Kicking off the 25th anniversary of the UPLB Philosophy Division, Dr. Celia Bardwell-Jones of University of Hawaii at Hilo presented her paper on Moral and Epistemological Lucidity Informed by Cultural Values: The Case of Placental Ethics last 12 September 2022 from 1:30PM-4:30PM at the NCAS Auditorium.
With a brimming audience at the NCAS Auditorium and in the Zoom room, and through the organizing of the Philosophy Division’s Lecture Series team headed by Ms. Jennica de Guzman, the event was a success!
Dr. Celia, born in the Philippines, talked about how embodying home is often shaped by the community—with its norms, values, beliefs—one is born into. In her presentation, she shared how understanding and practice of values especially in science (i.e. medical practices in hospitals) might be in conflict with a community’s approach to social cohesion and solidarity. This might happen if there is no genuine dialog among stakeholders involved and an absence of good will to understand where the other is coming from in terms of their practices of their lifeworld.
Given the case of Placental Ethics, the placenta is considered a continuity of the womb as home to the community (and by extension the world outside the womb) as home. This gives the impression that the community is no stranger from the womb where majority of human beings are born from. It is easy for people born into this information-driven era to take the lens of strangeness as label social phenomena that deviates from acceptable norm as deviant. Nevertheless, from Dr. Celia’s talk, it is learned that there are communities which values, views, and experiences the body as home, markers of humanities fleetingly occupying this planet. Once this connectedness is viewed, we begin to see how differences might not just be instances of otherness, but of a manifestation of our various explorations of rootedness in this world.
Delighted by our very own Pegaraw, Dr. Celia was also given a tour of the sprawling UPLB campus with Assistant Professors Krissah Marga Taganas and Raemel Niklaus Leyretana, and of Intramuros courtesy of Dr. Jacklyn Cleofas. Together with Division Head Asst. Prof Taganas, Dr. Celia also met with the University’s Office of International Linkages (OIL).
(The division extends our gratitude to Dr. Tracy Llanera of the University of Connecticut and the Women Doing Philosophy for introducing Dr. Celia Bardwell-Jones to the Philosophy Division.
Video recording is available for viewing at our Facebook page and Youtube account, UPLB Philosophy Division. For more details of the upcoming events for the yearlong celebration of the Philosophy Division’s silver anniversary, you may visit our social media pages.)