Chapter 2

"Recovering an Ethics for Rhetoric and Writing: Classical and Modern Views."

Porter provides a sound argument for "keeping ethics, rhetoric, and writing together as an intertwined set" (23), alluding to the possibility that this chapter could be a fully-developed book on its own (and may someday be). His discussion begins with the assertion that ethics pertains to individual subjectivities and refers to a process of inquiry that is inseparable from rhetoric. He describes the spectrum of ethics with (1) the right seeing ethics as a static set of guiding principles and (2) the left holding ethics to a suspect position, one that impedes political progress. Here Porter identifies liberation theology as one way of reconceiving ethics from the left (a real theoretical strength in his overall discussion, albeit one that seems underdeveloped). Porter focuses on ethics as phronesis, as practical judgment, and he provides this overview of rhetoric through Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and the thinkers of the New Rhetoric. This overview serves to support Porter's vision of "rhetoric and ethics operating as co-equal participants in the construction of subjectivities and standpoints" (48). To Chapter 3

Main Page | Porter's Previous Work | Guiding Questions | Rhetorical Ethics | Internetworked Writing | Internetworked Classroom | Shaping a Future Ethics Table of Contents | Ch. 1 | Ch. 2 | Ch. 3 | Ch. 4 | Ch. 5 | Ch. 6 | Ch. 7