Koller Menzel Memorial Lecture
Who Has the Watch? A Military Ethicist’s Journey at the US Naval War College and Beyond
Thursday, April 16th, 2026
7:00 p.m.
Scandinavian Cultural Center in the Anderson University Center
Speaker will be:
Pauline Shanks Kaurin, Ph.D.
When I left PLU in 2018 for the Stockdale Chair in Professional Military Ethics at the US Naval War College, I expected a personal and professional journey with the US Navy. In this reflection on that journey through three commanders in chief, COVID-19, 1/6, the murder of George Floyd, Lafayette Square, and various other military and domestic crises, to my resignation in June 2025 on ethical grounds, we will consider these experiences through the lenses of military ethics, Just War Thinking, Ethics of Care and Stoicism. “Every Day is Ethics Day” isn’t just a handy slogan–it is a philosophical practice.
Pauline Shanks Kaurin holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Temple University, specializing in military ethics, just war theory, and applied ethics. She is currently a Senior Research Associate at the Inamori International Center for Ethics and Excellence at Case Western Reserve University, after having served as the Stockdale Chair and Professor of Professional Military Ethics at the US Naval War College in the College of Leadership and Ethics from 2018-2025. She was also Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma WA from 2012-2018 and a teaching faculty member from 1997-2018. She currently lives in southwestern Montana.
Recent publications include: Achilles Goes Asymmetrical: The Warrior, Military Ethics and Contemporary Warfare (Routledge, 2014) and On Obedience: Contrasting Philosophies for Military, Citizenry and Community (US Naval Institute Press, 2020.)
She was Featured Contributor for The Strategy Bridge and has published in Clear Defense, The Wavell Room, Newsweek, War on the Rocks, Grounded Curiosity, US Naval Institute Proceedings, Just Security, as well as a variety of academic journals.
Speaker Education:
Ph.D. Philosophy, Temple University, 1997
M.A. Philosophy, University of Manitoba, 1993
B.A. Philosophy and International Relations, Concordia College, 1991
Who are they?
Heather Koller
Heather Koller ’94 was a philosophy major and an English minor who aspired to a career as a writer. She served PLU as a student government senator and was recognized as a Sankta Lucia bride. Heather died of connective tissue cancer a month after her graduation, a source of pain she had bravely fought through her college career. In her honor, her parents, Brant and Carol Koller, and her sister, Jennifer Behn ’92, established a memorial lecture. The annual lecture focuses on creative writing or ethics, Heather’s special interests. ~ Mast 1996-1997 v 27 no 14
Paul Menzel
Taught philosophy at Pacific Lutheran University from 1971 to 2012, having been educated at Wooster, Yale, and Vanderbilt. Teaching widely in philosophy and cross-disciplinary curricula, he has also published specialized scholarly work in health care ethics, including two books on moral questions in health care economics, numerous articles on health system structure and health care reform, and a recently co-edited volume (2012) on the tension between treatment and prevention in health policy. Courses in the last decade of his teaching include Biomedical Ethics, Human Identity and Bioethics, Health and Social Justice, Business Ethics, Human Rights, and The Nature of Human Well-Being. He also served Pacific Lutheran University in various administrative positions, including Provost. He retired to Professor Emeritus in summer 2012.
What is it?
The Heather Koller Lecture was endowed in 1994 by Heather Koller’s parents, Carol and Brant Koller, and sister Jennifer. From her childhood on, Heather battled bone cancer. It claimed her life in June of 1994, a short month after graduating from PLU. Hospitalized most of her senior year, she still completed her studies and crossed the commencement stage under her own power, to her classmates’ spontaneous standing ovation. She studied English and philosophy, took a particular interest in biomedical ethics and aspired to be a creative writer. The lecture established in her honor focuses on ethics and/or creative writing.
The first Koller Lecture was given in 1996 as a unique dialogue on “Confronting Death: Who Chooses, Who Controls?” by Dax Cowart, the focus of one of the most famous cases in biomedical ethics, and Robert Burt, Professor of Law at Yale University. The second was given in 2001 by Robert Bellah, Professor of Sociology at UC-Berkeley, on “The Vocation of a Christian University in a Globalized World.” Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics at Princeton, gave the third Koller Lecture in 2007, “Global Poverty: What Are Our Obligations?” Singer’s visit was of special interest to Heather’s mother, Carol, in her capacity as development director for Medical Teams International. Jeff McMahan, Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University and a Fellow of the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at Oxford University, presented “A New Understanding of the Morality of War” in 2013. The endowment also helped support a conference on Voluntary Stopping Eating and Drinking (VSED) at Seattle University School of Law in 2016.
When PLU philosophy professor Paul Menzel entered phased retirement in 2008, the Koller family asked that the lecture be renamed to include him also. Paul had been Heather’s advisor and friend. They had long discussions of issues in biomedical ethics, including some about Heather’s own situation. Similar discussion continued between Paul and her parents. Heather’s death deeply influenced Paul, both personally and in some of the philosophical questions he has pursued.
Heather’s mother, Carol, died in 2009, and her father, Brant, in 2013. She is survived by sister Jennifer Behn of Bothell, WA.
Past Lectures
2023
“Enhancement”
Professor Tim Brown from the University of Washington
“The Moral Enhancement Project: Fear, Anger, and Agency”
Professor Hank Greely from Stanford University
“Human Biological Enhancement: Fears, Realities, and Significance”
2020 Koller Menzel Memorial Lecture
“The Uses and Abuses of Identity”
2016 Koller Menzel Memorial Lecture
“Hastening Death by Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking: Clinical, Legal, Ethical, Religious, and Family Perspectives”
2013 Koller Menzel Memorial Lecture
“A New Understanding of the Morality of War”
Professor McMahan discussed the debate between traditional just war theorists and revisionist just war theorists, arguing in favor of revisionism over traditionalism. He also explained the differences between the implications of the two approaches for such issues as preventive war, humanitarian intervention, and targeted killing.
Jeff McMahan is Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University a Fellow of the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at Oxford University. He is the author of The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life and Killing in War.
2007 Koller Memorial Lecture
“Global Poverty: What Are Our Obligations?”
Singer is an internationally renowned philosopher. At his evening lecture, he discussed the ethical implications of global poverty. His most famous early work, “Animal Liberation,” is credited with philosophically launching much of the animal rights movement. Singer’s work also addresses world hunger, charitable giving by citizens of affluent countries, biomedical ethics and the biological origins of morality.
Dr. Peter Singer, Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, and a Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne
2001 Koller Memorial Lecture
“The Vocation of a Christian University in a Globalized World”
Robert N. Bellah, American sociologist and the Elliott Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley
1996 Koller Memorial Lecture
“Confronting Death – Who Chooses, Who Controls?”
A Dialogue between Dax Cowart and Yale Law Professor Robert Burt