The Role of the University in Civil Discourse
Audience Member: In the context of contemporary debates and healthcare ethics, one thing that I repeat over and over when teaching ethics is that reasonable people can disagree. But I think this presupposes that reasonable people have respect for one another. And I wonder if anyone would like to comment on how current ideologies might be precluding the possibility of reasonable people disagreeing.
Dr. John Murray:
Very briefly I would say, and ask my colleagues to tell me if I am wrong, that the most virtuous statement that a politician could make at this time would be to say that we have an obligation to look out for each other. And if we don’t believe that, then this democracy isn’t worth anything.
Mr. David Shribman:
I remember when I was a student with President Foley at Dartmouth College in the ’70s, the president of Dartmouth at the time was a Hungarian refugee named John Kemeny. And he used to close Convocation, which occurs next week at Dartmouth, with the same comment. He would say that the question is not: am I my brother’s keeper? The question is: are you your brother’s brother? And that’s a very profound question, and I think that it gets to the heart of what we’re saying. The goal shouldn’t be winning the debate, it should be winning for America, or for the world. And I think that we’ve lost sight of that. And you do that sometimes in times of high contention, but it is the main game here, and I think Dr. Murray is right.
Ms. Sondra Myers:
If that public good, if others—our brothers and sisters—aren’t our responsibility, then what kind of society are we? Martin Luther King once said, in one of his less eloquent speeches, “we’re not asking them to love us; we’re just asking them to get off our backs.” Well, he wanted more than just getting them off their backs; people don’t always love each other, but they have a civic obligation in a pluralistic democratic society. And if that doesn’t operate, if that’s not in the equation, then there are no standards of civility. This, it seems to me, is the ultimate civility—to understand that we are responsible for the public good.
“I repeat over and over when teaching ethics... that reasonable people can disagree. But I think this presupposes that reasonable people have respect for one another.” Audience Member
“The goal shouldn’t be winning the debate, it should be winning for America, or for the world.” David Shribman
“This, it seems to me, is the ultimate civility—to understand that we are responsible for the public good.” Sondra Myers
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