Speaking Across Cultures
The role of an ethics center is not to tell people what to believe or how to behave, Deal says. Rather, its mission is to “provide people with the tools to think as deeply about ethics and morality as they are willing and able to do.” In pursuing this mission, the Inamori Center will place a distinctive emphasis on crosscultural dialogue and a reformulation of conventional ethical questions.
 “I’d like to see the center do some fundamental work in providing education around ethical traditions— probably starting from a Western perspective,” Deal explains. “But I want the center to go well beyond the traditional ways we have thought about ethics in the West. Our purpose is to think about human values much more broadly conceived—to think about human relationships, how cultures can relate to each other, how political systems can be made ethical. When a specific culture makes ethical judgments, what categories is it using? Can we ever arrive at some broader global conversation that transcends specific cultures? I want the Inamori Center to take the lead in thinking about such matters.”
The Inamori Center’s initial home—a newly renovated space on the ground level of Crawford Hall— will incorporate several Japanese design elements and open out onto a garden. In addition to faculty offices and a library, the plans include adaptable meeting spaces that can accommodate a small seminar or a community forum. The architectural firm of Ewing Cole, which created SAGES Central on quad-level Crawford, has been commissioned for this new project, which will provide both a physical and a symbolic link between SAGES and the Inamori Center. Ultimately, when a new Campus Center is built beside Kelvin Smith Library, the Inamori Center will take its place there, at the geographical heart of the university.
|
