Institute for Ethics & Society

Institute for Ethics and Society Highlights of 2023

IES Director Wins Large European Research Grant

IES Director Professor John Lippitt has been awarded a substantial grant from the ERC-CZ Advanced Grants Scheme. The award, worth 45,000,000 CZK (approx. $3 million) and lasting for up to five years, is to investigate “Combatting Self-Righteousness: a Vice of the Digital Age". The grant will be run through a collaboration with the Centre for Ethics as Study in Human Value at the University of Pardubice, Czech Republic. To allow him to pursue this project, Professor Lippitt will be standing down as Director of the IES at the end of February 2024, after just over four years in the role. He will retain a half-time appointment in the IES, alongside a half-time appointment at Pardubice.

A brief description of the project is below:

Self-righteousness has a serious claim to be one of the vices of the digital age. The risks associated with echo chambers and political polarisation involve an ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality, in which ‘we’ judge ‘them’ as not just mistaken but immoral. Yet despite a burgeoning interest in moral and intellectual virtues and vices in philosophy and related disciplines in recent years, self-righteousness remains no more than a footnote. Drawing on both moral philosophy and the social anthropology/sociology of digital media cultures, this project addresses a serious ethical challenge which threatens our ability to live together in a manner understanding and respectful of diverse opinions. The project’s main objectives are:

• To develop the first comprehensive study of self-righteousness as one of the most significant vices of the digital age, treating it as a vice of both individuals and groups
• To show the relevance of self-righteousness for understanding such phenomena as echo chambers and the forms of anger that fuel polarisation
• To explore how the vice of self-righteousness can be combatted, including proposals to promote the cultivation of countervailing virtues such as greater generosity of spirit in discourse to reduce social divisions.

In Semester 2 2023, the IES delivered a brand new postgraduate course at The University of Notre Dame Australia, ‘EDUC6079 Character Education: The Virtues in Schools’. The course was been designed by IES researchers in the moral philosophy and ethics education research focus area, and featured some special guest appearances from our partners working on ethics education around the world.

2023 Visiting Scholar – Piret Paal

Professor Piret Paal, director of the Palliative Care Institute at the Paracelsus Medizinische Privatuniversität (PMU), Austria, was a visiting scholar at the IES for two months in 2023. She undertook collaborative research with scholars in the Bioethics and Healthcare Ethics research focus area, and delivered the BHE Annual Lecture to over 70 attendees on the topic “Workplace Spirituality and Why it Matters.”

IES Hosts Australian Association for the Study of Religion

The Religion, Culture and Society research focus area at the IES hosted the Australian Association for the Study of Religion’s annual conference in late November, 2023. The conference brought over 60 researchers from around Australia to the University. Dr Elenie Poulos (Macquarie University) delivered the annual Penny Magee Lecture on the topic “Discourses of Religious Freedom in Australia: From Diversity to the Politics of Belief.’