An Other ethics for rhetoric: The ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas and its implications for rhetorical theory and criticism

This dissertation reconsiders the relationship between rhetoric and ethics in response to the ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, which claims that ethics is grounded in the "face" and "call" of the Other. It accepts Levinas's reconception of ethics and criticism of rhetoric as an opportunity to reconceptualize and rearticulate the relationship between rhetoric and ethics. Insisting, in disagreement with Levinas, that the encounter with the Other is always ideologically framed, chapter one articulates an "Other ethics for rhetoric" in which ethics is the end/goal of rhetoric. Chapter two clarifies this view through comparisons with several standard approaches to communication ethics.;With an initial conception of an Other-centered ethics for rhetoric, chapter three examines the roles of self and Other in the communicative encounter. Pursuing Levinas's distinction between "ontology" and "metaphysics," chapter three compares the "ethical" theories of Mikhail Bakhtin and Levinas, arguing that Bakhtin's notion of "answerability" characterizes the self's role, while Levinas's notion of "responsibility" characterizes the Other's role. Chapter four further investigates the role of the Other within the communicative encounter through a critique of Jurgen Habermas's "discourse ethics," claiming that the only "necessary and universal presupposition of communication" is the acknowledgement of the Other.;Chapter five then argues, through an examination of the work of Kenneth Burke, for the necessity of attending to both self and Other in rhetorical theory and criticism. Chapter five argues that Burke deflects the Other in his "definition of man" and dramatistic pentad, and offers instead a definition of human beings and dramatistic nonad. Chapter six extends the concepts of ideology and ethics, introduced in chapter one, arguing that a distinction between ideological and ethical imperatives explodes the traditional objectivism/relativism dichotomy. Chapter six concludes by discussing the relationship between ethical rhetoric and political discourse. Finally, chapter seven demonstrates the implications of an Other-centered conception of ethics for rhetorical criticism, by offering an ethical-rhetorical analysis of Nazi discourse, a comparative nonadic analysis of the rhetorics of Adolf Hitler and Martin Luther King, Jr., and analyses of cultural discourses concerning fat women and medical treatment decisions for premature newborns.