Respect, Rhetoric, and the Psychology of Persuasion

Colin Marshall’s seminar (developed in partnership with Ian Schnee) explores how ethically permissible persuasion can be accomplished, with particular attention to issues of moral respect, the ethics of rhetoric, and relevant work in social psychology (in particular, the Elaboration Likelihood Model and Terror Management Theory). Students will produce ethical and psychological analyses of cases of attempted persuasion from outside the academy and propose a respectful intervention in some important non-academic debate.