Free lecture series will examine how technology influences morality

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Robert Talisse (Vanderbilt University)

Technology has shrunk the world, but has it made it better?

“The same technology that enables people on opposite sides of the world to engage in real time face-to-face communication also enables new possibilities for the collection of personal data, new ways for privacy to be breached, and new avenues for geographically dispersed conspirators to organize and take action, said Robert Talisse, the W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University.

These are some of the new, emerging or overlooked moral issues speakers will discuss this spring during the annual Berry Lectures in Public Philosophy.

The three Berry Lectures will be held in 114 Furman Hall and are free and open to the public.

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Michael Lynch (University of Connecticut)

Michael Lynch, professor of philosophy at the University of Connecticut, will speak 7 p.m. Friday, March 18, on “Knowledge in the Age of Big Data.”

Leif Wenar, chair of philosophy and law at King’s College in London, will speak 7 p.m. Friday, March 25, on “Blood Oil.”

Cheryl Misak, professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto, and James Jackson, assistant professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, will lead “Delirium in the ICU: A Discussion,” 7 p.m. Thursday, April 7.

The Berry Lecture Series in Public Philosophy began in 1988, funded by John and Shirley Lachs, Alan Berry and Kendall Berry. In addition to the annual lecture, the Berry Fund finances travel for graduate philosophy students and awards annual prizes for outstanding service, prospectuses and publications.