Senior Students from around Sydney converged on Santa Sabina College on Monday 18 May for the annual Peter Vardy Student Ethics Conference.
Dr Peter Vardy is an internationally renowned ethicist and lecturer with a particular interest in working with schools to encourage a broader vision for education, to enthuse young people with a lifelong passion for learning and to consider the “big questions” in life.
Year 10 students from Santa Sabina were joined by many other schools including the Australian International Academy, Moriah College and Loreto College Normanhurst to explore a range of topics that many had not considered in such an investigatory manner. These included questions pertaining to what it means to be human and emerging bioethical issues such as the potential impact of altering the human germline through genetic manipulation.
The final session of the day explored ethics in sport with Dr Vardy steering a debate in respect to gamesmanship versus sportsmanship. This discussion introduced further examples of the impact of biomedical technologies and what they may do to the concept of a ‘level playing field’.
Students agreed that the day not only challenged their thinking about the issues discussed, but more importantly about the process of thinking in itself with Dr Vardy emphasising that ‘because I think so’ reasoning has no place in informed, rational decision-making.
