(When) Can Gossip be Just?

It is difficult to know when to share information with others, especially when that information damages another person’s reputation. The challenge is especially acute for those who work on the Hill, where information is currency. In this talk, Dr. Anderson developed an ‘ethics of gossip’ that both challenges our tendency toward “loose lips” and guides us toward knowing when and how to share damaging information about third parties.

Dr. Matthew Lee Anderson is an Assistant Research Professor of Ethics and Theology at Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion and the Associate Director of Baylor in Washington, and an Associate Fellow at the McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Life at Oxford University, where he completed a D.Phil. in Christian Ethics. He is the founder of the web magazine Mere Orthodoxy, the author of Earthen Vessels: Why Our Bodies Matter to our Faith and The End of our Exploring, and has written for Christianity Today, the Washington Post, and elsewhere. He is also the founder of 100 Days of Dante, the world’s largest online reading group for The Divine Comedy.

Elayne Allen is Managing Editor of Public Discourse. She previously worked as a research assistant in the American Enterprise Institute’s Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies department. Her writings have appeared in Public Discourse, Time, City Journal, American Purpose, Law & Liberty, The American Interest, and Breaking Ground.

Elayne received her BA in Great Texts and Political Philosophy from Baylor University’s Honors College. She is an alumna of the John Jay Fellowship, Hudson Institute Political Studies Program, and Hertog Foundation.