SOCIETY OF JEWISH ETHICS
2008 Annual Meeting
January 3 – 6, 2008
Hilton Atlanta

Friday January 4

9:00-10:30 a.m.
Society of Christian Ethics/Society of Jewish Ethics Plenary
“Race and Class in the Criminal Justice System”
Grand Ballroom West
Speaker: William Montross, Southern Center for Human Rights, Atlanta
Respondent: Robert Franklin, Emory University
Convener: Christine E. Gudorf, Florida International University

11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
CONCURRENT PAPER: I
Barry Pakes, University of Toronto

“Of Ethics and Pandemics: Jewish Law and Pandemic Influenza”
Forsythe
SJE Convener: Toby Schonfeld, University of Nebraska Medical Center
SCE Respondent: Jim Keenan, Boston College

The imminent influenza pandemic presents one of the greatest threats to human life and human civilization ever known. The current spread of the H5N1 strain between species and across continents has forced us to confront the innumerable practical, ethical, legal, geopolitical and philosophical challenges that pandemic planning present. Though Jewish Law has rarely been used to explicitly address critical global Public Health issues, the halachic system and extant literature present an invaluable model for the development of an ethical framework for communicable disease pandemic planning. This presentation will draw on the author's experience in municipal, provincial and WHO pandemic influenza planning to demonstrate how a halachic approach may succeed where pandemic planners and ethicists have failed, in producing a practical comprehensive and robust pandemic ethics framework.

12:45 – 1:45 p.m.
Lunch

2:00 – 3:30 p.m.
CONCURRENT PAPER: II
Noam Zohar, Bar-Ilan University, Israel

“Halakhah and Ethics: against ‘meta-halakhah’”
Forsythe
SJE Convener: Aaron Mackler, Duquesne Univerity
SCE Respondent: Scott Bader-Saye, The University of Scranton

The concept “meta Halakhah” is commonly employed to account for recourse to ethical (and other) values in the halakhic process. Goldman described a two-tiered system, in which the meta-halakhic level exercises a sporadic regulative effect upon first-level halakhic discourse. Others, who view the meta-halakhic as external to halakhah, often express concern for authenticity. Both these versions of meta-halakhah distort the function of values in halakhah. This will be shown both by theoretical considerations and by two examples, one from bioethics and the other involving moral conduct in warfare. Pace the “internal/external” distinction, value considerations are entirely integral to the halakhic process.

4:00 – 5:15 p.m.
CONCURRENT PAPER: III
Open to attend SCE papers and/or
prepare for Shabbat.

5:25 p.m.
Shabbat Candle Lighting

5:45 – 6:45 p.m.
Society of Christian Ethics Presidential Address
Grand Ballroom West

7:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Kabbalat Shabbat Services
Walton

8:15 – 9:30 p.m.
Shabbat Dinner
Fayette

Saturday January 5

7:15 – 8:45 a.m.
Society of Jewish Ethics Breakfast with an Author
Grand Ballroom West
Marc Ellis, Reading the Torah Out Loud: A Journey of Lament and Hope (Fortress)

9:00-10:30 a.m.
CONCURRENT PAPER: IV
Peggy Bowers, Ph.D., Clemson University

“Can the Messenger be a Mensch? Journalism Ethics' Reimagined Possibilities through Jewish Thought”
Cobb
SJE Convener: Marc Ellis, Baylor University
SCE Respondent: David Smith, DePauw University

More than 75 years of media ethics scholarship has wrestled unsatisfactorily with the tensions between being human and being a journalist. Jewish ethics can make a significant contribution toward resolving that tension by providing a perspective on journalism ethics that western philosophical frameworks have been unable to supply. This essay will summarize journalism ethics, trace the relevant lines of thought in Jewish ethics from Tanakh, rabbinical writings and contemporary strains of Jewish thought and use this to offer a beginning but necessarily incomplete portrait of what journalism ethics could look like if it took Jewish ethics seriously.

11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Shabbat Service (Parashat Vayechi – Genesis 47:28 – 50:26)
Douglas

12:30-2:00 p.m.
Shabbat Lunch
Grand Ballroom West

2:00-3:30 p.m.
CONCURRENT PAPER: V
Society of Jewish Ethics Text Study
Rockdale

Paul Wolpe, University of Pennsylvania
Michael Cartwright, University of Indianapolis

4:00-5:30 p.m.
Society of Christian Ethics Plenary
“Managing Diversity in Academe”
Grand Ballroom West
SJE Respondent: Adrienne Asch, Center for Ethics, Yeshiva University

8:00-9:30 p.m.
Society of Jewish Ethics Business Meeting and Socializing
Gwinnett

Sunday January 6

9:00-10:30 a.m.
CONCURRENT PAPER: VI
Society of Jewish Ethics Plenary
Baruch Brody, Ph.D., Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University

“The Indeterminacy of Rabbinic Ethics”
Grand Ballroom West
SJE Convener: David Teutsch, Reconstructionist Rabbinical College
SJE Respondent: Louis Newman, Carleton College
SCE Respondent: Lisa Sowle Cahill, Boston College

I intend to talk about the indeterminacy of rabbinic ethics--on every major topic, most of the plausible positions have significant support. The two questions I want to raise are why this is so and whether this is a good thing. The paper will be divided into 3 sections: the first will demonstrate the indeterminacy in a few crucial cases, and the second and third will deal with my two questions.

11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
CONCURRENT PAPER: VII
Mark Popovsky, New York Presbyterian Hospital
SJE Convener: Laurie Zoloth, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
SCE Respondent: To be determined

“A Jewish Perspective on Genetic Screening and Prophylactic Interventions to Prevent Cancer”
Rockdale

This paper analyzes the concepts in classical Jewish tradition relevant to genetic screening and prophylactic interventions for women carrying BRCA1&2 mutations, a genetic condition associated with increased incidence of breast and ovarian cancer, more common in women of Ashkenazi Jewish decent than in the general population. This paper assesses if any argument can be made from Jewish tradition that a woman should or should not be tested for these mutations. It also explores the sources which might guide a woman in how to respond if she finds out that she does carry a mutation in the BRCA1&2 genes.