Registration Link: For HKU members

MH Conversations and Connections Series (Contemporary Issues in Bioethics) – Lunchtime Seminar

Title: Towards an Exemplarist Medical Ethics 

Date: 25 April 2025 (Friday)
Time: 12:30-1:45pm HKT
Venue: 3SR-LT1, Lecture Theatre 1, 1/F, HKUMed Academic Building, 3 Sassoon Road

Registration Link: For HKU members

Abstract:
This talk explores what an exemplarist medical ethics might look like. According to Linda Zagzebski’s Exemplarist Moral Theory, moral understanding begins not with conceptions of rules or consequences, but with admiration for exemplary people – those whose lives reveal what is good or right. I test this idea through two historical cases. Florence Nightingale’s extraordinary achievements suggest how such exemplars can set moral standards. But the story of Elizabeth T. Stone, a 19th-century patient institutionalized for her religious convictions, exposes the dangers of uncritical admiration. The talk questions whether admiration alone can ground medical ethics, urging reflection on how exemplars shape professional practice.

Speaker:
Dr Edward A. David
Director of the Associateship of King’s College | The Office of the Dean
Lecturer in Ethics & Values | Department of Theology and Religious Studies
King’s College London

Dr Edward A. David is the Director of the Associateship of King’s College and Lecturer in Ethics & Values at King’s College London. Most recently, he was the McDonald Postdoctoral Fellow in Christian Ethics & Public Life, affiliated with Christ Church, Oxford. He is the author of Leadership by Example (Cambridge University Press) and co-author of the article “Religious Deviance and Psychological Medicine in the Second Great Awakening”, with Dr Mark W. Lee (Journal of Church and State).

Welcome to join us!

Enquiry: Please contact Mr Edison Cheng (mehu@hku.hk).