SCIENCE, STATE POWER AND ETHICS
Science and Public Policy
SPP BC 3334y  (call #01446)

Spring 2001
Tue Thu 2:40-3:55 p.m.
325 Milbank Hall

Jointly taught by Professors
Timothy Halpin-Healy, Lars Trägårdh and Richard Pious
 

Comparative study of scientists and state power in three political systems: the welfare democracies of the United States and Sweden, the communist Soviet Union, and Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. The focus is on the stakes involved in harnessing scientific advances to state power, the specifics of these scientific advances; and the moral dilemmas faced by scientists such as Robert Oppenheimer, Andrei Sakharov, and Werner Heisenberg, as they confronted state power or acquiesced in its demands during World War II and the early stages of the Cold War.

Contact information:

Timothy Halpin-Healy,

Lars Trägårdh and

Richard Pious