Rhetorics of the Good Life: Social Ontology, Ethics, and Communication
Dr. Omedi Ochieng
Assistant Professor of Communication
Denison University
May 3, 2017 — 3-4:30PM
CMA 5.136 (LBJ Seminar Room)
How ought we to think of the meaning of “ethics” in light of global climate change, resurgent white supremacy, and the everyday cruelties of neoliberal capitalism? In this presentation, I outline what I describe as a non-ideal social ontology as the background against which a robust understanding of ethics ought to be understood. In contrast to the dominant views of ethical interaction which list toward idealism, moralism, and parochialism, a non-ideal social ontology allows for an expansive vision of the “ethical” as a way of life – and thereby invites wide-ranging inquiry into what constitutes good societies and good lives in the twenty-first century. Finally, this presentation seeks to open up space on how we ought to participate in and engage with constitutive institutions such as mass and social media in an age when truth is increasingly seen as partisan, justice is dismissed as utopian, and freedom has been tribalized.
Dr. Omedi Ochieng, an Assistant Professor at Denison University, is the author of Groundwork for the Practice of the Good Life: Politics and Ethics at the Intersection of the North Atlantic and African Philosophy (Routledge, 2017). His areas of specialization include the rhetoric of philosophy, comparative philosophy, and social theory. He has published articles in the International Philosophical Quarterly, Radical Philosophy, and the Western Journal of Communication.