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East Meets West at Schemel Forum’s 'University for a Day'
University of Scranton Professor and Philosophy Department Chair Ann Pang-White, Ph.D.’s presentation, entitled “Where East Meets West: Confucian Philosophy and a Post-Modern Ethics of Care,” was among the talks featured at the event.
Dr. Pang-White examined the roots of care ethics, an ethical theory base that gauges right and wrong through our actions toward others. She broke down various attitudes and writings of Western philosophers, including Immanuel Kant, Aristotle and Confucius, in regard to this theory and applied them to the way we treat the poor in America today.
“By learning from other cultures, we can reexamine our own philosophical systems,” said Dr. Pang-White. “Despite the differences among the cultures, there is common ground between the East and West, and when the East meets the West, there can be great synergy that develops.”
Dr. Pang-White pointed out that although America is the most powerful country in the world, it seems that the nation does not properly care for its poor.
“Although the United States prides itself as one of the most industrial and progressive nations in the world … one in every eight Americans live in poverty. Only 1.1 percent of total housing units are public housing and less than one in five low income households receive any kind of housing assistance, the lowest of all industrialized nations,” Dr. Pang-White said, suggesting that care ethics could be applied to our assistance of the less fortunate in our nation.
After all, she pointed out; Confucius said that the highest moral ideal is to love others.
Other lectures at the “University for a Day” event included “’Our Peculiar Institution:’ Slavery in the South” by attorney Morey M. Myers; “Scaling the University’s Gates: The Professor in the Community” by Clement Price, professor of African American studies and founding director of the Institute on Ethnicity, Culture and the Modern Experience at Rutgers University, Newark, N.J.; and “Books and Argumentation: A Panel Discussion,” which featured authors Christopher Hitchens and Jay Parini, and was moderated by Morey Myers. “Books and Argumentation” was held in collaboration with the second annual Pages and Places Book Festival and took place at the Scranton Cultural Center.
