“Kurt Vonnegut, a Sci-Fi Satirist who Envisioned Ethical Questions,” the Technology & Ethics Study Group with David Koepsell and Zack Savitsky
YALE INTERDISCIPLINARY CENTER FOR BIOETHICS
Kurt Vonnegut was a prolific author of works, which not only served to speculate and reason philosophically, but contributed to the philosophy of society and, notably, technology and ethics. Writer Zack Savitsky and David Keopsell will lead a discussion about Vonnegut, his fascination with science fiction and his relation to the moral/ethical questions that appear in his writing. Please email Working Group Chair Joe Carvalko (Working Group Chair) to receive an event announcement with the link to join on Zoom.
David Richard Koepsell is an American author, philosopher, attorney, and educator with a Ph.D. and a J.D. from the University of Buffalo whose recent research focuses on how ethics and public policy deal with emerging science and technology. He has been a practicing attorney, an ontologist, and a university professor who has lectured worldwide. He has written or co-written over 12 books and is currently a visiting assistant professor at Texas A&M University in the Philosophy Department. Many here know David from his time as a Yale visiting fellow from 2006-07, when he investigated ethical questions involved in the practice of bioprospecting and patenting elements of the human genome.
Zack Savitsky, earned his M.S., in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz and his B.S. in public relations from the University of Florida. He was a Lombardi scholar in 2021, and an astrobiology graduate fellow in 2022. Currently, he is a science journalist writing for Science and Quanta magazines in New York. He primarily covers advances in the physical sciences, though he also ventures into the ethics and philosophy of science. Among his many articles, his cover story “Lifting the Veil” will appear in the Jan. 13 issue of Science. You can find him on his website www.zacksavitsky.com and on Twitter @savagitsky.
The Technology and Ethics study group examines crucial societal, ethical, and public policy questions arising from the adoption of new technologies. To subscribe to the mailing list for this group, please visit https://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/techethics.