Research

The Institute for Ethics & Society (IES) is a national research institute of The University of Notre Dame Australia based on the Sydney campus.

We’re interested in exploring the connections between good lives and a good society. Our research aims at better understanding how cultivating the virtues can strengthen civil society and support human flourishing. We’re also committed to engaging with key issues in bioethics and with the significant role that religion plays in questions of ethics and society.

Our cross-disciplinary research team includes moral philosophers, bioethicists, medical researchers and social scientists. We work with a wide range of partners outside the University, especially in the healthcare and education sectors.

The IES has four Research Focus Areas:

• Moral Philosophy and the Good Life: research focus area conducts research on one of the most significant questions in philosophy: What constitutes a good human life?
• Bioethics & Healthcare Ethics (BHE): researches a range of applied ethical issues related to the nature of healthcare in a civil society, with a distinctive focus on developing novel ways of challenging polarised bioethical debates.
• Religion, Culture and Society: researches the dynamics of religion, spirituality, and non-religion in society, politics, and culture.
• Global Catholic Studies: researches the history, cultures, and ideas of Catholicism across continents and centuries, with a focus on its global development, social impact, and future directions.