The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics is a department at Jesuit

Santa Clara University Santa Clara University is a private university, private Jesuit university in Santa Clara, California, United States. Established in 1851, Santa Clara University is the oldest operating institution of higher learning in California. The university' ...

. It was created by Manuel Velasquez, a faculty member in the School of Business, and funded by early

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Comput ...

investor

Mike Markkula Armas Clifford "Mike" Markkula Jr. (; born February 11, 1942) is an American electrical engineer, businessman and investor. He was the original angel investor, first chairman, and second CEO for Apple Computer, Inc., providing critical early fu ...

and his wife, Linda Markkula. The Center offers programs in ten major fields of

ethics Ethics is the philosophy, philosophical study of Morality, moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates Normativity, normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches inclu ...

Focus areas

Bioethics

The Center partners with area hospitals and hospices, focusing on clinical ethics to develop policies on issues such as

organ donation Organ donation is the process when a person authorizes an organ (anatomy), organ of their own to be removed and organ transplantation, transplanted to another person, #Legislation and global perspectives, legally, either by consent while the d ...

after

cardiac death Clinical death is the medical term for cessation of blood circulation and breathing, the two criteria necessary to sustain the lives of human beings and of many other organisms. It occurs when the heart stops beating in a regular rhythm, a conditio ...

and artificial nutrition and hydration. Partner hospitals also provide internship opportunities in healthcare for undergraduates. The Center's

bioethics Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health (primarily focused on the human, but also increasingly includes animal ethics), including those emerging from advances in biology, me ...

research focuses on "Medical Decision Making for Publicly Conserved and Unrepresented Patients," "Culturally Competent Care," and "Pandemic Ethics," among other topics.

Business Ethics

The Business and Organizational Ethics Partnership brings together business executives and business ethics scholars from Santa Clara University and other

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose. The Association of Bay Area Governments ...

institutions. The partnership is a forum to develop the creation of ethical organizational cultures. The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics also offers programs on assessing the ethical culture of their organization for boards of directors.

Campus Ethics

Santa Clara University hosts over 70 faculty members specializing in Campus Ethics across various disciplines, from literature to engineering. The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics provides Hackworth Grants for faculty and students researching on applied ethics. Additionally, it offers Hackworth Fellowships for students keen on developing ethics programs for their peers. Through the Campus Ethics program, they arrange presentations on applied ethics in diverse fields like technology, diversity, immigration, and law.

Government Ethics

The focus on Government Ethics includes conflicts of interest, gifts and bribes, cronyism, lobbying, transparency, and the personal lives of public officials. The Center's Ethics Roundtable enables locally elected officials such as mayors, council people, county supervisors, and members of special districts to meet quarterly to discuss how these issues play out in their work.

Internet Ethics

With a special focus on

privacy Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively. The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of a ...

, Internet Ethics offers presentations and teaching modules on such topics as

data Data ( , ) are a collection of discrete or continuous values that convey information, describing the quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted for ...

social media Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...

, the '

right to be forgotten The right to be forgotten (RTBF) is the right to have private information about a person be removed from Internet searches and other directories in some circumstances. The issue has arisen from desires of individuals to "determine the developmen ...

cybersecurity Computer security (also cybersecurity, digital security, or information technology (IT) security) is a subdiscipline within the field of information security. It consists of the protection of computer software, systems and networks from thr ...

, ethics in video games,

search engines Search engines, including web search engines, selection-based search engines, metasearch engines, desktop search tools, and web portals and vertical market websites have a search facility for online databases. By content/topic Gene ...

, and privacy by design.

Journalism & Media Ethics

The Journalism & Media Ethics focus area addresses the ethical implications of how journalistic '

gatekeeping A gatekeeper is a person who controls access to something, for example via a city gate or bouncer (doorman), bouncer, or more abstractly, controls who is granted access to a category or status. Gatekeepers assess who is "in or out", in the class ...

' has changed in a

digital era The Information Age is a historical period that began in the mid-20th century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during the Industrial Revolution, to an economy centered on information technolog ...

. It collaborates with journalists, editors, and technologists to help members of the public engage with journalists and journalists equip themselves with in-depth knowledge on complex issues they cover. It also assists stakeholders across the digital ecosystem in defusing the rapid spread of

misinformation Misinformation is incorrect or misleading information. Misinformation and disinformation are not interchangeable terms: misinformation can exist with or without specific malicious intent, whereas disinformation is distinct in that the information ...

and

disinformation Disinformation is misleading content deliberately spread to deceive people, or to secure economic or political gain and which may cause public harm. Disinformation is an orchestrated adversarial activity in which actors employ strategic dece ...

that frequently disguises itself as

news News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different Media (communication), media: word of mouth, printing, Mail, postal systems, broadcasting, Telecommunications, electronic communication, or through the te ...

Leadership Ethics

The Leadership Ethics focus of the center collaborates with businesses, nonprofits, governments, and other organizations to analyze real-world issues in leadership ethics. Its goal is to develop programs and tools that address these issues effectively.

Religious and Catholic Ethics

The ethics center in a Jesuit university has a special interest in the role of religion in ethics and the formation of moral character. They offer dialogue, research, and curriculum across a wide range of religious traditions.

Technology Ethics

The Technology Ethics focus area examines issues in the ethics of

emerging technologies Emerging technologies are technology, technologies whose development, practical applications, or both are still largely unrealized. These technologies are generally innovation, new but also include old technologies finding new applications. Emer ...

, providing teaching resources for

universities A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

and

corporations A corporation or body corporate is an individual or a group of people, such as an association or company, that has been authorized by the State (polity), state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law as ...

, and working with

organizations An organization or organisation ( Commonwealth English; see spelling differences) is an entity—such as a company, or corporation or an institution (formal organization), or an association—comprising one or more people and having a par ...

such as the

Partnership on AI Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society, otherwise known as Partnership on AI (PAI), is a nonprofit coalition committed to the responsible use of artificial intelligence. Coming into inception in September 2016, PAI g ...

. Particular areas of focus include AI ethics, space ethics, ethics of

human enhancement Human enhancement is the natural, artificial, or technological alteration of the human body in order to enhance physical or mental capabilities. Technologies Existing technologies Three forms of human enhancement currently exist: reproductive ...

and

transhumanism Transhumanism is a philosophical and intellectual movement that advocates the human enhancement, enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available new and future technologies that can greatly enhance longevity, cogni ...

, and global catastrophic and existential risk.

References

External links

Markkula Center for Applied Ethics
{{Authority control Santa Clara University centers Ethics organizations Educational institutions established in 1986 1986 establishments in California