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 partisanship evident now in the House of Representatives. Because debate and argumentation are foundations of our democratic system and of our public life, these concerns are paramount in these times.
Our political institutions are only one of the public spheres witnessing a decline in civility and high-minded debate and discussion. This blog will focus on the ethics of public discourse broadly conceived and the hopes for improvement in this climate.
This blog represents the beginning of the initiative known as the Conference on Ethics and Public Argumentation (or CEPA) at Butler University. Housed in Butler’s College of Communication, CEPA promotes the ethical use of reasoning and rationality in public deliberation.
In launching this online forum two key terms need immediate explanation: “argument” (the basic activity of Argumentation) and “ethics.”
The first term can be defined quickly for our purposes. For CEPA an “argument” means a statement plus the reasons for that statement. Were the statement to be, “Cold fusion is possible,” then the argument would be completed by stating reasons in support of that statement to show that cold fusion is in fact possible (which is highly doubtful). To be clear, therefore, an “argument” is not a conversation in which two parties disagree about something — that is certainly one understanding of an “argument” as an activity, but not the meaning here. An “argument,” as we intend to use the term, is an extended piece of speech or writing in which one person or organization advances reasons — which would appear sound to a reasonable observer — for some conclusion. An argument in this sense always has two parts: the concluding statement (that which is to be claimed) and substantive reasons for that conclusion. Without the inclusion of reasons in the speech or writing, the discourse is not an argument, but merely a statement or an assertion (an unsupported claim).
The second key term,” ethics,” is more complicated — so complicated that we may spend weeks and probably much longer dealing with its meaning. Ethics is concerned with actions that may be judged right or wrong. Such judgment is based on a set of principles or rules. These principles themselves are derived from a larger set of shared values, rather than from idiosyncratic preferences and tastes of one person or just a few people. One making an ethical judgment is expected to refer to a widely accepted system of values and beliefs to justify the ethical nature of that judgment.
A further question is whether or not we can combine the adjective, “ethical,” with the noun “argument,” or “argumentation,” in a way that makes sense for contemporary speaking and writing. We are not necessarily concerned with successful argumentation — how to win a case, or how to win someone over to your side of an issue. Successful arguments (success defined here as “winning”) are not necessarily ethical, and ethical arguments are not necessarily successful. It is often true that there is a distinction between being ethical and being successful.
An additional term also in need of explanation is “public” in the phrase “public argumentation.” This term implies arguments made in a public forum or setting. The arguments — the claims and supporting reasons — are made with a public rather than a private purpose and intended for a broad audience.
This project is being launched ten years after the publication of the work of the Penn National Commission on Society, Culture and Community (convened by the then President of the University of Pennsylvania, Judith Rodin, currently President of the Rockefeller Foundation). The Commission’s work was in response to “concerns about the declining quality and effectiveness of discourse.” Over the past decade, things have apparently not gotten better. CEPA represents an effort to address these continuing concerns.
Over the next few months, this blog will deal with topics such as basic rules for making arguments and examples of issues taken from public life in America. The net will be cast more widely than politics and potentially partisan issues to look at professional fields such as business or commercial communication, education, environmental advocacy, journalism, public health, scientific inquiry, and so on (see the Mission Statement on the home page for this blog). For a quick example, a recent book, titled Nudge, by a social scientist, Richard Thaler, and a law professor, Cass Sunstein, intends to show that subtle framing of arguments can lead people to “Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness,” according to the book’s subtitle. (Sunstein is also the husband of Samantha Power, who was recently nominated by President Obama for Ambassador to the United Nations.) Are such “nudges” ethical if they bring about improvements in these areas or not if they lead to manipulations that could be misused in some quarters? How are such judgments to be made? What systems of values and rules for argumentation allow us to analyze this question?
William W. Neher
Bill Neher is professor emeritus of communication studies at Butler University, where he taught for 42 years. Over those years he has served as Dean of the University College, Director of the Honors Program, Head of the Department of Communication Studies, the Chair of the faculty governance, and most recently as the first Dean (Interim) for the new College of Communication begun in June 2010. He is the author of several books dealing with organizational and professional communication, ethics, and African studies, plus several public speaking and communication text books.
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