Seven Ethics Scholars Named

Seven scholars and professionals will converge on Harvard next September as the 1988-89 Fellows of the Program in Ethics and the Professions.

The newly named fellows, selected from a pool of more than 70 applicants, will research issues related to ethics in their respective fields and take part in a seminar on ethical issues common to all professions, according to a written University statement.

The fellows will also "participate in courses, curriculum development, collaborative research, study groups, case-writing workshops, and clinical programs," the statement said.

In the statement, Whitehead Professor of Government Dennis F. Thompson, who directs the program, said this year's fellows "have an unusual opportunity to help shape the intellectual agenda of Harvard's efforts in this relatively new field. I am personally looking forward to working with each member of the group next fall."

Former Rhodes Scholar Troyen Brennan, an associate physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital, was among the fellows selected this year. He said he would study changes occuring in medical practice, specifically "changes in the relationship of doctors to the health care system."

Brennan, who occasionally lectures at the Harvard Law School, said that as the relationships between physicians and medical institutions evolve, "the ethical principles that govern the profession must change."

David T. Wasserman, a newly-appointed Fellow from the Center for Research in Crime and Justice at the New York University School of Law, described his selection as a "pleasant surprise."

"The situation is perfect," he said. "I'll be with a group of people who take moral issues as seriously and passionately as I do."

Wasserman said he plans to study "criminal justice and the delivery of criminal services." He said that although an unwritten ethical code exists for attorneys, it is not enforced and leads to many ethical dilemmas.

"How can an attorney represent a person he knows is guilty? Can you put a defendant on the stand when you know he's lying? It may be obligatory within cur system," he said.

The other new fellows are Judith Andre of Old Dominion University's Philosophy Department; J. Gregory Dees of the Yale School of Management; Lachlan Forrow, a clinical fellow at Harvard Medical School; Henry S. Richardson, an assistant professor of philosophy at Georgetown University, and South African dissident Andries B. du Toit, a Political Studies professor at Cape Town University.

The University created the Program in Ethics and the Professions in 1986 to address President Bok's longtime fear that professional schools are not training students to act ethically in their fields. In past annual reports on the teaching of law and medicine in America, the president has criticized existing professional ethics courses.