Received: 21 Mar, 2007
Accepted: 15 May, 2007
International Area Review
Volume 10, Number 1, Spring 2007
Ethics of Expression in Greco-Roman and Chinese
Tradition*1
Park, Woo Soo
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
Abstract
Ethic of expression or ethos is one of the three elements, together with logos and pathos,
comprising the ways of rhetorical persuasion. It is generally assumed both in the West and
the East that the character of a speaker or a writer is embedded in his/her expressions. In
ancient Greece, Plato represents an idealistic view of ethos because he admits no barrier
between the moral virtue(s) of a speaker and his/her expressions. Aristotle is more lenient
and realistic, since he argues for neutrality in value judgment of the art of rhetoric itself.
These two different views of the character and ethics of expression repeat themselves,
mutatis mutandis, in Rome and other European countries. Augustine and other Christian
rhetoricians follow the tracks of Plato; Cicero is nearer to the side of Aristotle. The
realistic view of ethos reaches its acme in Machiavelli’s realpolitik. In the Orient,
especially in China and other Confucian countries, great emphasis is put on the
importance of the ethics of expression. Here writing, both in contents and forms,
represents the proper man. Calligraphy is none other than the way and vehicle to deliver
the moral virtues of a writer. While the idealistic view of ethos is predominant in the
Chinese tradition of rhetorical writing, the contrary view of realism is also found in Hanfei
and other legalists. The question of ethos is irretrievably intertwined with the problem of
subjectivity of a speaking and writing subject.
Key words: rhetoric, persuasion, ethos, ehtopoeia, probability, Confucius, Mencius, HanFei, bian
I. Introduction
Both in the Western and Oriental tradition of rhetoric, ethics of expression
(ethos) is one of the three ways of proofs in persuasion, together with pathos and
logos. Ethos means primarily the noble and virtuous character of a speaker.
However, in the broad historical perspective, ethos is interpreted in two categories;
* This study is done by the grant of the Korea Research Foundation (KRF-2005-AM0033).
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one is that ethos as the noble essence of the speaker is embodied in his speech and
the speech reflects the speaker’s virtues, while the other is that ethos is the verbal
construction of a speaker’s character, regardless of his or her innate nature, whose
character the speaker adapts to the expectations and conditions, both mental and
physical, of the given audiences. According to the latter, the degree of success in
persuasion depends on the mutual fitness between the speaker and the hearer. If
we call the former view of ethos idealistic, we can name the latter realistic and
pragmatic. These two different views of ethos are represented in the history of
western rhetoric by Plato and Aristotle respectively.
Plato argues that speech is in essence the soul of man which affects also the
soul of the audience. He terms this process of soul-speech as a psychagogia, which
means that a speech leads to the soul of the hearer in truth. Plato’s speech is a kind
of homeopathy that comes from the circulated electric energy from one soul to the
other. His view of speech reaches its acme in the Christian doctrine of logos which
is transubstantiated into a body. As in Plato’s soul correspondence through a
speech, Christian rhetoric aims to convert the hearer’s mind by words. Likewise,
oriental rhetoric puts its primary importance on the moral virtues of a speaker,
such as benevolence, justice, and humbleness. It also relies heavily on the
authority and sincerity of the speaker. Oriental rhetoric goes with Plato in its
idealistic view of ethos.
On the other hand, Aristotle, while he agrees with Plato when he argues for the
native nobility of the speaker, also emphasizes on the facility of making morally
plausible character in a speech, well adapted to the proper qualities of the audience.
He actually admits that ethos is possibly an artificial construction manipulated by
and in a language. With Aristotle ethos means both the natural virtues of a speaker
and the character portrayal through a language (ethopoeia). Ethos as a character
description is closely related to the legal practice in ancient Greek polis where the
defendant pleaded his case by reciting from memory the speech which his
logographer wrote for him. The logographer or the ghostwriter had to meet the
urgent and practical need to depict his client’s character favorable to the judgment
of the juries and simultaneously to portray the opponent mean and despicable to
the eyes of the juries. The real character of his client or his opponent was no
concern to the paid writer of a speech. The main task of the logographer was to
assure his success by rendering his client’s character pleasing to the disposition of
the audience. In this practical context, ethos means a character made to seem
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trustworthy or put in a favorable light to the character of the audience. If ethos
means the adaptability of the character of a speaker to the character of the
audience, it extends its range of meaning thereby to ‘a locale, habits, customs, and
a certain culture,’ for the dispositions and criteria of judgment of a given audience
relatively depend on cultural, ethnic and gender differences. Aristotle’s pragmatic
view of ethos finds its strongest proponent in Machiavelli and contemporary
manipulators of mass communication.
II. Ethics of expression in Greek tradition: Plato and Aristotle
We need to investigate further into Plato’s and Aristotle’s view of ethos since
they represent two different readings of ethos. Plato in one of his dialogues,
Gorgias, condemns rhetoric as a kind of cookery that is tasteful to the mouth but
not so profitable to health. In his negative judgment of rhetoric, rhetoric is also
like a dressing up which is merely appealing to the watching eyes. Plato’s
spokesman, Socrates, argues in the dialogue that rhetoric is not a true science or
knowledge because it makes the wrong appear the true. Socrates requires of a
speaker to have some insight into a reality and a true knowledge of things, before
he tries to make a speech. Valued from the criterion of true knowledge and
wisdom, sophists, says Socrates, are fakes when they say that they lead the people,
through their speech and language teaching, to truth and upright actions. Socrates
totally undervalues the sophists’ speeches as empty of truth and morality, since
their speeches necessarily reflect the speakers who are far from the way of truth
and virtues. Socrates thinks that a speech is the very man and a true speech comes
from the true soul. He does not admit any discrepancy between the speaker and his
speech, or between words and things. This kind of idealistic thinking is more fully
developed in Plato’s another dialogue, Phaedrus. In this dialogue Socrates does
not negate rhetoric in toto. He argues for the true or philosophical rhetoric, in
opposition to the sophistic rhetoric which deals with the probable and common
opinions of people and tries to make convictions. Socrates’ philosophical rhetoric
is the dialectical and dialogical art of leading the soul to truth by means of words.
Whereas the sophistic rhetoric is monological in that the sophists try to deliver
one-sidedly their apparent opinions in order to persuade or convince their hearers.
What’s worse, there is no criterion to judge by on the truth or falsity of their
opinions and convictions. “According to Plato, monological rhetoric should only
be used whenever the teacher or speaker is already in possession of real insight
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and true knowledge.”(Ijsseling 9) The monological rhetoric of the sophists, which
largely relies on their authority, is denied its validity because the sophists lacks
true knowledge, which is learned and delivered through dialectical or
philosophical rhetoric. In fine, Socrates and Plato equate true rhetoric with the
very character of a philosopher.
Philosophical rhetoric presupposes the speaker’s knowledge of truth, which he
can know through his study of philosophy. Because the speaker knows truth, he is
of a noble soul and his speech flowing of it has a power to affect the audience.
Plato takes Pericles as his ideal orator. In Phaedrus, when Socrates hears of
Lysias’ speech from the mouth of his beloved young Phaedrus containing the
paradox that the non-lover is the true lover, he complains that the speech of Lysias
is not satisfactory enough in its logical development and in its expressions and he
makes his own speech revised upon it. With this speech of Socrates, Plato
demonstrates his own facility to show up a subtle sophistic rhetoric and thereby
denigrates Lysias as the very opposite of a philosopher. After his speech, Socrates
admits that his speech is not philosophically good, though it is technically and
rhetorically good, because it is morally irresponsible and immoral when it attacks
Eros, the god of love. In consequence he now makes another long speech
discussing the nature of love and soul, comparing it to a charioteer. Plato
introduces the discussion of the true nature of love and soul in order to emphasize
the fact that rhetoric is after all the art of appealing to the soul and of its
correspondence. Socrates’ speech makes it clear that the orator must be a man of
noble soul and moral good, and that his speech must be philosophically and
morally good because it naturally reflects the speaker’s soul and moral excellence.
In fact Plato’s argument is in a vicious circle since it is based on the claim that
only a philosopher knows truth and his words alone are true and effective because
of its truth. In Plato the truth value of a philosophic rhetoric depends on the
authority of the speaker and its ultimate resort is placed on the ad hominem
argument.
III. Ethics of expression in Roman orators and Machiavelli
Plato’s perfect orator reappears in Quintilian and Saint Augustine. Quintilian
defines the orator as the “vir bonus discendi peritus.” He puts much emphasis on
the moral excellence of a speaker and equates ethos with the revelation of moral
character of the speaker.
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Let the orator, then, whom I propose to form, be such a one as is
characterized by the definition of Marcus Cato, a good man skilled in
speaking. But the requisite which Cato has placed first in this definition,
that an orator should be a good man, is naturally of more estimation and
importance and the other. (Institutes 12.1)
This orator of moral excellence must have emotions in his heart and feel them
himself beforehand when he tries to deliver them over to the audience. Therefore
the good speaker ought to have high morality, sincerity, and authenticity.
Quintilian puts ethos in the first place by arguing that an evil man is of necessity a
fool, though he makes ethos inseparable from pathos, the character of the audience,
with his emphasis that the speaker must adapt himself emotionally to the audience.
Quintilian goes back, not to Cicero, but to Isocrates (436-338BCE) in his high
estimation of ethos as moral excellence of a speaker. Isocrates, disciple of Gorgias
and perhaps Socrates, tries to dissociate himself from the sophist school of rhetoric.
He defines ethos as a good will (eunoia) in his speech ‘Antidosis’ which is
surmised to be written around in 354 or 355 when he was 82 years old. Here he
urges an orator not to cease in his efforts to develop and culture his moral
character.
Furthermore, mark you, the man who wishes to persuade people will not
be negligent as to the matter of character; no, on the contrary, he will apply
himself above all to establish a most honorable name among his fellowcitizens; for who does not know that words carry greater conviction when
spoken by a man of great repute than by men who live under a cloud, and that
the argument which is made by a man’s life is of more weight than that which
is furnished by words? Therefore, the stronger a man’s desire to persuade his
hearers, the more zealously will he strive to be honorable and to have the
esteem of his fellow-citizens. (The Rhetorical Tradition, 52)
Isocarates regards the moral character of a speaker as the object of incessant
cultivation rather than as the given at his birth, just as he thinks rhetoric, not as a
natural faculty, but as an art to be developed by discipline and education. Quintilian
inherits the legacy of Isocratean ethos, and both Isocrates and Quintilian overvalue
the public duties of the orator as in politics. Since Quintilian’s ‘goodness’ consists in
an active participation of an individual citizen in the public duties for the state, some
deeds and qualities of a good man which appear immoral to our eyes do not cancel
out the solid validity of his definition of the orator as a good man skilled in speaking.
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(cf. Institutes 12.1.44) Quintilian posits as the final aim of his rhetorical education
fostering up of Roman citizens of morally high qualities.
In Saint Augustine (354-430 CE) is found the Christian version of the
idealistic view of ethos, which descends from Isocrates, Plato and Quintilian. In
his work, De Doctrina Christiana, Augustine tries to combine Plato’s truth and
wisdom with the sophistic art of eloquence. He claims for the efficiency of
rhetoric in defense of truth when it can be used also for the defense and spread of
an evil. Since rhetoric is value-free in itself, its truth value depends on the
intention and moral orientation of its users. For Augustine, the aim of rhetoric is
not to persuade people, but to convert men’s mind, by means of the God’s words,
and to make changes in their ways of life, not only with the pleasure of big
applause, but also in penitent groans and tears. It is wisdom and truth without
eloquence, not eloquence without wisdom and truth that win the day. Then, “the
life of the speaker has greater weight in determining whether he is obediently
heard than any grandness of eloquence.”(4. 27) Augustine finds the final sources
of truth and wisdom in the words of Scripture and Jesus Christ, and equates truth
and wisdom of the speaker with his morality and put them above eloquence.
However, by ascribing the sources of truth and wisdom to the words of Christ, he
blurs the traditional concept of rhetorical ethos. He repeatedly emphasizes the
language and eloquence inspired by the Holy Spirit and therefore puts into
question the concept of subjective ethos and self. Augustine goes beyond Plato and
Quintilian in his Christian view of inspired ethos and eloquence.
Just as there is a kind of eloquence for youth and another kind for age,
that should not be called eloquence which is not appropriate to the person
speaking. Thus there is a kind of eloquence fitting for men most worthy of
the highest authority and clearly inspired by God. Our authors speak with
eloquence of this kind, nor does any other kind become them. Nor is that
kind suitable for others. (4.6)
Here Augustine accepts the classical concept of ethos made in a speech, and
then extends and changes it to the character of the inspired speaker, in the process
engrafting Christian rhetoric upon the trunk of the classical and pagan one. He
certainly stands in the tradition of idealistic ethos, with his high estimation of the
upright soul and discrete wisdom of the speaker. However, Augustine puts the
question of uncertain subjectivity and split self in the Christian context, the
question to be suggested more fully later by the structuralists and poststructuralists
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and psychoanalysts who altogether deconstruct the stable and fixed subjectivity
and self into uncertainty. Now ethos of a speaker is overdetermined by the cultural
and other socio-political factors and systems in which the speaker is positioned. In
Augustine’s case, the ethos of a speaker is overdetermined by the authority and
voice of the God.
In contrast to Plato’s idealistic ethos, the Aristotelian concept of ethos is
realistic and pragmatic. It is true that Aristotle’s definition of ethos is sometimes
confusing because he often uses it in ambiguous ways. First, he defines ethos as a
character revealed in a speech when he says that “[there is persuasion] through
character whenever the speech is spoken in such a way as to make the speaker
worthy of credence.” (1.2.4) Here Aristotle considers ethos as a part of rhetorical
invention, together with pathos and logos. In cases where there is no certainty of
truth and all is in doubt, we rather easily believe honorable people than not. And
Aristotle adds that the credibility and trustworthiness of the speaker should result
from the speech itself, not from any previous opinions and reputation of him. With
him, ethos is surely one of technical proofs. Aristotle makes ethos inseparable
from ethopoeia, for he thinks that ethos is one determining factor in persuasion,
and that the noble character of the speaker should be delivered over to the
audience by means of the speech. Aristotle further says that the speaker makes
himself appear honorable as he deals with such topics as ‘the noble, the honorable,
the shameful, the honest, and the beautiful.’ Out of the same sources of which we
speak, “we shall be able to make both ourselves and any other person worthy of
credence in regard to virtue.” (1.9.1) Honorable topics of a speech make the
speaker seem trustworthy.
The good will, virtue and practical prudence of an orator are more crucial for
persuasion than logical proofs. Rhetoric deals with problems of judgment, both in
cases of deliberative and forensic speeches. Hence it is necessary that the speaker
make himself favorable to the juries and catch the benevolence of the hearers. It is
important for persuasion to adapt the character of a speaker to the character of an
audience. In Aristotle ethos is interwoven with pathos. That’s the very reason why
he explains in detail the characteristics and nature of men classified in three age
groups of the youth, the prime, and the old.(2.12-17) Sometimes Aristotle
confounds ethos as a character-making in a speech with pathos as the character of
an audience. He is not clear as to the question whether ethos is the natural
dispositions and inclinations of a man, or it is an artificial proof made in and
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through language, regardless of his inborn qualities. He likes to use such verbs as
‘appear’ and ‘seem’ in his explanation of ethos. “A person seeming to have all the
qualities [of good will, practical sense, and fair-mindedness] is necessarily
persuasive to the hearers.” (2.1.6) In most cases, Aristotle prefers to consider ethos
as a kind of an artificial and technical proof, the art of logical argument.
When ethos is supposed as a character description well adapted to the
character of an audience, it is focused on the question of how the character of a
speaker appears or seems to the eyes and judgment of the audience. Then ethos
comprises of a subset of pathos. This is evident when Aristotle puts it thus: “when
you would create pathos, don not speak in enthymemes. . . . Nor should you seek
an enthymeme when the speech is being “ethical”: for logical demonstration has
neither ethos nor moral purpose.” (3.17.8) Ethos is defined as a character portrayal
done in and through language in order to instigate the audience’s reaction, either
favorable or otherwise. In this territory shift of ethos from a subject to an object,
ethos becomes to mean some particular ways of life, local habitations and habits,
local cultures, and some other ethnic and social tendencies which both the speaker
and the hearer can share in their life situations. If the good will, prudence and
virtue are dependent on, and must be fitted to, the judgment of the given audience,
the audience should be the judges as to the moral qualities of the speaker. And the
nature of virtues varies according to the concrete situations in which the audience
is placed. Now ethos means something to be manipulated to meet the dispositions
and characters of the audience, and it is a cultural and linguistic construction and
configuration. Ethos is changed to a customer goods.
Aristotelian realistic ethos is more prominent in Cicero (106-43 BCE). Cicero
thinks rhetoric has three major functions: to teach, to move and to delight. The
three functions aim to prove arguments, to bring out emotional reactions of the
audience, and to obtain the benevolence of the audience, respectively. These are
Ciceronian expositions on Aristotle’s logos, pathos and ethos. While saying that
ethos is to capture the good will of the audience, Cicero makes no great difference
between ethos and pathos in their kinds, if not in their degrees. With Cicero, ethos
is much similar to pathos, and it means that the former is more open and
vulnerable to the manipulation by a speech. In his De Partitione Oratoria, Cicero
explains to his son that the introductory part of a forensic speech is employed to
secure for the speaker a friendly hearing, an intelligent hearing, and an attentive
hearing. He adds that the benevolent hearing is concerned with the personality of
the people at issue.
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The first of these topics [To secure a friendly hearing] consists in our
own personality and those of the judges and of our opponents: from which
the first steps to secure goodwill are achieved by extolling our own merits
or worth or virtue of some kind, particularly generosity, sense of duty,
justice and good faith, and by assigning the opposite qualities to our
opponents, and by indicating some reason for or expectation of agreement
with the persons deciding the case. (8.28)
Cicero also argues in his De Oratore that “attributes useful in an advocate are
a mild tone, a countenance expressive of modesty, gentle language, and the faculty
of seeming to be dealing reluctantly and under compulsion with something you are
really anxious to prove.” (2.43.182) In Cicero ethos is mild emotions, in contrast
to strong emotions of pathos. There is only a difference of degree and intensity,
not of a kind, between them. He reverts to Aristotle when he connects the middle
style with ethos.
The view of ethos as an object of manipulations culminates its extremity in
Machiavelli. According to him, political power comes from the popular support,
and the latter relies on common opinions and popular reputation. Therefore the
popular judgment and support derive from the apparent virtues of a prince, not on
the real virtues of him. The prince must play up to the expectations of the people,
like a skillful actor.
It is not, therefore, necessary for a prince to have all the abovementioned qualities [good faith, integrity, clemency, liberality, etc.], but it
is very necessary to seem to have them. I would be even bold to say that to
possess then and always to observe them is dangerous, but to appear to
possess them is useful. Thus it is well to seem merciful, faithful, humane,
sincere, religious, and also to be so. (The Prince 102)
Machiavelli thinks a political or rhetorical situation is of a primary importance,
and the ever-permanent virtues are of little value. He claims that the pursuit of real
virtues leads a ruler to a misfortune. To him, the only meaningful and valuable is
the situational ethics, and ethos has become another name for pathos.
Machiavellian pathos is permeated by cultural differences and it is also situational.
Machiavellian ethos changed into pathos is the extreme case wherein the
Aristotelian ethos as a character made in a speech has gone to its extreme and the
distinction of ethos and pathos is blurred. This Machiavellian ethos finds its
newest version in simulacra and hybrid images of virtual reality in postmodernism.
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IV. Ethics of expression in Chinese tradition.
The traditional views of ethos represented by Plato and Aristotle draw a
similar trajectory in the tradition of Oriental rhetoric. In comparison with the
western tradition, Oriental rhetoric puts more emphasis on the authority and
personality of a speaker. However, the pragmatic view has developed in ancient
China, along with the idealistic view of ethos. In ancient China, the Platonic
idealism is upheld by Confucius and his descendents stressing on moral excellence
of men, while the sophistic and pragmatic rhetoric is represented by Han Fei-tzu,
who is called Machiavelli of the Orient. In the Chinese tradition there is no exactly
equivalent word for ‘rhetoric.’ ‘Bian’ is the nearest word, which means ‘to till
apart, to distinguish, and to argue’ (Kennedy 143, Xing Lu 71). George Kennedy
argues that he “has [have] not found use of argument from probability in ancient
Chinese rhetoric” (151). But when we remind that bian(argumentation) is used
interchangeably with the words meaning in Chinese ‘distinction, classification,
and making changes,’ because of their similarity in pronunciation, the word
“‘bian’ was a rudimentary expression of a Chinese rational process of reasoning”
(Xing Lu 85). In the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States where the social
and political instability and turmoil were in their highest point, the word ‘bian’
also meant, in combination with the word ‘zhi’ (government, control), justice and
proper behavior of the people. In Taoism, the word stands for eloquence. Lao-tzu
says in his Tao-Te Ching that “the greatest eloquent seems to stutter,” (45) and that
“a good man does not argue; he who argues is not a good man” (81). We can see
in both the Confucianism and Taoism eloquence and argumentation are considered
as far from virtues and moral excellence. However, the legalists like Mo-tzu think
rhetoric is in itself value-free, and they argue that the Mandate of Heaven should
be virtuous and skilled in argumentation and eloquence.
Confucius supposes eloquence and disputation are not the attributes of a
virtuous man, for he regards moral excellence and language as inseparably
interwoven. In Confucius’s Analects the word ‘yan’ meaning word, or language is
used over seventy times, but it is never used alone as a verb, or as a noun. It is
always used together with such words denoting moral principles as benevolence,
righteousness, rites, virtue, and trustworthiness (Xing Lu 75). Confucius hates
witty and crafty languages, and commands his disciples “not to speak in such a
way that does not conform to propriety” (12.1). He purposes to restitute the rites
and ceremonies of the Zhou Dynasty, his morally ideal state, and in order to
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achieve his political goal, he tries to correspond speech to behavior. He argues the
rectification of names is the first step on the way to restore the now almost lost
benevolence and righteousness.
When names are not correct, speech will not be appropriate; when
speech is not appropriate, tasks will not be accomplished; when tasks
cannot be accomplished, rites and music do not flourish; when rites and
music do not flourish, punishment will not justify the crimes; when
punishment does not justify the crimes, the common people will not know
where to put their hands and feet. (13.3)
In this quotation, though he hates rhetorical ornaments and carved expressions,
Confucius uses the logical method of sorites and develops his argument from the
small to the great, displaying his logical acuteness. By means of his great emphasis
on the identification of words with substances he argues that social and political
instability should follow when speech is not in accordance with rites. In his
thinking speech is a moral act. Confucius’s concept of the rectification of names
reflects his commitment to the social, political and moral propriety and order by
the power of language transforming a social reality and establishing a new set of
moral values. In essence, Confucianism is a philosophy of language and social
communication. For Confucius, a language is the man, and the man finds his place
in the society through his right use of language. Confucius is a Plato, ascribing the
function and value of a name to its metaphysical ideal. In spite of his negative
view of rhetoric, Confucius is aware of both revolutionary and conservative power
of language. With his rectification of names, which makes a man find his social
position in adapting himself to the socially hierarchical order, Confucius finds his
epigone in Kenneth Burke. Burke thinks the purpose of rhetoric is identification,
not persuasion, and his typical example of identification is a bureaucracy.
Confucius is generally regarded as a man who overvalues writing and
undervalues speeches. However, when we remember that he was an excellent
traveling council and teacher and exhorted his disciples to learn and expand their
knowledge of benevolence, this estimation is not true. He was especially anxious
about the harmful influence of his contemporary ‘bian shi’ (advisers and councils)
who, like the Greek sophists, only sought their private interests, unconcerned with
their public duties and responsibilities. In this context we can understand his
obsession with the moral excellence of a speaker. Because he is well aware of the
danger of flattering and flourished words, he insists on the moral virtues of a
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speaker. When he says that “it is rare, indeed, for man with a cunning words and
an ingratiating face to be benevolent,” (13.59) and “crafty speech will disturb
virtue” (15.27), he seems to negate rhetoric as a whole. But his keen recognition of
the harmful effects of rhetoric does not necessarily lead him to the negation of
rhetoric itself. His emphasis on the moral responsibility of an orator and an adviser
proves the contrary. A person’s fair-mindedness, says Confucius, warrants his
eloquence: “A person of virtue is sure to speak eloquently, but a person who
speaks eloquently is not necessarily virtuous” (14.4). Thus for him, speech and the
speaker can not be conceived to be separable. Like Plato’s philosopher-king,
Confucius takes a junzi(gentleman) as his ideal speaker who is “slow in speech but
quick in action”(4.24). From the first to the last, “speech was an ethical
issue”(Xing Lu 169). Xing Lu evaluates Confucius to have made a happy marriage
between artistic expressions and rational thinking, unlike Plato who separated the
two components (169). But Xing undervalues Plato’s mytho-poetic uses of
language and his rhetorical skill even overtopping the sophistic rhetoric. Confucius
is similar to Plato in that both demand high moral standards of a speaker and
emphasize intentions of the speech much more than expressions and delivery. In
addition they are both critical of the sophistic rhetoric on its biased and morally
wrong orientation toward expressions and private interests.
Mencius inherits the Confucian idealistic ethos of a speaker. Mencius thinks
that a speech must be full of sincerity, and out of sincerity comes the effect of
persuasion. According to him, in order to attain our true nature as a human being,
we have to cultivate a virtue, and that virtue he calls sincerity. When we reach the
ultimate state of sincerity, we would automatically affect other people through our
speech and action. Hence, as Xing Lu puts, “the notion of cheng yan(sincere
speech) was central to Mencius’s theory of speech and persuasion” (175). Thus
Mencius claims that “there has never been a case when total sincerity cannot move
others” (4a.12). Mencius considers sincerity as a kind of a universal principle of
generative energy and out of this ontological energy is derived the power of
persuasive language. He calls this moving energy a qi(energy, power). His qi is the
causal power that makes a man’s moral possible, while accumulated good deeds
are translated into energy. In fact, Mencius’s qi is a moral character that affects on
the mind. If we try to persuade and convince a person, we should reach the
ultimate state of sincerity, that is, the state full of energy. Out of this sincere state
overflows the words of persuasive power. Mencius relates the Confucian concept
of benevolence with his concept of qi, energy, and he explains the effect of
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persuasion as a soul-correspondence between the speaker and the hearer, as in a
circuit of electric power. He is open to the psychological identification of men by
his theory of mutual affection of sincerity. In his scheme of theoretical logic, in the
ultimate state of sincerity it not necessary to use words to effect a persuasion. Here
Mencius seems to build a bridge between Confucianism and Taoism.
Mencius’s theory of sincere speech takes a more mystic touch in Taoism. Laotzu and Zhuang-tzu are skeptical about the necessity of words for persuasion, and
argue that a man of Tao, or a man of the ultimate sincerity, does not need a vehicle
of language. However, they both argue for the necessity of high morality and
intellectual enlightenment of a speaker, and they have an idealistic view of ethos.
Lao-tzu says that “true words are not beautiful and beautiful words are not true,”
and “a good man does not argue and he who argues is not a good man” (81). He
thinks that a language works on the principle of selective exclusion, and words do
not fit with the reality of things. For Lao-tzu, words rather distort and make
obscure reality and our recognition of it. He thus puts into question the
fundamental function of representation of a language. His disclaim of naming goes
quite contrary to Confucius and Mencius in their high claim of right naming for its
epistemological and socio-political functions. For Lao-tzu, absolute knowledge
and truth are obtainable by intuition and meditation, and they are beyond a
linguistic representation. Lao-tzu denies the sufficiency of a language as a ladder
to high truth and true reality, but he does not negate language itself. As I.A.
Richards states, “the sage may teach a doctrine with words. . . .The sage may
avoid words because our power of controlling certain kind of meaning through
them is too slight; but without the use of words in the past he would have had no
doctrine to teach” (230-231). Lao-Tzu is a positive skeptic because he admits the
ultimate truth and wants to teach it, even though he denies the established
language and its values.
For Zhuang-tzu, the problem with his contemporary people is their conformity
to the accepted idea and practices. In the place of the Confucian jungi(gentleman),
he posits zhen ren(true man) as his ideal man who posseses the Keatsean “negative
capability,” emancipated from an enslavement by accepted opinions. In order to
attain a spiritual equilibrium it is necessary to be free from established values and
not to stick to the symbols and signs. Zhuang-tzu thinks a language cannot contain
and communicate our thought. As we need a fish-net to catch fishes, but forget it
once we attain our goal, language is both an instrument and an obstacle at once on
the way to truth (Tao). Since language cannot represent reality in its whole aspects,
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any argumentation with a language makes us see only a partial truth, ‘this’ and
‘that’ of a thing, and mistake ‘this,’ or ‘that’ as a whole. Words cannot be applied
to the Eternal. Due to a language and its limits, there arise distinctions and
differences. Therefore a wise speaker does not speak of distinction based on the
right and the wrong, but assimilates all the differences into a holistic one, and
speaks of enlightenment, not of binary opposites, in the language of paradox and
parables. Zhuang-tzu still needs a language to teach his doctrine of selfenlightenment, though he is skeptical of the rhetorical language that rather creates
disputes and illusory deceptions.
Taoism, together with Confucianism, claims of high morality and sincerity of a
speaker, in spite of their difference on the function of naming and its
representation of reality and truth. This idealism of ethos is opposite to the realistic
pragmatism of such a legalist as Han Fei-tzu(280-233 BCE). Like Machiavelli,
Han Fei-tzu stresses on the political power and its manipulability from the
perspective of a ruler. He is a disciple of Xunzi who taught the evil nature of men.
Unlike moral idealists, he “was pragmatic and utilitarian in his view of the motives
underlying human actions” (Xing Lu 263). Man acts from his self-interest.
The physician sucks patients’ cuts and holds their blood in his mouth,
not because he is intimate with them like a blood relation, but because he
expects profits from them. Likewise, when the cartwright finishes making
carriages, he wants people to be rich and noble, when the carpenter
finishes making coffins, he wants people to die early. Not that the
cartwright is benevolent and the carpenter is cruel, but that unless people
are noble, the carriage will not sell, and unless people die, the coffins will
not be bought. Thus, the carpenter’s motive is not hatred for anybody but
his profits are due to people’s death. (5.17)
Even a ruler as well as common people uses deceptive means in order to satisfy
their selfish gains. Han thinks only laws and decrees can control human self interests.
If the enforcement of laws is not strictly kept, the rules of ceremonies and rites are
easily violated. Unlike the Taoists, Han denies the autonomy of individuals and argues
for the government of the people by an enactment of rules and laws.
Han also claims for the need of deep understanding of human psychology in order
to understand human communications because they are full of trickeries, deceptions
and illusions. In his opinion, the main cause we fail in persuasion and making
convictions is because we fail to understand the hidden motives of our hearers.
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On the whole, the difficult thing about persuading others is not that
one lacks the knowledge needed to state his case nor the audacity to
exercise his ability to the full. On the whole, the difficult thing about
persuasion is to know the mind of the person one is trying to persuade and
to be able to fit one’s words to it. (“On the Difficulties of Persuasion”)
Here Han explains that knowledge of the mind-set of an audience is
prerequisite for persuasion. In an unexpected context, he comes near to Aristotle in
claiming for the need of adapting the character of a speaker to the character of a
hearer. Even like Plato, he argues for the soul-correspondence in persuasion.
However, unlike Plato, Han is emphasizing the practical need to understand the
psychology of an audience and to manipulate it to one’s desires. His soul
understanding is for the satisfaction of one’s self-interests, not for the teaching of
truth and virtue, as is claimed by Plato.
The important thing in persuasion is to learn how to play up the aspects
that the person you are talking to is proud of, and play down the aspects he
is ashamed of. Thus, if the person has some urgent personal desire, you
should show him that it is his public duty to carry it out and urge him not to
delay. If he has some mean objective in mind and yet cannot restrain
himself, you should do your best to point to him whatever admirable aspects
it may have and to minimize the reprehensible ones. . . . Make sure that
there is nothing in your ideas as a whole that will rub him the wrong way,
and then you may exercise your power of rhetoric to the fullest. This is the
way to gain the confidence and intimacy of the person you are addressing
and to make sure that you are able to say all you have to say without
incurring his suspicion. (“On the Difficulties of Persuasion”)
Here Han Fei-tzu repeats Aristotle’s concept of ethos translated into a version of
pathos, and we can find no proper self of a speaker because he is vanished into the
horizon of an audience’s expectations and desires. With Han there exists no dialogue
in a true sense, and the power of persuasion depends on difference of power among
the people concerned. Han is a Machiavellian whose language is that of a play actor.
The more fittingly as the actor impersonates himself into his hearer, the more
successful he is in his appealing to the hearer. Because he believes in authoritative
truth, his dialogue is in a strict sense monological. Unlike moral idealists like
Confucius, Mencius, and Mo-tzu, Han’s authoritative truth does not stem from
moral excellence and sincerity of a speaker, but from the power of the speaker.
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Whoever has the power determines truth values. As Xing Lu says, for Han,
arguments based on probability only produce contradictions and confusions (281).
Han does not admit of any persuasion apart from a practical rhetorical situation,
denying the moral idealism of Confucius and Mencius because he thinks that it only
helps to spread empty views and opinions, and political instability thereof. For him
the principal aim and effect of rhetoric and communication are only achieved by the
subtly calculated adaptation and manipulation of the speaker’s character to the
hidden desires and character of the audience. Moral excellence of a speaker or a bian
shi is meaningless for the purposes. Thus Han considers the function and goal of
rhetoric as a psychological identification between the speaker and the hearer. The
problem with Han’s theory of rhetoric and rhetorical communication is the loss of
the speaking subject. The only criterion of a truth for him is the authoritative power,
and power in the form of laws and decrees enforces persuasion. In his totalitarian
government and control of power, by power and for power, ethos of a speaker is
replaced by the enactment of laws.
V. Conclusion
As we said in the beginning of this paper, ethos, both in the western and
Oriental, especially Chinese, traditions, is ambiguous in its meaning. The first
question with ethos is whether it is natural or artificial. In the sophistic rhetoric,
ethos is a verbal construction. Against this view, Plato claims of a philosophical or
dialectical rhetoric to teach truth and virtues. For him the perfect orator is the man
of wisdom and insight into reality. The perfect orator appeals to the soul of the
hearer and leads it to truth and moral deeds by means of his heuristic dialogue. In
Plato’s scheme of things, philosophical and moral qualities of a speaker come first
before his speech. Plato’s idealistic ethos is inherited by Isocrates, Quintilian, and
Saint Augustine. Aristotle is ambiguous in his definition of ethos. He considers
ethos as a kind of common topics. In this case, ethos is the good will and fairmindedness of a speaker. Simultaneously with his view of ethos as natural moral
qualities of a speaker, Aristotle also defines ethos as a character portrayal done in
a language in order to make a speaker seem trustworthy. Aristotle is eclectic and
tries to combine the Platonic idealism and the sophistic pragmatism in his
‘scientific’ rhetoric. When ethos is considered as a character description
(ethopoeia), it follows of necessity that pathos is interwoven with ethos, since
ethopoeia is done in accordance with the dispositions and expectations of the
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audience. And the character of the given audience varies to the local, cultural, and
racial, and sexual differences. Here ethos introduces cultural relativity and
pluralism into its semantic territory. Cicero goes back to Aristotle in his pragmatic
view of ethos when he explains it in connection with the character of an audience.
This realistic view of ethos is almost totally converged with pathos in the
Machiavellian realpolitik. We are forced to ask if there be a proper self and ethos
in a Machiavellian political speaker, for he is required to play-act and impersonate
himself up to the character of his audience. In the case of a Machiavellian speaker,
the ethos of the speaker as his proper moral qualities is always already
overdetermined by rhetorical situations.
Traditional western views of ethos are also found the Oriental rhetorical
traditions. Confucianism posits moral excellence of a speaker as a quintessential
core of a speech. Here words are a vehicle to carry on the moral principles of
righteousness, justice, benevolence, rites and ceremonies. If the tenor is just and
good, the vehicle is also good and just in consequence. For Confucius and
Mencius, the ideal tenor is a moral man, like a jungi(gentleman). Confucius thinks
the rectification of names reflects the social and political order and even makes it
possible. If a name is alienated from its substance, political disorder follows.
Confucian emphasis on the rectification of names and moral excellence of a
speaker is ideologically conducive to the maintenance of the already established
political and hierarchal social order. The Taoists severely criticize this ideological
nature of the Confucian ethics and its artificial language. Laotzu and Zhuangtzu
put intuition and meditation above language, and they are especially negative of
rhetorical languages. But they do not deny the function of rhetoric in their teaching
of doctrines. Both the Confucians and the Taoists are similar in their high
estimation of the wisdom and enlightenment and moral excellence of a speaker.
Han Fei-tzu regards the idealistic ethos is in vain and helpless in a real political
situation. Like Machiavelli, he thinks real virtues of a speaker only leads him to a
misfortune, for he is plausibly vulnerable to deceptions and manipulations by
selfish people. In order to make convictions, it is inevitable to have a full
psychological understanding of an audience. For Han, the success of a speech
depends on the degree of projection and adaptation of a speaker’s character into
the hidden motives of an audience. His utilitarian and pragmatic view of ethos
ultimately denies a proper meaning of ethos, and his ethos is subjected by the
political power of a ruler. In Han’s totalitarian government, ethos and dialogue are
controlled by the authoritative voice and monologue.
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As we have surveyed, ethos has many different meanings. But it is clear that it
cannot be considered apart from the question of the self and the speaking subject.
The question of ethos becomes more complicated when we come to the theories of
structuralism, poststructuralism, and Lacanian psychoanalysis. These critical
theories deny the concept of a stable and autonomous self. Currently, the ethos of
a speaker seems to be replaced by a logos and systems in which he is positioned.
Attenuation of a subject in the modernism and postmodernism calls our attention
to the problem of ethos of a speaking subject. As ethos is the meeting point of an
individual with his society and culture, the study of ethos requires investigations
into cultural orientations and institutions and ideologies. We still hear from behind
our backs the crying voice of King Lear: “Who is it that can say who I am?” Ethos
is an ethics and ethics always needs the rhetoric of motives.
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