Exploring Moral Courage

1. Program Overview
2. Participant Biographies
3. Program Videos
4. Program Poster (.pdf -- requires Adobe Acrobat Reader to view)

Program Overview

• With the upper stories of the World Trade Center in flames and people frantically struggling to escape, one man provided a beacon of hope and safety. His reassuring voice and commanding demeanor allowed nearly 3,000 people to safely escape the disaster. His demand for "one final sweep" to save lives cost him his own.
  
• In occupied Holland a young graduate student is confronted with the inhumanity of her neighbors’ unlawful arrest, imprisonment and murder. With a bright future ahead of her, she risks all by saving the lives of hundreds of Jews. Her only regret? That she did not save more.
  
• Army Officer Lt. Calley orders his men to kill women and children in a Vietnamese hamlet that he suspects is harboring Viet Cong guerillas. As the soldiers carry out the order and slaughter nearly everyone in the village, a helicopter pilot lands on the scene. He surveys the carnage, raises his rifle, and informs the commanding officer that if he shoots one more person, "you’ll have to shoot me."
  
• A brother who has lost contact with his only sibling, a beloved older brother, suddenly hears an echo of that brother's voice in the infamous Unabomber Manifesto. He struggles with the decision of whether to contact the FBI; the "unabomber" stood accused of several murders and attempted murders. Could he bear the responsibility of a possible death sentence for his brother?
  
• Each of these snapshots describes an actual event. Together, they raise a basic ethical question: Why, in stressful circumstances that drive many people into moral evasion or compromise, do some individuals display selfless courage?

The Ethics Institute of Dartmouth College invites you to attend a one-day conference on the theme of Moral Courage, Saturday, April 12, 2003 -- Filene Auditorium, Moore Hall. This event is supported by the Tucker Foundation, the Dickey Center and Jewish Studies.

This day-long conference will explore the cultural, situational, and personal factors that support acts of moral courage. Speakers include those who have acted in exemplary ways, as well as scholars who have tried to understand what motivates courageous behavior. The aim, through example and insight, is to learn how society and educational institutions can foster the development in young people of a commitment to moral courage.

*** VHS recordings of the conference's 4 sessions are now available for viewing at the Jones Media Center in the Berry Library at Dartmouth College. Copies are also available from the Ethics Institute upon request.