Ethics in the Public Sphere is an interdisciplinary, collaborative project at the University of Florida that explores how to engage the moral dimensions of contemporary social and political issues. We do this by uniting faculty and students through individual courses and a variety of campus and community events, including panel discussions, “Ethics Cafés,” and public “Ethics on Tap” events focused on current social and political quandaries.
Coordinators
April Hines, Journalism and Mass Communications Librarian, George A. Smathers Libraries
Contact: aprhine@ufl.edu
April’s research areas include inquiry-based information literacy instruction, library marketing and outreach, and social media engagement. She has presented and published on such topics as academic librarians and personal branding, and using ethnic newspapers to reach underserved communities. April has participated on several grant projects and is a co-author of the book Collaborating with Strangers: Facilitating Workshops in Libraries, Classes, and Nonprofits published by the American Library Association.
Anna Peterson, Professor, Religion
Contact: annap@ufl.edu
Anna Peterson teaches and writes on social and environmental ethics. She received her AB from the University of California at Berkeley and her PhD from the University of Chicago. Her recent books include Being Animal: Beasts and Boundaries in Nature Ethics (2013); Everyday Ethics and Social Change (2009); and Religion and Ecological Crisis (2016), co-edited with Todd LeVasseur. She is presently completing two projects: a book on material practice in ethical theory and a co-authored book on the social and environmental issues related to outdoor cats. Her UF website is https://people.clas.ufl.edu/annap.
Student Assistant
Kendall Kurila, Undergraduate, Philosophy and English
Contact: kendallkurila@ufl.edu
Kendall Kurila is an undergraduate student at the University of Florida majoring in Philosophy and English. She is primarily interested in virtue ethics, philosophy of disability, and environmental ethics. She believes public engagement with ethical issues is crucial for a more just and equitable society. In her free time, you will find her swimming in a spring or laying in her hammock.
Interns
Each semester, we are fortunate to welcome interns from the CAIRES Center’s Active Learning Program
Our intern for Spring 2026 is Cadence Van Hook.
Why and How?
These days, far too much of our “public debate” consists primarily of people from opposite ends of the political spectrum shouting at each other, either in person at public events or virtually via social media. As a result, we’ve reached a state of high conflict – intractable disagreement in which we’re unwilling or incapable of listening to each other. Such polarization allows for little progress when it comes to solving important social problems.
We believe that to discover the most ethically sound solutions to the many problems we face, we must collectively achieve three tasks: ethical reflection; acquisition of accurate, relevant and complete information; and engagement in action to meet the challenges these problems present.
Ethical reflection: Understanding and identifying the ethical dimensions of important public issues can be challenging. We may lack information to make judgments, want to view all sides as valid, or believe issues are too complex to understand. Nevertheless, we must be able to understand and assess the ethical dimensions of contemporary issues to be successful professionals, community members, and global citizens.
Ethical reflection involves reasoned evaluation of our own purposes, values, and actions and communities. Reflection on moral problems draws from philosophical and religious traditions, different communities and institutions, and personal and collective experiences. We seek to help students and others learn to think critically about ethics and develop positions and arguments on issues they care about. Our program addresses a wide range of specific issues, united by our attention to our responsibilities as professionals, citizens, and community members and the ways our individual choices and actions affect various communities.
Information acquisition and evaluation: The first and most important step required in ethical reasoning is establishing the facts relevant to the problem. Thus, ethical thinking relies on philosophical and theological resources as well as information literacy—the ability to think critically and make balanced decisions about the information we collect. To engage constructively with the challenges of public life, we must know how to search strategically for quality information and engage tools for evaluating and analyzing this information. We can think of this as the diagnostic aspect of thinking ethically, as we try to identify where ethical problems reside and what facts are relevant to their assessment and resolution.
Our project addresses this aspect of ethics through classes and public events aligned with the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Framework for Information Literacy. Our goals are to help students learn to critically evaluate sources of data and information, including social media and popular culture, as well as academic research, and use evidence and sources appropriately in building ethical arguments and supporting claims. Partnerships with the UF libraries and the College of Journalism and Communication provide resources for these tasks. We strive to help students and community members understand the importance not only of academic evidence but also of diverse perspectives, particularly those from the communities most affected by the problems in question.
Action: Public ethics is about doing as much as it is about understanding and knowing. In addition to ethical reflection and information literacy, societal progress ultimately occurs when people take action to address critical problems. Thus, we aim to support students and others in our community as they identify, evaluate, and choose activities that will transform ethical understanding into action.
Through volunteer and service opportunities, we seek to help students develop practical skills while learning about and often transforming their own communities. Experiences of service and advocacy can be both educational and empowering, especially when they have a clear social impact and link volunteers to communities dedicated to shared values. Our partnerships include the Brown Center for Leadership and Service, the Bob Graham Center for Public Service and ServeGNV in addition to other campus and community resources for public service.