Ethics in Rhetoric
Weaver, Burke, Plato, Cicero, Quintilian Booth
Before one can discuss the ethics of rhetoric, one must first define what “ethical” and “unethical” rhetoric is. Ethical rhetoric refers to rhetoric that searches for or reveals the truth; it is not deceptive and works toward the greater good of the people. On the other hand, unethical rhetoric denies the existence of a truth; it is concerned with persuasion for selfish ends or for the sake of persuasion itself.
Plato
Though Plato believed that there is no such thing as a good rhetorician, he explains his ideal orator as one who will help those around him reach truth; he will not use rhetoric to persuade to belief or to distract from truth, but will use it as a tool to find or reveal knowledge through Socratic dialogue. In the Gorgias, Plato’s Socrates states that there is both a false and a true knowledge, but the greatest evil is false opinion. Thus, he implies that any rhetoric that propagates this false opinion is unethical because it keeps the listener from truth. In fact, the best rhetoric will be used only to engender justice and remove injustice, breed temperance and cut off licentiousness, and produce virtue and expel vice; the best orators change citizens from worse to better. Any other rhetoric or rhetorician does a disservice to the people. Plato distrusts rhetoric, but his commitment to finding truth aligns him with a universal ethic, not really an ethics of rhetoric. However, his notions pave the way for future ethical rhetoricians.
Quintilian/ Cicero
Quintilian believes that rhetoric is virtuous because a good orator must be a virtuous person (“good man speaking well”); an immoral person could never be a rhetorician because they are deficient in wisdom, distracted with cares and remorse, and don’t have authority on virtue/morality. Quintilian appears ot be arguing for an ethical rhetoric. Whenever possible, the orator should argue the truth; however, when such is not possible, s/he may argue what is like truth, or the closest thing to it. Later, he states that while an orator should not lead an audience away from truth, sometimes the orator may be justified in misleading the audience when it is in their best interests. Here, Quintilian strays from the purely ethical rhetoric he originally propagates because he allows for opportunities for the orator to lead the audience astray; however, he maintains an ethical stance because he specifies that this can only happen when it will be to the benefit of the audience, and not to the orator.
Cicero follows from Quintilian’s notion of a virtuous orator: the “complete orator” not only upholds his own dignity by remaining honorable, but he also works toward the safety and security of his own country. Cicero also devised the term “doctus orator” for the learned orator who knows everything—the good, true, and beautiful—and works to show them to his audience in order to evoke conviction. An orator cannot be misleading, but Cicero also acknowledges that orators deal with the uncertain and therefore may have no grasp of their subject; thus, they may be unintentionally misleading. Cicero also acknowledges the importance of audience in oratory: the orator must adapt their speaking to the crowd, but they should remain genuine and not put on an act.
Both Quintilian and Cicero support an ethical rhetorician, but acknowledge that rhetoric itself can go awry in practice. The rhetorician should not intentionally mislead, both argue, but sometimes s/he may need to do so in order to protect the people of the city. Likewise, the orator must adapt to the crowd’s subjectivity, so the orator may not be able to directly address truth but would need to instead speak something as like to truth as possible, again for their best interests. As such, neither Quintilian nor Cicero promote a fully ethical rhetoric that always supports the truth, but it seems like they are realistic in acknowledging that sometimes the best way to promote the truth is to promote something like it for the good of the audience.
Burke
In A Rhetoric of Motives, Burke coined the term “identification” to refer to any instance in which a speaker aligns his or her values with the audience’s in order to maximize persuasion, whether sincerely or not. Such identification causes the audience to respond emotionally to the speaker; the rapport the speaker creates with the listeners causes them to trust and believe him or her more readily because, when a speaker identifies him or herself with another, they are “substantially one” with each other. In other words, when A identifies with B, to use Burke’s example, A and B are substantially the same at the intersection of that identification but each “remains unique, an individual locus of motives.” When a rhetorician can achieve this level of simultaneous substantiation and consubstantiation through identification, Burke argues that he or she is at his or her most persuasive: “a speaker persuades an audience by the use of stylistic identifications… to establish a rapport” (1340). However, Burke acknowledges that this moment of identification could be completely fabricated. The speaker could tell the audience what they want to hear just so he or she can evoke that emotional response and win them over, which leads to a distortion of any possible truth. Burke does not caution against this deception; he is more concerned with the possibility the moment of identification can create.
While discussing identification and persuasion, Burke is more concerned with the possibilities of persuasion and how one can use identification to achieve it successfully. Though he points out that the purpose of identification is to cause “the audience to identify itself with the speaker’s interests” (1340), and that this identification can sometimes be misleading or untruthful, he does not caution against using identification as a means to persuasion. As such, Burke is not concerned with ethics or truth; he instead supports the use of rhetoric in order to win an argument or successfully persuade an audience with little regard for truth.
Weaver
Weaver does not refer directly to “identification” in the Burkean sense, but he comes close to it. He explains that, since it goes beyond logic and appeals to a person’s emotions, rhetoric must take into account the audience and how they react subjectively to their hopes and fears. Thus, Weaver echoes Aristotle when he states that before a speaker can decide with which aspect of his/her audience to identify, s/he must first take stock of the audience and decide how best to appeal to them. It seems at first that Weaver is supporting the same potentially unethical rhetoric as Burke, but his later arguments clarify that he is very concerned with an ethics of rhetoric.
Weaver is concerned with the ethical responsibilities of rhetoric. He explains that the moment we speak, we have given incentive to other people for them to look at the world in the same way that we do. He acknowledges that this incentive can be the source of a lot of power to affect people both for good and for ill. Weaver aligns himself with Quintilian’s notion that the true orator is a good man speaking well. Weaver follows in Plato’s footsteps in that he also believes rhetoric can be a way to find truth. He also states in “The Phaedrus and the Nature of Rhetoric” that rhetoric at its truest seeks to show people better versions of themselves in order to perfect humanity, thus highlighting his belief that rhetoric carries with it an ethical responsibility. Weaver is against using rhetoric for deception, but believes rhetoric has the power to change the world for the better. He appears to most accurately align himself with a purely ethical rhetoric.
Booth
Booth indirectly references Plato’s Socratic dialogue when he laments that rhetoricians do not engage in dialectic in order to find a common ground; he places a high value on two people discoursing together in a way that allows them to concede to good reasons. In this way, he supports engaging in the ideal Socratic dialogue, allowing each side an equal opportunity to express its point and deliberate on the opposition’s in order to arrive at some form of ultimate truth. Similarly, Booth calls for these dialogues to work as tools that will allow the discoursers “to rely on our common sense” in order to “trust whatever standards of validation our reasonings together lead us to” (1499). In other words, Booth is proposing a rhetoric of assent wherein we must grant credence to what people agree on unless you have strong reason not to; indeed, one should approach a rhetorical moment with assent instead of doubt, thus allowing themselves to be persuaded by good reasons. Like Weaver, Booth acknowledges that when we speak we influence the world. He argues that because we make each other through language, we should do it well by not only allowing our minds to change for each other’s good reasons but also by not misleading each other.
To this end, Booth proposes that rhetoricians converse until they can establish a common ground upon which they might be able to unify the field of rhetoric while also eliminating unethical rhetoric. He concludes by expressing his pessimism that this “revitalized rhetoric” will ever happen (let alone that it will ever successfully eradicate deceit and disagreement), but he argues that we must at least try to find commonality in order to unify the field. Booth proposes an ethical rhetoric similar to Plato’s whereby people engage in dialogue in order to arrive at the truth together. However, Booth is less concerned with finding truth, and more concerned with the process of inquiry as constructing each other’s subjectivities.
If I had to answer a question on this theme
I would start by clarifying how I define ethical/unethical rhetoric, then explain how the various theorists address the issue. One key thing to bring up is that each theorist acknowledges ethics as a gray area. Cicero and Qunitilian admit that there are moments when rhetoric may need to skew the truth (but only when it’s for the audience’s best interests); Burke sees the end goal of rhetoric to be winning an argument and identification as a way of doing so, whether sincerely or not; Weaver most explicitly calls for an ethical, responsible rhetoric, but even he acknowledges that the rhetorician may need to adapt him/herself to the audience; and Booth outlines a plan for a unified, ethical rhetoric, but expresses pessimism that it will ever actually happen.
Exam. Play. 