Is utilitarianism foundational to LessWrong? Asking because for a while I've been toying with the idea of writing a few posts with morality as a theme, from the standpoint of, broadly, virtue ethics -- with some pragmatic and descriptive ethics thrown in. (The themes are quite generous and interlocking, and to be honest I don't know where to start or whether I'll finish it.) This perspective treats stable character traits, with their associated emotions, drives, and motives as the most reasonably likely determiner of moral behaviour, and means to encourage people to "build character" so as to become more moral beings or improve their behaviour. It doesn't concern itself with quantitative approaches to welfare. Frankly, I find it hard to take seriously the numerical applications of utilitarianism, and my brain just shuts down upon some ethical problems usually enjoyed around here (torture vs. dust specks, repugnant conclusion, contrived deals with strange gods and so on).

I know that Eliezer's virtues-of-rationality post is widely appreciated by many people around here, but it's a declaration of (commitment to) values more than anything. It never seemed to be the dominant paradigm. I guess I just want to know whether a virtue-ethical approach would be well-received here, and the extent to which a utilitarian and a virtue ethicist can usefully discuss morality without jumping a meta level into theories of normative ethics.