A decline of values
Podcast of this event now available to download (mp3, 24MB).
Date and venue: 24 September, London, RSA (now sold-out)
Speakers: Anthony Browne, AC Grayling, Julia Neuberger,
Respondents: Naomi Eisenstadt
Chair: Julia Unwin (Chair)
“… while values change, panic about their decline is one of the constants of history. Panics about moral decline are experienced in every generation, almost as though there is a human need for them.”
Anthony Browne
“For a student of ethics and history, the results [of last year's consultation] confirm the observation that every generation thinks that the past was a better place and that its own time is one of crisis.”
AC Grayling
“The idea that we have an obligation to society beyond the demands we ourselves wish to make of it is becoming unfashionable.”
Julia Neuberger
Anthony Browne argues that, in the face of unprecedented and unsettling decline in values, discussing the problem and its causes is the first step towards making things better.
AC Grayling suggests that it is the responsibility of each of us to confront such difficulties by getting them in proportion; working out if they really are problems; and deciding what we can do about them, individually and collectively.
Julia Neuberger argues that we can change society for the better by deliberately rebuilding trust, opening up our institutions, and stopping the ‘blame culture’ from preventing simple acts of kindness and altruism.
Anthony Browne
Anthony Browne is director of Policy Exchange. He was previously a national journalist for fifteen years, having been chief political correspondent and europe correspondent for the Times, Health Editor, Environment Editor and Deputy Business Editor of the Observer, and Economics Correspondent for BBC TV and radio.
He has written policy reports on issues ranging from NHS reform to immigration for a range of think tanks including Adam Smith Institute, Social Market Foundation and Civitas.
Naomi Eisenstadt
Naomi Eisenstadt is the Director of the Social Exclusion Task Force at the Cabinet Office. In this role she is responsible for the coordination of the delivery of the Socially Excluded Adults Public Service Agreement, and other cross Government projects designed to ensure that departments work together to improve the lives of the most disadvantaged members of our society.
Naomi has a long history of working in social policy, mainly on children’s services. Having gained a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology and a Credential in Early Childhood Education from the University of California, she came to Britain in 1974, and worked in nurseries in Edinburgh and then Milton Keynes.
Naomi joined the civil service in 1999 to run the Sure Start Programme. This grew into a portfolio including the Government’s policy and delivery on services for young children, extended schools and parenting. She is also a non–executive director of a primary care trust.
In 2002 Naomi was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Open University for services to families and children. She was awarded a CB in the 2005 New Year’s Honours List.
Professor A.C. Grayling
AC Grayling MA, DPhil (Oxon) FRSL, FRSA is Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London, and a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne’s College, Oxford. He has written and edited many books on philosophy and other subjects; among his most recent are a biography of William Hazlitt and a collection of essays. For several years he wrote the “Last Word” column for the Guardian newspaper and is a regular reviewer for the Literary Review and the Financial Times.
He also often writes for the Observer, Economist, Times Literary Supplement, Independent on Sunday and New Statesman, and is a frequent broadcaster on BBC Radios 4, 3 and the World Service. He is the Editor of Online Review London, Contributing Editor of Prospect magazine. In addition he sits on the editorial boards of several academic journals, and for nearly ten years was the Honorary Secretary of the principal British Philosophical Association, the Aristotelian Society. He is a past chairman of June Fourth, a human rights group concerned with China, and has been involved in UN human rights initiative.
AC Grayling has been a Fellow of the World Economic Forum and a member of its C-100 group on relations between the West and the Islamic world. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and in 2003 was a Booker Prize judge.
Baroness Neuberger DBE
Baroness Neuberger DBE was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge and Leo Baeck College, London. She became a rabbi in 1977, and served the South London Liberal Synagogue for twelve years, before going to the King’s Fund Institute as a Visiting Fellow.
She was at Harvard Medical School in 1991-1992, Chairman of Camden & Islington Community Health Services NHS Trust from 1993 until 1997 and then Chief Executive of the King’s Fund, an independent health charity until 2004. She has been a member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life , the Medical Research Council and the General Medical Council, a Trustee of the Runnymede Trust and the Imperial War Museum (until 2006). She was also a Trustee of the British Council and of Jewish Care and remains a Trustee of the Booker Prize Foundation as well as a founding trustee of the Walter and Liesel Schwab Charitable Trust, in memory of her parents. Until recently she chaired the Commission on the Future of Volunteering, is President of Liberal Judaism, and last year was appointed the Prime Minister’s Champion for Volunteering.
She is the author of several books on Judaism, women, healthcare ethics and on caring for dying people, and her book ‘The Moral State We’re In’, was published in March 2005. Her latest book ‘Not dead yet – a manifesto for old age’ was published by HarperCollins in May 2008.
She was created a Life Peer in June 2004 (Liberal Democrat) and was Bloomberg Professor of Divinity at Harvard University for the Spring Semester 2006. In her spare time she likes swimming, gardening, family life, opera and Irish life.
Julia Unwin CBE
Julia Unwin has been the Director of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation since 1 January 2007.
She was previously Deputy Chair of the Food Standards Agency and worked as an independent consultant operating within government and the voluntary and corporate sectors. In that role, she focused on the development of services and in particular the governance and funding of voluntary organisations.
She also served as a member of the Housing Corporation Board for 10 years and a Charity Commissioner from 1998 until 2003. Among other voluntary roles, she was chair of the Trustees of the Refugee Council from 1995 until 1998.Julia has long experience as an advocate for the users of housing, health and social care services.
Julia is a member of the Prime Minister’s Council on Social Action, a member of the Ethics Committee at the University of York and a Governor of the Pensions Policy Institute.