Brown and White Vol. 124 no. 17

              Vol. 124 No. 16
Friday, March 29, 2013
‘All the Lehigh News First’
THE BROWN AND WHITE
Lehigh University’s Student Newspaper Founded in 1894
SPORTS
Baseball team heads to Lafayette
Page 11
ONLINE
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Bethlehem’s secret: Full of Crepe
Page 5
LIFESTYLE
B&W photo by KARA FALCONE
Gamma Phi Beta sorority members Emma Faber, ’16, Emma Fried, ’16, and Paige Tanenbaum, ’16, (from left to right) pose together at the Crescent Classic volleyball event.
Gamma Phi considers its philanthropy event a success
By SAMANTHA ORLAN
Gamma Phi Beta sorority hosted its annu­al Crescent Classic, a volleyball tournament in Grace Hall between teams from different sororities and fraternities on campus, to raise money for their philanthropy, Girls on the Run. The tournament was held Sunday from 1-4 p.m.
“We decided to host the Crescent Clas­sic because it is an international event that all Gamma Phi chapters hold each year,” said Kara Falcone, ’15, who serves as the sorority’s vice president of public relations. “We chose a volleyball tournament for our event because it is a fun sport that is easy to pick up, and goes fairly quickly.”
Girls on the Run, the philanthropy to which the event’s proceeds were donated, maintains the mission “to inspire girls to be joyful, healthy and confident using a fun, experience-based curriculum which cre­atively integrates running,” according to their website. Gamma Phi’s own mission is “to support and inspire the lifelong development of women.”
“We chose a sporty event to raise aware­ness for our philanthropy to echo its goal of building confidence and being active,” said Rachael Schiffris, ’15, Gamma Phi’s vice president of philanthropy.
The final tournaments of the afternoon were between Sigma Phi Epsilon and Lambda Chi Alpha fraternities, and Alpha Omicron Pi and Alpha Gamma Delta sorori­ties. Lambda came through with the win for the fraternity tournament and AOPi for the sororities. Each winning team walked away with a $30 gift card to The Goose.
“My pledge class loves intramurals, so any chance we get to play in a tournament, we take advantage of,” said Pam Samuels,
States, violence, secession: How it all coorelates
By ANNA BOLD
The question of why some countries actively fight groups trying to secede while others do not was presented Tues­day in a lecture given by Ahsan Butt.
Butt, an assistant professor of gov­ernment and politics at George Mason University, gave a presentation entitled “Goodbye or See You Later? Why States Fight Some Secessionists but Not Oth­ers.” Butt presented his research that looks at why, when some parties try to secede or separate from whatever state they are a part of, they are met with vio­lence and hostility, while other parties are met with a nonviolent approach.
He argued that “external security con­siderations matter for internal decision making,” going on to say that states have not always reacted appropriately and have at times used inappropriate violence when it was not explicitly necessary.
In his presentation, Butt went through four explanations for his argument: dis­pute over factors such as resources and military strength; internal deterrence where the parties ended up signaling strength to other would-be secessionists; political structures and the type of regime present; and the organizational structure
Steffen addresses moral gray areas, ethics
By GREG PEGHER
“I thought about writing this book to address a problem plaguing me for a long time: We teach different kinds of moral theories, but there are some problems with these moral theories,” Professor Lloyd Stef­fen said.
Steffen, a professor of religious studies and university chaplain, introduced his newly-published book, “Ethics and Experi­ence: Moral Theory from Just War to Abor­tion,” to a crowd in Linderman Library on Wednesday, March 20. His lecture was a part of the Friends of the Lehigh University Libraries 2012-2013 Speaker Series.
He went on to identify three different kinds of moral theories that people have followed over time: Kantianism, an absolut­ist theory revolving around “duties”; utili­tarianism, which values “the greatest good for the greatest number”; and virtue ethics, based on the teachings from Plato and Aris­totle, which states that the best way to live is to find a “mean between extremes.”
Steffen briefly explained the strengths and weaknesses of each theory in order to explain his motive behind the book.
“All of these ethical theories are fighting against each other. They don’t conform,” he said. “Are we supposed to pick one and only one of these theories? […] The claim I’m making is [that] there’s a disconnect in the way we think and the way we live. Moral life is very messy. We should start to think about ethical positions that bring all theories into the mess and think about what we’re doing.”
Bringing all of the moral theories togeth­er can allow society to come to a common moral agreement on such “messy” issues. Steffen defined a common moral agree­ment as “a moral perspective that holds us together and what people of good will agree on.”
Steffen then dived into some of the topics discussed in his book, including just war, physician-assisted suicide and lying. His book employs historical examples to examine issues. For instance, Steffen used Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. to show how just war ethics were used by people of good will.
“Both show how different critics of just war actually fit views of nonviolent resis­tance,” Steffen said.
The subject of physician-assisted suicide gave Steffen the opportunity to include some of his students’ work in his book.
“In a bioethics class, I asked students what kind of conditions they thought would have to be met if in fact physician-assisted suicide were to proceed, and overcome our
See BUTT Page 3
See GAMMA PHI Page 2
See STEFFEN Page 4