No Longer “Neutral Among Ends” – Liberal Versus Communitarian Ethics in Library and Information Science

Abstract

This short paper explores the philosophical debate between liberalism and communitarianism in political philosophy, and how concepts like neutrality figure in that debate. It presents the philosophies of both liberalism and communitarianism to encourage debate among the LIS community as to the potential for a communitarian ethic to develop in LIS. In doing so it specifically considers what a communitarian ethic might look like for library and information science, and considers that ethical approach in contrast with both individual rights, and group-rights based philosophies. As the concept of neutrality is under significant challenge as an ethic in LIS in the past decade, the paper argues that in such a polarized world, we must seek to consider other ethical approaches that do not divide us but instead have the capacity to bring people together around a common good, while respecting individual group identity.

The influences of communitarian philosophy in public policy: mapping the discourse of Scottish public library strategy

“…Irwin contrasts communitarian philosophy with liberal philosophy in relation to public library strategies to develop a framework of how community-based service delivery could alter public library perspectives in Canada (2012). Similarly, McMenemy (2021) invokes communitarian principles to enumerate the contemporary public library dilemma of neutrality. Crucially, these literature trends represent a focus on community-based service as a possible framework, rather than research on how current community-based rhetoric currently works to form contemporary strategy.…”