As I was reading through the exerpts from Aristotle, I found myself wondering about the morality of all of the forms of argumentation he lists, and I thought it was interesting that that issue was not raised in the text, considering that rhetoric is supposed to be "an offshoot ...of ethical studies" (6). I suppose that the ethics of rhetoric are outside of the realm of what Aristotle wanted to deal with here, but I kept coming up with ethical questions as I read.
For example, ethos is useful because it "make[s] us think him [the speaker] credible" (5). Of course, many speakers/writers who are not entirely credible are able to make themselves appear credible. Also pathos "stirs their [the audience's] emotions" (6), which also can have ethical problems-- if emotions have to be used to clinch the argument, is the argument really valid? On p. 7, Aristotle points out that something can be "persuasive and credible" merely "because it appears to be proved from other statements that are so." All of these statements, among others, raised ethical questions for me.
I'm not saying we shouldn't use these means of persuasion or that we shouldn't teach our students to use them. These methods can be used in perfectly ethical ways. Actually, teaching our students about these means of argumentation will (hopefully) make them less likely to be deceived by invalid arguments.
As I was thinking about this, I remembered an assignment that we saw in the writing lab last semester where the students were required to argue the opposite from what they really believed on an issue. I think this was a really good exercise in argumentation, but I wonder about asking students to argue something they don't believe. Not to say that I don't do the same in my papers; I'm not always completely convinced by my own arguments. But I'm still not convinced that this is entirely ethical.
Perhaps/probably my concerns are overly legalistic, and our students should be perfectly able to make moral judgments about argumentation for themselves. Does anyone else have any thoughts?
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3 comments:
I think it's great that we're looking at Aristotle and the history of rhetoric. I wonder if it would help students out to know that the system of rhetoric we use now is over 2000 years old, with roots in Ancient Greece. Or maybe they would fall asleep if we tried to give them a history lesson.
Leta,
Plato had the same reservations about the morality of rhetoric that you do. In the Gorgias, he defines rhetoric as a branch of "flattery" and considers it a false art. Here is the passage from Gorgias that I'm thinking about:
Socrates: And now I will endeavour to explain to you more clearly what I mean: The soul and body being two, have two arts corresponding to them: there is the art of politics attending on the soul; and another art attending on the body, of which I know no single name, but which may be described as having two divisions, one of them gymnastic, and the other medicine. And in politics there is a legislative part, which answers to gymnastic, as justice does to medicine; and the two parts run into one another, justice having to do with the same subject as legislation, and medicine with the same subject as gymnastic, but with a difference. Now, seeing that there are these four arts, two attending on the body and two on the soul for their highest good; flattery knowing, or rather guessing their natures, has distributed herself into four shams or simulations of them; she puts on the likeness of some one or other of them, and pretends to be that which she simulates, and having no regard for men's highest interests, is ever making pleasure the bait of the unwary, and deceiving them into the belief that she is of the highest value to them. Cookery simulates the disguise of medicine, and pretends to know what food is the best for the body; and if the physician and the cook had to enter into a competition in which children were the judges, or men who had no more sense than children, as to which of them best understands the goodness or badness of food, the physician would be starved to death. A flattery I deem this to be and of an ignoble sort, Polus, for to you I am now addressing myself, because it aims at pleasure without any thought of the best. An art I do not call it, but only an experience, because it is unable to explain or to give a reason of the nature of its own applications. And I do not call any irrational thing an art; but if you dispute my words, I am prepared to argue in defence of them.
Cookery, then, I maintain to be a flattery which takes the form of medicine; and tiring, in like manner, is a flattery which takes the form of gymnastic, and is knavish, false, ignoble, illiberal, working deceitfully by the help of lines, and colours, and enamels, and garments, and making men affect a spurious beauty to the neglect of the true beauty which is given by gymnastic.
I would rather not be tedious, and therefore I will only say, after the manner of the geometricians (for I think that by this time you will be able to follow)
astiring : gymnastic :: cookery : medicine; or rather,
astiring : gymnastic :: sophistry : legislation; and
as cookery : medicine :: rhetoric : justice. And this, I say, is the natural difference between the rhetorician and the sophist, but by reason of their near connection, they are apt to be jumbled up together; neither do they know what to make of themselves, nor do other men know what to make of them. For if the body presided over itself, and were not under the guidance of the soul, and the soul did not discern and discriminate between cookery and medicine, but the body was made the judge of them, and the rule of judgment was the bodily delight which was given by them, then the word of Anaxagoras, that word with which you, friend Polus, are so well acquainted, would prevail far and wide: "Chaos" would come again, and cookery, health, and medicine would mingle in an indiscriminate mass. And now I have told you my notion of rhetoric, which is, in relation to the soul, what cookery is to the body. I may have been inconsistent in making a long speech, when I would not allow you to discourse at length. But I think that I may be excused, because you did not understand me, and could make no use of my answer when I spoke shortly, and therefore I had to enter into explanation. And if I show an equal inability to make use of yours, I hope that you will speak at equal length; but if I am able to understand you, let me have the benefit of your brevity, as is only fair: And now you may do what you please with my answer.
I'd say it's ethical, but somewhat mercenary. I seem to recall someone other than Plato criticizing the ease with which skilled debaters could switch topics and argue the other side without breaking a sweat. Although I think one has to do this in debate/extemp competition in high school...at the very least, it would help them see that to argue their own point more successfully, they must understand how the other side perceives the issue.
I hate to break out Ayn Rand, but in The Fountainhead there's that slimy character Ellsworth Toohey who's known for being able to argue both sides of an issue successfully.
Maybe a more constructive and less controversial exercise would have them argue an unfamiliar position, but not necessarily one they're morally opposed to. One of my assignment ideas was to have them read a short story and a critical essay on that story, then write a paper in which they disagree with the critic. Rarely will they have conceived of disagreeing with received wisdom of any kind, so this should be a fresh exercise for them without being personally uncomfortable.
Joe
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