Yuleng Zeng
11 February, 2020
Without making a case for one side over another you should establish the issue that is at stake (Conjecture, Definition, Quality, Policy) and who the different stakeholders are. The issue would not be interesting, controversial or unsettled if it weren’t the case that there were in some sense competing values (moral or otherwise), interests, costs and probabilities of success at stake. Provide your audience with a CLEAR picture of the competing stakeholders, values, and positions that reflect the complexity inherent and make the issue an important one for us to consider.
The first thing you must do is decide what the primary STASIS (Conjecture, Definition, Quality, Policy) is that you are going to make clear for us. Please state BOTH your topic and the STASIS you are going to focus on at the beginning of your speech. Regardless of which STASIS you select you may include elements of the others. But your speech should reflect the centrality of the STASIS you choose. Build facts and data, history, moral values, policy options into the speech only to the degree that they clarify and focus our attention on the primary STASIS you have selected.
Remember that you only have 4.5-5 minutes. After doing research, collecting data, describing stakeholders, analyzing interests, probabilities of success, costs, consequences, goals and thinking about moral values you should take a step back and think like an architect: “How can I design a well-crafted speech with all of this material? What is essential and what is nonessential? How do I use the limited time most effectively to communicate the complexity of the situation?”
What are the four questions to ask?
Courts. Agree to disagree
Example 1: Tom was discovered burying the body of a man who had been stabbed. The witness did not see Tom stab the victim, but saw only Tom burying the body. Tom claims that he did not kill the victim, for the person was already dead when he found the body. Tom claims that he was performing the natural duty of burying a corpse rather than allowing it to be desecrated.
Example 2: Sean discovered that his coworker Reggie was planning to kidnap and murder a local official. Sean finds some rat poison and sneaks it into Reggie’s drink. Reggie drinks and dies. Sean confesses to killing Reggie and admits that the killing was premeditated murder.
source: examples on Stasis Theory and Pathways of Justice.
More resources
In-class activity: what is the Stasis?
``Men never do evil so cheerfully and thoroughly as when they do it with religious conviction," says Blaise Pascal, the seventeenth-century French philosopher. Such a statement can readily be applied to some of the laws in the United States. A good example are the laws against the sale and possession of heroin. Our society has decided that heroin consumption is not good for the individual. On this I personally agree. But the question is whether we should outlaw those things which most of us agree are not good for the individual. (Walter E. William, “The Freedom to Destroy Yourself”)
I, a white male, have suffered from affirmative action. A major University told me they would love to hire me. But the department was all white and all male, and they were looking to hire a minority woman. I have been denied the chance to make a living because I am white and male. Yet I remain convinced that affirmative action is good social policy … Affirmative action may not always be fair. But I’m willing to take second best if overall fairness is achieved. After all, for biblical Christians, fairness — often translated in our Bibles as “justice” or “righteousness” — is a fundamental principle by which God calls us to live. And affirmative action is an appropriate part of a larger program aimed at achieving the godly goal of putting others’ welfare before my own. (Paul R. Spickard, “Why I Believe in Affirmative Action”)
source: These examples are taken from the Critical Reading Mini-Lessons offered at Brigham Young University.
Why do I need to care about this theory?
Discuss the example of abortion debate and why stasis is not achieved?
Let us read this op-ed at the Wall Steet Journal by Brett Kavanaugh: I Am an Independent, Impartial Judge. Discuss in small groups about the following question.
What is the stasis here?
Who are the intended audience? What is the purpose of this article?
Are you convinced? Why or why not?
In-class activity: what is your Stasis?
Summarize and reflect on your stasis
This essay, Reasoning About an Ethical Issue, is situated between the first and second speech, Imagining Advocacy and Discovering an Issue. It should serve partially as a transition from the one to the other. In the Discovering an Issue speech you are looking to establish what some of the competing facts, values, interpretations and interests are in the problem you selected, defining who the stakeholders are, and setting up what is at issue between competing groups. Here you are beginning that work by investigating the moral dimensions of the problem that make it difficult of resolution without trying to establish a resolution.
What we are finding in our readings is that neither the theoretical foundation for ethical judgments is settled, nor are the meanings given to any of the important values on which many of our ethical judgments hinge. In this essay you have the opportunity to make clear how ethical concerns and values, both theoretical and practical, provide context for the problem and more than likely exist in a kind of problematic tension.
Please continue to avoid arguing for a solution at this point. But you should try and persuade your reader about which theories and values give the problem an ethical dimension, clarify the meaning of those theories and values, and explain how the tension in those values makes difficult an easy or ready solution (even if you think you have one).
One way to imagine this assignment is to imagine ethical values as having color. Your job is to paint on a canvass the texture, hue, and richness of ethical considerations in your problem. The result should provide the reader with insight, clarity, and a sense of the tension and uneasy complexity of the moral domain as it contextualizes your exigence.
What is the meaning of moral terms? What other values are presupposed? What is the theoretical foundation of the moral values at play in the problem? How are the values related or in tension? How could the problem change moral “color” if viewed from a different perspective? In what sense would viewing the problem from one perspective cancel values that would otherwise be visible? What are the particular factual or historical considerations that give the problem the moral hue it has?
Here is your lucky number: 20
Think of the following question: How many countries in Africa are part of the United Nations?
Do you think the answer is higher or lower than the number you were shown (20)?
What do you think is the true number (of African countries in the UN)? Write it down, please.
Question 2: “Imagine that the US is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed. Assume that the exact scientific estimates of the consequences of the programs are as follows.”
Program A: If Program A is adopted, 200 people will be saved.
Program B: If Program B is adopted, there is 1/3 probability that 600 people will be saved, and 2/3 probability that no people will be saved.
Which of the two programs would you favor? A or B.
Here is your lucky number: 60
Think of the following question: How many countries in Africa are part of the United Nations?
Do you think the answer is higher or lower than the number you were shown (60)?
What do you think is the true number (of African countries in the UN)? Write it down, please.
Question 2: “Imagine that the US is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed. Assume that the exact scientific estimates of the consequences of the programs are as follows.”
Program C: If Program C is adopted 400 people will die.
Program D: If Program D is adopted there is 1/3 probability that nobody will die, and 2/3 probability that 600 people will die.
Which of the two programs would you favor? C or D?
Here are two articles concerning US immigration policy: Marshall Fitz’s “The Immigration Enforcement Paradox” from americanprogress.org and the editorial “Criminal Aliens” from fairus.org.
Let us open Voyant. Follow the instructor’s demonstration to copy and paste the articles into voyant and compare the two texts. Play around and look for:
More reading: Freedom or Stability: Terministic Screens of World Politics and Their Rhetorics.
“Democrats and Republicans tend to have very different moral foundations. Whereas Democrats are more likely to pay attention to values like fairness, reciprocity and doing no harm in determining what is moral, Republicans are more likely to pay attention to things like in-group loyalty, respect for authority, and purity.” Two interesting examples:
“environmental issues are reframed in terms of the conservative value of purity – emphasizing the importance of keeping our forests, drinking water, and skies pure – conservatives are much more likely to support this cause.”
“reframing this cause to emphasise fairness – stating how the military can help the poor and disadvantaged and provide people with a reliable salary – makes liberals more likely to support increasing military spending.”
More reading on the research: From Gulf to Bridge: When Do Moral Arguments Facilitate Political Influence?. Another source: The power of framing: It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.
Who supports Trump and why? Discuss (intellectually!) in small groups.
Different moral worldviews originate from two worldviews about family: Nurturant Parent and Strict Father family. Here is a clip: The Left, the Right, and the Family View of Government.
Other topics: Direct vs. Systemic Causation; Political Correctness
Negating a frame.
His suggestion to Clinton: “constantly repeat your position, and avoid repeating Trump’s false claims.” Clinton Campaign’s response.
Some mechanisms:
Grammar: Radical Islamic terrorists.
More examples on framing: Trump’s ‘public charge’ rule. Chain migration.
source: George Lakoff on Understand Trump. Read more on George Lakoff’s “Framing 101”.
Importance of frame: Yes! Frame to facilitate conversation.
Always reframing? A note on why we are not doing it in this class.
The in-class activity of terministic screens is drawn from Visualizing and Analyzing Terministic Screens with Voyant. Here is another resource on Framing and Framing Theory (Compiled for Management 360).
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