Ethics in Human Communication

All forms of human communication—from political discourse, journalism, and advertising to teaching and interpersonal talk—engender ethical issues. What are our responsibilities and obligations as communicators? What ethical standards are appropriate to various kinds of communication? What legitimizes one proposed set of ethical standards versus others? How can citizens evaluate the communication ethics of political leaders and candidates? How does communication function in the moral development of individuals and communities? Professor Christopher Johnstone has spent over 30 years examining such questions, both in his scholarly research and in his teaching at Penn State. His goal has been to illuminate a variety of ethical issues that arises whenever people choose to communicate with each other, and to investigate different approaches to developing ethical standards for judging communication. Examples of these efforts can be found among the publications and scholarly presentations listed below.

Johnstone, C. L. (2002). Aristotle=s Ethical Theory in the Contemporary World: Logos,
Phrone^sis, and the Moral Life. In Clifford Christians and Sharon Bracci, eds.,
Moral Engagement in Public Life: Theorists for Contemporary Ethics. New York:
Peter Lang, pp. 16-34.

_____________ (2001). Rhetoric, Civic Consciousness, and Civic Conscience: The
Invention of Citizenship in Classical Greece. Advances in the History of Rhetoric
5:1-9.

_____________ (1996). Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Groundless Grounds for
Communication Ethics. Top Three Competitive Paper, Eastern Communication
Association Convention.

_____________ (1995). Evolution, Speech, and Morality: Toward a Rhetoric of
Survival. Dialogue and Universalism 5: 85-104.

_____________ (1995). Reagan, Rhetoric and the Public Philosophy: Ethics and
Politics in the1984 Campaign. The Southern Communication Journal 60: 93-108.

_____________ (1990). Academic Freedom in the Speech Communication Classroom:
Toward an Ethics for Teaching. ACA Bulletin: 63-70.

_____________ (1983). Communication and Responsibility: Teaching Ethics in Human
Communication. Texas Speech Communication Journal 8: 3-8.

_____________ (1983). Dewey, Ethics, and Rhetoric: Toward a Contemporary
Conception of Practical Wisdom. Philosophy and Rhetoric 16: 185-207.

_____________ (1981). Ethics, Wisdom, and the Mission of Contemporary Rhetoric:
The Realization of Human Being. Central States Speech Journal 32: 177-188.

_____________ (1980). An Aristotelian Trilogy: Ethics, Rhetoric, Politics, and the
Search for Moral Truth. Philosophy and Rhetoric 13: 1-24.

Theory, Practice, and Context in Classical Rhetoric

How did the art of persuasion develop in ancient Greece? What were the cultural,
intellectual, philosophical, and physical contexts in which this art took form? How did
these contexts shape the theory and performance of rhetoric? For more than two
decades, professor Christopher Johnstone has examined these and related questions in
articles, chapters, and professional papers in an effort to illuminate the philosophical and
cultural underpinnings of classical rhetoric, and to clarify the performative character of rhetoric as an embodied art. Examples of his inquiries include the following:

ASocrates,@ in Michelle Ballif and Michael G. Moran, eds., Classical Rhetorics and Rhetoricians. Praeger Press, 2005. Pp. 352-57.

ASophistic Wisdom: Politike^ Arete^ and Logosophia,@ paper, NCA, Fall 2004
(Chicago).

A>Speech is a Powerful Lord=: Speech, Sound, and Enchantment in Greek Oratorical
Performance,@ paper, NCA, Fall 2004 (Chicago).

"Toward a Post Mythic Spirituality: God, Nature, and Soul in Early Greek Thought,"
paper, NCA, Fall 2001 (Atlanta).

ACommunicating in Classical Contexts: The Centrality of Delivery.@ Quarterly Journal
of Speech 87 (2001): 121-143.

AThe Enthymeme,@ in Thomas O. Sloane, ed., The Encyclopedia of Rhetoric. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2001. Pp. 247-250.

APractical Wisdom,@ in The Encyclopedia of Rhetoric, pp. 631-635.

APhilosophy: Perennial Topics and Terms,@ in The Encyclopedia of Rhetoric, pp. 592-
601.

ASinging the Muses= Song: Myth, Wisdom, and Speech in Ancient Greece,@ paper, NCA,
Fall 1999 (Chicago).

AContextualizing Theory: Teaching the History of Rhetoric as Cultural Praxis,@ Eastern
Communication Association Rhetoric and Public Address Fall Conference, Fall
1999 (Bloomsburg, PA).

ATheology and the Emergence of Cosmology in Early Greek Thought,@ competitive paper, Third Annual Symposium on AHumanity, Astronomy, and the Cosmos,@ The Brock Philosophical Society and The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, January 1998 (St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada).

AListening to the Logos: Speech and the Coming of Wisdom in Ancient Greece,@ paper,
NCA, Fall 1997 (Chicago).

"Introduction: The Origins of the Rhetorical in Archaic Greece," in C. L. Johnstone, ed.
Theory, Text, Context. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996. Pp. 1-18.

"Rethinking the Athenian Political Process: Deliberative Oratory and the Problem of the
Pnyx," in Theory, Text, Context, pp. 97-128.

AThe Eros of Philosophic Conversation: Plato=s Vision of Spiritual Lovemaking," paper,
ECA, Spring 1994.

"The Linguistic Legacy of the Presocratics," invited paper presented in honor of Lloyd F. Bitzer, SCA, Fall 1992.

"Illuminating the Logos: Speech, Thought, and Being in the Philosophy of Heraclitus,"
paper, ECA, Spring 1989 (Ocean City, MD).

"An Aristotelian Trilogy: Ethics, Rhetoric, Politics, and the Search for Moral Truth," Philosophy and Rhetoric 13 (1980): 1-24.