Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! 

I am an MD/PhD student in medical anthropology at Harvard Medical School and UC-Berkeley.  My area of study is ethics, particularly the ethics of humanitarianism and violence in northern Uganda.  I am interested not only in moral philosophy, but also in the everyday ways that people develop a sense of what is 'right' and 'wrong' and how this changes over time and in different parts of the world.  Deeply critical of the state of our world today, I seek to become a physician-anthropologist-philosopher to be able to contribute to the relief of suffering both practically and theoretically. 

I'm looking forward to sharing my thoughts with you here and engaging in the gritty details of what it means to be ethical in an unethical world - not only with respect to humanitarianism, but also politics, medicine, culture, food, and so many other aspects of life.  In our modern society, ethics can no longer be confined to sermons or constitutions.  Morality is an ever-present and all-encompassing set of guidelines that influences everything from the way we speak and act to the way we eat and love. 

I welcome your comments and hope that our exchange will promote a better understanding of how we - the privileged of the earth - can best inhabit this world of poverty, inequality, injustice, and suffering.

 -Sam