Welcome to my website!
I'm Hobart A. Burch, author of What's Right?: Social Ethics Choices and Applications.

About the Author
Hobart A. Burch is Professor Emeritus and former Director of the School of Social Work, University of Nebraska.

His education is somewhat diverse: a dual major in literature and American civilization at Princeton University; a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary, where he studied under Ethics professors Reinhold Niebuhr and John Bennett; A Master of Social Work from Columbia University, where his specialty was community organization, and a PhD in social planning and policy analysis at the Heller School of Brandeis University where he studied under Charles Schottland: lawyer, social worker, and former U.S. Commissioner of Social Security.

During the “War on Poverty,” Burch variously planned Economic Opportunity Act and other social programs in the Office of the Secretary, Department of Labor, the Office of the United States Commissioner of Welfare, and as head of program liaison for the National Institute of Mental Health.

Subsequently he was General Secretary for Health and Welfare of the United Church of Christ and Executive Secretary of the National Social Welfare Assembly before moving to a “second career” in academia as Director of the University of Nebraska School of Social Work.

He has been formally honored by the National Association of Social Workers as a “Social Work Pioneer” for his work in “advancing social work” in such areas as the Federal Government and “the Church“.

His perspectives have been widened by his three children and his wife. One son is president of a business corporation, another is a senior military officer (medical), and his daughter has taught in, and administered, overseas American schools in Teheran, Riyadh, Prague, and Bucharest, in addition to Western Europe and South America. Before their marriage, his wife, Jan, served as a professional worker in the hospital sponsored by present King of Saudi Arabia.

He has published textbooks on social policy analysis and social planning in the United States and in China (coauthored with a Chinese professor) - but he says his favorite published book was a joint venture initiated by his wife Jan, Bubba Justice in Key West: Pooping on the Public in Paradise, a satirical exposé of (real) corruption in the Florida Keys that cost some actors their jobs.

He professes to write “scholarly books in conversational language.” If this book isn’t, blame his wife Jan! She edited all of it. He also claims to have an ironic sense of humor. If that does not show up occasionally in the book, it is not Jan’s fault.

He says this book, and the research for it, was “a labor of love” (double entendre intended) when he retired.

About my latest book, What's Right?: Social Ethics Choices and Applications

The purpose of this book is to help you make ethical decisions about what should be done in a given instance, whether individual or related to a broad policy. It does not do this by telling you but rather by giving you tools to decide for yourself.

The book offers not so much an ethical map as a a gyroscope: offering awareness, perspective, and ability to work out your judgments on two levels, 1) appropriate ethical frameworks, and 2) real life applications which may coincide with, differ from, or go beyond the standard rules, practices, and policies where you are.

It even includes a chapter on “gray area ethics” situations: even if you are sure of what is "right," it is not actually possible to be purely ethical, because there are “negative costs” to every available choice. You find yourself having to make the best choice rather than the ideally right choice.

The book is in two parts. The first half explores alternative established frameworks for guiding social ethics and their roots. Within each, pros, cons, and variations are discussed. All are good. Some may be better than others. That is for you to decide. You may well develop your own hybrid framework which is better than any classic one. Or you may develop your own hierarchy, in which you apply this framework to the extent that it doesn’t conflict with or subvert that “higher” one.

Built on this foundation the second half discusses several, applied issues or policies. Each offers different, often conflicting, ethical vantage points. The purpose is twofold. One is to address several important social and economic issues. The other is to develop skills for you to apply to dilemmas we face when we apply abstract social ethics to “real life”.

This book is good to read and think by yourself. It may be even better if you can find others - a friend, a group, a seminar - with whom to explore "What's Right?"