University of Southern California Professor Walter Fisher of USC's Annenberg School for Communication, will give a lecture at Hamilton College titled "Making Ethical Judgments," on Tuesday, April 19, at 4:15 p.m. in the Red Pit, KJ Building. It is free and open to the public.
Ethical conduct in everyday life is, by and large, habitual. Most people are truth-telling, respectful of others, honest and loyal to friends and family, and act in ways that are conducive to community. On the other hand, the need for this and other studies of ethics is patently clear: not everyone is well socialized in families, schools, or the professions; and, the daily news is replete with evidence of widespread, egregious ethical lapses. One of the reasons for this state of affairs is the lack of adequate awareness of the elements that are entailed in complex ethical decision making. Based on prior work intended to reconstruct the concept and occurrence of reason in human discourse, which Professor Fisher calls the narrative paradigm, and on a refiguring of Aristotle's concept of practical wisdom, he has devised a scheme for assessing the elements in ethical judgment making, including facts, reasons, values, and emotions.
Fisher earned his doctorate in communication studies at the University of Iowa. He specializes in rhetorical theory and criticism, political communication, and argumentation, addressing in particular problems in reason and ethics.
Fisher has authored, edited, or co-edited five books. His 1995 book on the importance of narration as a mode of human reasoning, Human Communication as Narration: Toward a Philosophy of Reason, Value, and Action, has led to a fundamental rethinking of how people come to apprehend knowledge. He also is author of more than 40 chapters and articles.
Fisher has won a number of awards for service, teaching, and scholarship, including the Speech Communication Association Distinguished Scholar Award. Fisher has held numerous professional offices, including editor of the Quarterly Journal of Speech and the Western Journal of Communication.
Fisher has won a number of awards for service, teaching, and scholarship, including the Speech Communication Association Distinguished Scholar Award. Fisher has held numerous professional offices, including editor of the Quarterly Journal of Speech and the Western Journal of Communication.
The lecture is jointly sponsored by the Communication, Comparative Literature and Sociology departments.
