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The McKelvy House Scholars will host a dinner discussion Sunday evening on the relationship between ethical behavior and intelligence.
Dinner will begin 6 p.m. at McKelvy House, 200 High Street; RSVP by Saturday to bragdont. Led by physics major Timothy Bragdon ’04 (Rahway, N.J.), the discussion will start at 6:30 p.m. and requires no reservations.
The discussion will explore questions such as “Is ethical behavior intelligent? Does ethical behavior require intelligence? Can we map intelligence onto ethical capacity?”
“Here are some possibilities,” says Bragdon. “E stands for ethical capacity and I for intelligence. Is E proportional to I? The more intelligent, the greater the ethical capacity. Is E some strand relation to I such that low and high intelligence have diminished ethical capacities? Are they inversely related? Think about possible graphs. Develop justifications for each and we’ll have discussion even if we can’t tackle the questions head-on.”
The motivation for the last question developed when Bragdon thought about the mentally handicapped.
“Some would say they don’t ‘know’ the difference between right and wrong, but can that be restated to be that they aren’t capable of intelligent behavior necessary for ethical behavior?” he asks.
Since 1962, the McKelvy House Scholars program has brought together Lafayette students with a wide range of majors and interests to reside in a historic off-campus house and share in intellectual and social activities. Weekly Sunday dinner discussions that engage the students in debate and exchange of ideas are the hallmark of the program. Most members also contribute to the annual McKelvy Papers, written on a topic of each person’s choice. McKelvy Scholars participate in activities together such as field trips to plays, concerts, and exhibits, and sponsor events for the campus as well.
Some past McKelvy discussions in 2003-04:
March 28 — Five Images of Man
March 7 — Idealized body forms
Feb. 22 — Countercultures
Feb. 15 — Eternity
Feb. 8 — Bisexuality
Dec. 7 — Anger and frustration toward computers and technology
Nov. 9 — “Unnecessary” crimes
Nov. 2 — Genetic alteration
Oct. 26 — Social construction of gender
Oct. 19 — Greed as an economic force
Sept. 28 — Value