Reflecting on the inaugural four-day meeting of the Conference on Ethics and Public Argumentation at Butler, I am struck by all the ways that the presenters communicate their ethical stance on various community-building projects. Blog entries will feature exemplars from the first conference sessions.

The first speaker at the Conference was the Reverend Charles Harrison, […]

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On February 13 of this year, electronic devices across the US were, according to the hype of the day, focused on the beginning of the second season of the Netflix original hit, “House of Cards.” Stories abounded concerning plans people were making for “binge parties,” as some viewers prepared for day and night long watching […]

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Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Noon – 2:00 p.m. Indianapolis Ten Point Coalition

Program Time: Noon – 2:00 p.m.
Speaker: Rev. Charles Harrison
Location: Johnson Room of Robertson Hall
Pastors and community members of the Indianapolis Ten Point Coalition take to the streets to address neighborhood violence, and to promote peace instead of […]

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The previous blog entry (February 9) begins the discussion of the upcoming initial meeting of the Conference on Ethics and Public Argumentation at Butler University, April 1 – 4 of this spring. The theme, “Engaging the Community,” highlights various settings for building community through ethical communication. In the previous entry, community was defined in very […]

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The inaugural meeting of the Conference on Ethics and Public Argumentation will convene April 1 – 4 of 2014 at Butler University. The theme running through this first conference meeting is “engaging the community,” with the idea of community drawn from contexts ranging from local to a global levels. Over the next few weeks, this […]

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Unethical public communication is often associated with political propaganda and advertising—especially arguments that feature attacks on character and unfair or misleading use of evidence. If only advocates would stick to the facts and logical reasoning, so goes the popular view, we would restore ethics to the public arena.

When we say that someone argues in […]

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Today the world mourns the death of Nelson Mandela, the icon for freedom and justice not only in South Africa but also around the world. There is no doubt that his speeches and statements are recognized exemplars of what we mean by ethical public argument. Perhaps his most eloquent statement on freedom and justice is […]

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Several recent trends may appear to be related to the concerns of CEPA: the various proposals related to “Deliberative Democracy,” “Discursive Democracy,” “Deliberative Polling,” and “Deliberation Day,” among others.

Bruce Ackerman, in his recent book The Decline and Fall of the American Republic (Harvard University Press), spells out the proposal for a national holiday to […]

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The Wall Street Journal of June 17, 2013, featured a section labeled “Squaring Off,” covering six controversies in the field of health care in the United States. This section provides good examples of what we mean by “public argumentation” in CEPA. Some of the issues included were debates over whether hospitals residency programs should be […]

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There is much to be desired in the nature of public argumentation today. Representative Nick Nolan of Minnesota, returned to Congress this year after a thirty-two year absence, is in a position to see how public argument has changed in Congress. He laments the lack of political cooperation to solve national problems and the extreme […]

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