CDD Wins Award in University of Chicago Competition for a New Science of Virtues
A Stanford proposal is one of the winners in the University of Chicago’s competition for "A New Science of Virtues." With support from the John Templeton Foundation, Chicago conducted an international competition for work combining the sciences and humanities shedding light on virtuous behavior. Out of more than 700 proposals there were 19 winners, averaging $150,000 each. See scienceofvirtues.org.
The winning project from Stanford was "Deliberative Democracy and the Virtues of Democratic Citizenship" from Professor James Fishkin. Fishkin is the Janet M. Peck Chair in International Communication and directs the Center for Deliberative Democracy (CDD). He was principal investigator and was joined in the project by Dr Alice Siu (Associate Director of the CDD) and Associate Professor Robert C. Luskin of the University of Texas, Austin. Their work on "Deliberative Polls" brings together scientific samples, either face to face or online, to deliberate about policies or politics. The CDD works on Deliberative Polls in more than 16 countries including the US, Britain, Canada, Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, Denmark, Brazil, Argentina, Japan and China. The virtues project will examine whether deliberation helps produce "better citizens." Does deliberation make citizens more informed, more open to different points of view, more likely to participate, or more likely to support policies that contribute in some way to the public good? This research agenda is outlined in Fishkin’s new book When the People Speak (Oxford University Press, 2009).