In a world of ever-increasing medical technology, a study of the need
for wisdom, truth, and public moral argument
In this provocative and interdisciplinary work, Michael J. Hyde develops
a philosophy of communication ethics in which the practice of rhetoric
plays a fundamental role in promoting and maintaining the health of our
personal and communal existence. He examines how the force of
interruption--the universal human capacity to challenge our complacent
understanding of existence--is a catalyst for moral reflection and moral
behavior.
Hyde begins by reviewing the role of interruption in the history of the
West, from the Big Bang to biblical figures to classical Greek and
contemporary philosophers and rhetoricians to three modern thinkers:
Søren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, and Emmanuel Levinas. These
thinkers demonstrate in various ways that interruption is not simply a
heuristic tool, but constitutive of being human. After developing a
critical assessment of these thinkers, Hyde offers four case studies in
public moral argument that illustrate the applicability of his findings
regarding our interruptive nature. These studies feature a patient
suffering from heart disease, a disability rights activist defending her
personhood, a young woman dying from brain cancer who must justify her
decision, against staunch opposition, to opt for medical aid in dying,
and the benefits and burdens of what is termed our "posthuman future"
with its accelerating achievements in medical science and technology.
These improvements are changing the nature of the interruption that we
are, yet the wisdom of such progress has yet to be determined. Much more
public moral argument is required.
Hyde's philosophy of communication ethics not only calls for the
cultivation of wisdom but also promotes the fight for truth, which is
essential to the livelihood of democracy.
