Career
Upon returning home from Africa in 1967, Dobrin joined the Ethical Movement and in 1968 became the Leader of the Ethical Humanist Society of Long Island and served in that position until 2001. [5] Dobrin joined Hofstra University's faculty as an adjunct Associate Professor of Social Sciences in 1989 and taught classes in African literature, social work, moral education, religion and human rights in the New College. He joined the faculty of the School for University Studies as a full-time Professor of Humanities in 1989 and taught in the freshmen program. He retired from full professorship in December 2012. He teaches courses in business ethics in the MBA program in School of Business and journalism ethics in the School of Communication as an adjunct professor. [1]
Dobrin has also been a visiting scholar at Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China; Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda; Kisii College, Kisii, Kenya; the Gusii Technical College, Kisii, Kenya; and Claflin University in South Carolina.
Dobrin was the co-founder of Amnesty International USA Group #74, the co-founder of the Long Island Interracial Alliance for a Common Future, and the director of the Encampment for Citizenship in Montana and Arizona. He is also a member of the Nassau County District Attorney's Faith Leaders Advisory Council and the Nassau County Police Commissioner's Community Council. He is a member of the bioethics committee NYU Langone Hospital – Long Island (formerly Winthrop University Hospital) since 1997.
Dobrin currently lives in Westbury, New York with his wife, Lyn. He has three children - Eric, Kori, and Millie - and three grandchildren - MacKenzie, Ryan, and Jordan.
Sir Alfred Jules "Freddie" Ayer was an English philosopher known for his promotion of logical positivism, particularly in his books Language, Truth, and Logic (1936) and The Problem of Knowledge (1956).
Secular humanism is a philosophy, belief system, or life stance that embraces human reason, logic, secular ethics, and philosophical naturalism, while specifically rejecting religious dogma, supernaturalism, and superstition as the basis of morality and decision-making.
Morality is the categorization of intentions, decisions and actions into those that are proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong). Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy, religion or culture, or it can derive from a standard that is understood to be universal. Morality may also be specifically synonymous with "goodness", "appropriateness" or "rightness".
Lawrence Kohlberg was an American psychologist best known for his theory of stages of moral development.
Carol Gilligan is an American feminist, ethicist, and psychologist, best known for her work on ethical community and ethical relationships.
Michael A. Slote is a professor of ethics at the University of Miami and an author of a number of books.
Humanism and Its Aspirations is the most recent of the Humanist Manifestos, published in 2003 by the American Humanist Association (AHA). The newest one is much shorter, listing six primary beliefs, which echo themes from its predecessors:
The Ethical movement is an ethical, educational, and religious movement established in 1877 by the academic Felix Adler (1851–1933). In an effort to develop humanist codes of behavior, the Ethical movement emerged from the moral traditions of the secular societies of Europe and the secular society of the 19th-century United States. In practice, the Ethical movement organized themselves as two types of organization: (i) a secular humanist movement and (ii) a predominantly moral movement with a religious approach.
Secular ethics is a branch of moral philosophy in which ethics is based solely on human faculties such as logic, empathy, reason or moral intuition, and not derived from belief in supernatural revelation or guidance—a source of ethics in many religions. Secular ethics refers to any ethical system that does not draw on the supernatural, and includes humanism, secularism and freethinking. A classical example of literature on secular ethics is the Kural text, authored by the ancient Indian philosopher Valluvar.
The ethics of care is a normative ethical theory that holds that moral action centers on interpersonal relationships and care or benevolence as a virtue. EoC is one of a cluster of normative ethical theories that were developed by some feminists and environmentalists since the 1980s. While consequentialist and deontological ethical theories emphasize generalizable standards and impartiality, ethics of care emphasize the importance of response to the individual. The distinction between the general and the individual is reflected in their different moral questions: "what is just?" versus "how to respond?" Carol Gilligan, who is considered the originator of the ethics of care, criticized the application of generalized standards as "morally problematic, since it breeds moral blindness or indifference".
Stanton George Coit was an American-born leader of the Ethical movement in England. He became a British citizen in 1903.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to humanism:
Old Westbury Gardens is the former estate of businessman John Shaffer Phipps (1874–1958), an heir to the Phipps family fortune, in Nassau County, New York. Located at 71 Old Westbury Road in Old Westbury, the property was converted into a museum home in 1959. It is open for tours from April through October.
Richard Allan Shweder is an American cultural anthropologist and a figure in cultural psychology. He is currently Harold H. Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Human Development in the Department of Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago.
Jonathan David Haidt is an American social psychologist and author. He is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at the New York University Stern School of Business. His main areas of study are the psychology of morality and moral emotions.
Jonathan D. Moreno is an American philosopher and historian who specializes in the intersection of bioethics, culture, science, and national security, and has published seminal works on the history, sociology and politics of biology and medicine. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.
Benedict M. Ashley, O.P., was an American theologian and philosopher who had a major influence on 20th century Catholic theology and ethics in America through his writing, teaching, and consulting with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Author of 19 books, Ashley was a major exponent of the River Forest Thomism. Health Care Ethics, which he co-authored in 1975 and now in its fifth edition, continues to be a fundamental text in the field of Catholic Medical Ethics. Ashley taught at numerous institutions and was an active teacher, consultant, and author. He was a faculty member of the Institute for Advanced Physics, a physics research and educational organization reintegrating the foundational principles given directly through our senses into the heart of modern science, from 2003 till his death. He called the Institute for Advanced Physics "the first and only institution addressing this problem [the disintegration of secular and religious culture] at its core by integrating the proper philosophical depth into the heart of modern science."
Hindi Granth Karyalay is an Indian publishing house and specialized book store dealing in books pertaining to Jainology and Indology in English, Hindi, Sanskrit, Prakrit and Apabhramsha. It was established in Mumbai, India in 1912 by its founder Nathuram Premi. It publishes and distributes serials, monographs, and scholarly publications on Indian religions, philosophy, history, culture, arts, architecture, archaeology, language, literature, linguistics, musicology, mysticism, yoga, tantra, occult, medicine, astronomy, astrology and other related subjects, and to date have published over 100 works of noted Indian and International authors and scholars.
Pragmatic ethics is a theory of normative philosophical ethics and meta-ethics. Ethical pragmatists such as John Dewey believe that some societies have progressed morally in much the way they have attained progress in science. Scientists can pursue inquiry into the truth of a hypothesis and accept the hypothesis, in the sense that they act as though the hypothesis were true; nonetheless, they think that future generations can advance science, and thus future generations can refine or replace their accepted hypotheses. Similarly, ethical pragmatists think that norms, principles, and moral criteria are likely to be improved as a result of inquiry.
Darcia Narvaez is a Professor of Psychology Emerita at the University of Notre Dame who has written extensively on issues of character, moral development, and human flourishing.
