Aristotle and the Ethics of Business Communication

Abstract

This essay analyzes business communication in order to generate an approach to ethics based in the rhetorical process of corporate life. Through a study of the role of language in creating and disseminating values, the essay first extends the Aristotelian paradigm for ethical communication to the rhetoric of business. Two case studies then show how this model works in practice, while a third case poses questions of ethics and communication for the reader's consideration.An examination of recent scholarship in business communication reveals that comparatively little work has been done on ethics in corporate writing and speaking.' To be sure, numerous studies address corporate ethics, but relatively few works concentrate on the ethics of corporate communication (Rentz and Debs 37; Golen, etal.). Indeed, the former editor of Philosophy and Rhetoric has complained about this problem more generally in studies of ethics and rhetoric, where rhetoric is made &dquo;completely subservient to an ethical standard wholly external to it; rhetoric is to be no more than the means used to achieve an end nonrhetorically certified as good&dquo; (Henry Johnstone 305; see also Minnick 278-81; Schrier 476-77; Wallace, &dquo;Ethical Basis&dquo; 9). The limitations in these existing studies raise an important question : Can an analysis of business communication generate an approach to ethics based in the rhetorical process of corporate life itself? At first glance, this question may seem fundamentally misguided. After all, some of the more routine forms of business writing, such as the resume and the annual report, may seem to have little to do with ethics. However, in a well-known essay entitled &dquo;Language is Sermonic,&dquo; Richard Weaver argues that in the world of actual speech, value-free language has only a putative existence:1. The authors would like to thank Dr. Jeanne W.

Aesop’s Trumpeter, Aristotle’s Orator, and the Technical Communicator

“…Because Aristotle does not evaluate rhetoric apart from its context, he ultimately does not believe it is ethically neutral. He does not evaluate how orators find answers apart from how they articulate them (Kallendorf and Kallendorf 1989). Thus, in Aristotle's rhetorical paradigm, the orator is responsible to see all available means of persuasion and to use appropriate rhetoric so that the audience can respond with virtuous action.…”

“…Kallendorf and Kallendorf (1989) note that scholars have been "rediscovering the flexibility and diversity of classical rhetoric" (55) Gross (2006) justifies classical rhetorical models; that "Techne and Technical Communication" by Jay Gordon (2002) explores the utility of rhetoric; and that "Ethos: Character and Ethics in Technical Writing" by Charles Campbell (1995) argues for a stronger presence of ethos in technical communication. In the second part of their bibliography, Moran and Tebeaux (2012) write that "Ethics and Technical Communication" by Dombrowski (2000) reports that the ethical considerations that follow rhetoric have grown in the past thirty years.…”

“…Aristotle replies to what Plato writes to elevate rhetoric where Plato limited it. Much of what Aristotle considered in his treatise concerns the "matter" of rhetoric: how it intersects with ethics and politics (Duska 2013;Johnson 2004;Kallendorf and Kallendorf 1989;Rorty 2011;Yack 2006). Unlike Aristotle, Plato asserts that rhetoric indirectly relates to absolute truth, and Isocrates links rhetoric directly with truth.…”

“…However, scholars have debated whether Aristotle completely separates rhetoric from ethics. Even though he considers rhetoric an amoral tool, Aristotle prescribes some ethical principles for orators (Duska 2014;Johnstone 1980;Kallendorf and Kallendorf 1989;Katz 1999;Sullivan 2004). According to Aristotle, orators should use rhetoric to present both sides of an argument since rhetoric leads to social action (Garver 1985;Johnstone 1980;McKeon 1947;Miller 2004).…”

“…Aristotle suggests that orators argue both sides of an issue so that the audience can determine how to proceed with virtue. Moreover, he notes that orators cannot use rhetoric to manipulate others (Duska 2014;Johnstone 1980;Kallendorf and Kallendorf 1989;Katz 1999;Sullivan 2004). Since Aristotle warns that orators might use rhetoric to accomplish a negative end, he implicitly asserts that language creates both negative and positive meaning.…”