Ethics and the Common Good

This changing world will confront humankind with enormous new moral problems of unprecedented proportion and consequences … it will take a very special kind of university to direct change in such a way that humans do not destroy themselves and their world … It is this kind of institution that Notre Dame aspires to be.

—Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C.

The world today is changing rapidly, and with those changes come a host of challenging ethical questions. We need a place where people can weigh these questions, discern the good, and find the inspiration to keep our most fundamental values at the center of all the decisions we make. With its deep, complementary roots of faith and reason, the University of Notre Dame can be that place.

—Meghan Sullivan, director of the Institute for Ethics and the Common Good, director of the Ethics Initiative, and Wilsey Family College Professor of Philosophy

Virtue ethics tells us that the moral life is not simply about discrete actions properly performed, nor about achieving laudable results in the world, but about becoming a certain kind of person.

—Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.