On the Importance of Ethics// Tábhacht na hEitice
Finally, in UCC, a whole new approach to considering problems of crime, deviance and penology was begun, within which criminology was re-invented on a critical and ethical basis. Closely linked to the humanities and liberal arts at UCC, with interdisciplinary programmes containing modules specifically oriented to Continued Professional Development for policy-makers and professionals in the Gardaí, prisons and related services, the study of criminology moves decisively beyond a conventional paradigm of ‘deviance, crime and punishment’, and has been re-formulated in terms of ‘moral censure, legal norms and social harm.’ This re-framing of Criminology within an ethical paradigm extends to a revised new interdisciplinary MA in Criminology and Ireland’s first undergraduate BA in Criminology.
Ethics and Commemoration The theme of commemoration, one that clearly resonates as we move towards the 100th anniversary of the 1916 uprising, has provided the focus for the efforts of a joint Waterford Institute of Technology and UCC collaboration. This collaboration kicked off in February 2014 with the introduction of the topic at the annual conference of the Anthropology Association of Ireland held at Sligo Institute of Technology. This was followed in October 2014 by a joint symposium held in UCC on the theme of ‘Commemoration: Contexts and Concepts’. The aim of the symposium was to bring a range of scholars working in the area of memory and commemoration together. As a result, researchers from QUB, UCC, WIT, Cambridge, UCD and NUIM and networks including the Irish Memory Studies Network and International Political Anthropology came together to deliver a range of papers on: conceptual discussions of memory and commemoration; Irish memory studies; commemoration in the politics of the USA; commemoration in Northern Ireland; public monuments in Ireland; amnesia in politics; ethical memory in business, and art as a form of commemoration. This theme was further developed at the Anthropological Association of Ireland conference on “Permanence and Transition” in March 2015; and a further major follow on conference on this theme was held in September 2015. Also taking up the commemoration theme, in NUIG, between September 2014 and March 2015, a number of lectures within the School of Humanities were opened up to facilitate access by a broader range of students. These lectures addressed a mix of topics and involved a range of speakers. For example, in a lecture organised by the Institute for Lifecourse and Society, the School of History and the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre, Don Mullan spoke about ‘The 1914 WWI Christmas Truce and Flanders Peace Field - Learning from humanity and society”. Similarly, a series of philosophy lectures looking at practical ethics, critical thinking and bio ethics were promoted while a further series of political theory lectures were opened up to all students.
Enriching understandings of ethics and human rights A number of events were organised to enrich broader conceptual understandings of ethics and human rights, aimed in some cases at a broader public audience, while others focused primarily on third level students.