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The University of We: Value-Sensitive Design for an Ethical University

The University of We: Value-Sensitive Design for an Ethical University

ABSTRACT. In this article, the authors propose the ethical university may be manifested as the University of We: a university of character and care. We define the ethical university as a “value-sensitive design” that encapsulates and promotes certain virtues, values, habits of mind and practices while prohibiting and suppressing others. By combining value-sensitive design, with Aristotelian phronēsis, care ethics and the ethical demand of K.E. Løgstrup, we argue that “the ethical system” of the university goes above and beyond mere regulations, management, administrative law or codes of conduct. Such rule-structures only constitute “the surface layer” of what we refer to as the ethical university, and do not bear the ethical weight of the implicit or deeper layers of character, care, and the demand from the other. pp. 48–63

Keywords: university; ethics; Value-Sensitive Design; phronēsis; Løgstrup; care ethics

doi:10.22381/KC8120204

Rikke Toft Nørgård
rtoft@tdm.au.dk
Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
Søren S. E. Bengtsen
ssbe@tdm.au.dk
Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
Charles Ess
c.m.ess@media.uio.no
University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway