Virtue in Virtual Spaces

Louisa Conwill is a PhD student in computer science and engineering at the University of Notre Dame. Her research focuses include computer vision, human-computer interaction, and technology ethics, and she has a particular interest in how the teachings of the Catholic Church can inform technology ethics. A graduate of Brown University, Louisa worked as a software engineer for Amazon Alexa and served as a campus missionary with the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) before starting her graduate studies at Notre Dame. Megan Levis Scheirer is an assistant professor of the practice with the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Social Concerns and College of Engineering. She holds a PhD in bioengineering and recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship with Notre Dame's Technology Ethics Center and the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. Her research interests relate to questions concerning how technology shapes the cultural understanding of what it means to be human and how technology can be designed to encourage virtue and the common good. Levis is also working to bring character formation into engineering curricula.  Walter Scheirer is the Dennis O. Doughty Collegiate Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Notre Dame. He is a global technology leader, serving as the chair of the IEEE Computer Society Technical Community on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence and as a board member of the Computer Vision Foundation. Scheirer is also a cultural critic and historian, commenting on the social context of emerging technologies from the realistic perspective of a technologist, and promoting technology development informed by Catholic Social Teaching that upholds the common good.

“Evangelization is an essential mission of the church entrusted to us by Christ. Technology's threat to evangelization in this digital age also offers us opportunities to advance the church's mission to evangelize, especially to young adults. Under the theoretical framework of Catholic Social Teaching, this book offers remarkable guidelines for evangelizing the culture through technology, emphasizing the three elements of 'think, build, and do.” “This is a groundbreaking integration of CST and tech ethics. This book applies virtue-based theology to digital design and culture, offering a prophetic response to how technology shapes human dignity, participation, and solidarity – a well-needed space into which CST ought to be integrated.” Catholic Media Association

• ContentsPreface   ixGlossary of Terms   xiiiChapter OneIntroduction   1Chapter TwoHistorical Background of Catholic Social Teaching   22Chapter ThreeDialogue and Social Technologies   35Chapter FourA Framework for Technology Design Based on Catholic Social Teaching   51Chapter FiveCase Studies   76Chapter SixConclusion   104Bibliography   111