Welcome to the Etiquette Blog. Here I will post occasional thoughts about the rules for etiquette in a modern, pluralistic society. My concern is etiquette in the public sphere--the places we meet outside of our homes, places of worship and so on.
Anticipated topics are the etiquette of cell phones, car stereos, movie theaters, public transit, the roadways, sidewalks, restaurants, parking and so on.
Just a little about myself. . .my name is David Silver and I am an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Delaware. My interests are primarily in ethics, but I have other interests as well (in epistemology and in the philosophy of religion). (Click here for my academic homepage) My interest in etiquette is both personal and philosophical. It is a personal matter simply because I interact with lots of people every day, and I often get the strong sense that the rules of "public society" are being broken. My aims here are not so much as to explain why people are unaware of the rules, or choose not to follow them, but simply to help determine what these rules are. I may also venture off into some discussions on what a philosopher would naturally call (to the befuddlement of others) "meta-etiquette". This concerns the status of these rules of etiquette, and what "authority", if any, they hold over us.
I should note that my concern is not the rules of "polite society" or the rules that apply to a particular class of people. The etiquette that I wish to examine is the etiquette that applies to all simply because we owe it out of respect for other people.
posted by Silver @
5:50 PM
|
Monday, December 23, 2002  |
