Ethics in Action, in partnership with Blue Chip Foundation, is creating a text and a Massive Open Online Course, or MOOC, as part of the SDG Academy program on sustainable development. The Ethics in Action course, built around the ethics of sustainable development as they relate to the world’s major faiths and virtue ethics traditions, is currently under development and will be released to the public via EdX in September 2019.
Blue Chip Foundation founder Jennifer Gross is contributing a chapter in the text and covering community-based poverty reduction. Gross, who has extensive experience with the Millennium Villages Project – an interdisciplinary research project out of sub-Saharan Africa – discusses humanizing others and the ways the global market economy leaves behind those living in extreme poverty.
“We need to cultivate the idea of the common good. That is the destination of virtue ethics,” says Gross. “Virtue ethics is really about integral human development. We cannot evolve as a society unless we help one another in this process of becoming more human.” That concept is central to the MOOC, along with harnessing religious and ethical leadership to invoke change, the correlations between politics and power, and the challenges facing peace and causing poverty around the world.
The course includes ten modules, each with individual chapters written by leaders in sustainable development and renowned experts. Led by Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Dr. William Vendley, Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, Dr. Anthony Annett and Professor Daniel Goody, the course is designed to provide live interaction between students and faculty. The SDG Academy plans to incorporate the course into blended learning experiences by working with universities and other learning programs all over the world.
The SDG Academy provides a number of other free courses on a range of topics, including “How to Achieve the SDGs” and “Water: Addressing the Global Crisis.”
“We must cut out this age of indifference,” says Gross. “The fact of the matter is that you are part of a community. Nobody lives in a bubble. We need to stop living as if we should only be concerned about self-interest.” The Ethics in Action course aims to present a multi-faith and virtue ethics case for sustainable development through the combined knowledge and expertise of global experts on the topic, eventually effecting change that creates a stronger, more unified world.
