Through two posts on the Conglomerate (behold the irony...) I found a post by Professor Ribstein asserting that, like they do for their academic papers, academic bloggers should have the same obligation to do due dilligence in finding previous posts others have written on the same topic, with the same position.
At the Conglomerate, Will Baude and Christine Hurt both demurred. As did I in the comments of Ribstein's post:
"I think I'm more likely to agree with Will Baude and Christine Hurt, in part because I'm not sure what the concern is behind your assertion, 'In the academic setting, this ignorance of the prior literature would be a bad thing, a sign of academic negligence.'It would seem that if you are trying to write a major academic research document on Topic, and you don't include a reference to another major document on Topic, it undermines your credibility as someone who can speak authoritatively about Topic. Still I don't see that as being an ethical problem in terms of morality, but perhaps it may be an ethical one in terms of the actual ethos of the author itself.
But a blog post is often a vastly different creature than a major academic publication. They are created much more speedily, and are often a reflection of first impression. That first impression can often provide a great deal of insight on an issue, which would be lost if each time a poster had an idea they had to find all possible similar expressions. Not only would the exercise be burdensome and impractical, but it would also wreck that instinctive native reaction, so that by the time the thought did get expressed (if the author has not given up by now) it would have inherently changed as a result of exposure to others' thoughts. I think that's a much greater harm than having multiple people unknowingly post similarly. Great minds do think alike, after all, and I don't think we should be afraid of that happening in the blogosphere. In fact, it would tend to suggest the correctness of the expressed thought that so many people were able to think it."
I think, reading between the lines, Ribstein may be concerned that credit is not being given where it's due - to the first thinker of a thought. But as I've discussed before, I don't think failure to do so is necessarily an ethical issue - nor should it be.