Crowdsourcing the Virtues

The question I would like to mull over with you is how can we use social networking and data gathering techniques to determine what are the practical virtues of a discipline? I am curious about this because of the resurgence of virtue ethics as an alternative to rule-based and consequence-based systems of ethics that we all have received almost by default from the 18th and 19th centuries. The virtues are those things at which we desire to be excellent and help us fulfill our chosen purpose. Developing a virtue ethics approach gives us a new way of solving ethical dilemmas based on fulfillment of purpose rather than adhering to rules or trying to predict outcomes. Introspection can reveal one’s own chosen virtues, but finding out a group’s virtues takes a great deal more cleverness and inventiveness, and if you are willing I would love to borrow yours for a while.

Categories: Collaboration, Crowdsourcing, Libraries, Session Proposals, Session: Talk | Tags: , , |

About jtfburgess

Newly minted Ph.D. in communication and information sciences from The University of Alabama and virtual reference librarian for Troy University. Philosophy nerd/science geek. Carl Sagan is my spirit animal.

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