Pictured: The 1st place Graduate and Undergraduate winners of the 2009 J.T. Barton, Jr. Ethics Essay Scholarhsip competition pose with Dr. Stephan Barton, who created the scholarhsip in honor of his father. (Left to right: Thabe Matsebatlela, Dr. Stephan Barton, Callie Boyd)

FIRST PLACE

CALLIE BOYD

SENIOR, HEALTH SCIENCE

SECOND PLACE

KYUNGSUN ORR

SENIOR, ARCHITECTURE (BA)

THIRD PLACE

CAROLYN JACKSON

SENIOR; HEALTH SCIENCE

(PRE-PROFESSIONAL HEALTH STUDIES)

There are three scholarship prizes in the undergraduate competition: First Prize $1,500 Scholarship Second Prize $1,000 Scholarship Third Prize $500 Scholarship Graduate students at Clemson University are invited to compete with their peers for a $1,500 Scholarship.

Essay Topic: Families and the Rights of Children, Parents, Grandparents....

There are many variations in what constitutes a family. Divorce, adoption, artificial insemination, surrogate parenting and other developments have made it difficult to have simple rules about who has what rights in the family. In fact, these developments call into question ideas about the moral obligations family members’ have to one another that until recently were considered well established. Consequently, we face some tough questions. What principles or general ideas should determine the rights of children, parents, and other relatives, when those rights seem to conflict?
 
The central question is about how such conflicts should be handled.  The “should” here is ethical. Thus, although the question has a political dimension and a public policy dimension, ethical reasoning and judgment will be necessary to adequately address it.
 

Essays must be typed (double-spaced) using a twelve-point font.  The title page should include the author’s name and contact information, but the text of the paper should be suitable for blind review. Essays must not exceed 1,500 words (a word count should be included on the title page; references and citations should not be included in the word count).

Essays should be submitted in both hard copy and electronic form on a diskette or CD. The hard copy and the electronic copy should be delivered to the Department of Philosophy and Religion, 126 Hardin Hall.

Early submissions, for example, during the fall semester, are welcome.

The deadline for submissions is

4:30 p.m. Monday, February 23, 2009

Winners will be notified in March 2009

Instructions and resource materials are available here:

The Rutland Institute for Ethics  is committed to

Clemson University’s Academic integrity policies:

For additional information send email queries to DJONES1@clemson.edu.