Meghan Sullivan, Wilsey Family College Professor of Philosophy and director of the Institute for Ethics and the Common Good and Notre Dame’s Ethics Initiative, will be part of the speaker lineup for TEDNext, a conference created by the nonprofit organization TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) that will take place from Nov. 9–11 in Atlanta, GA. Sullivan will be one of approximately 50 internationally recognized speakers, including neurosurgeon Sanjay Gupta, Colorado governor Jared Polis, Oklahoma governor J. Kevin Stitt, ballerina Misty Copeland, choreographer Sean Bankhead, actress Kate Mulgrew, and Jim VandeHei, co-founder of Axios and Politico.
Sullivan’s TED Talk, titled “Loving Strangers,” will focus on her research on the love ethic, a key component of virtue ethics.
“In virtue ethics, love isn't a feeling; it’s a state of being,” Sullivan said. “It’s a skill that is learned and perfected by practice. It’s the capacity to look at another person, to experience them as another self, to be moved by them, and to will their true good. Our flourishing depends on our ability to experience other people this way.”
Sullivan's research on the love ethic is being supported by a recent $10 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation. Through this grant, Sullivan and the Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., Center for Virtue Ethics at Notre Dame are leading a team of researchers, nonprofit leaders, and other institutional collaborators in defining and applying the love ethic to pertinent social issues such as migration, global philanthropy, political polarization, and artificial intelligence. In addition, this work will include a robust slate of public outreach programs designed to inspire the public imagination around the concept of the love ethic.
Sullivan’s cross-disciplinary research is deeply concerned with philosophy, theology, and virtue ethics. Currently, she is working on a book project on the love ethic, tentatively titled “Samaritanism: Moral Responsibility and Our Inner Lives.”
After the conference, a version of Sullivan's TEDNext talk will be available through the TED website.
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The Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., Center for Virtue Ethics, a flagship component of the Institute for Ethics and the Common Good, supports preeminent scholars whose research advances human flourishing in both moral and spiritual contexts, facilitates the development of undergraduate courses exploring topics such as justice and the common good, and deepens the ethical formation of Notre Dame students and faculty. The center also plays a transformative role in public discussion, drawing citizens into meaningful dialogue informed by virtue ethics — one of the most powerful and enduring contributions of the Catholic philosophical tradition.