THE UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR AND HIS POLITICAL FREEDOM

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MEMORY, ESSENCES AND ETHICS: RICHARD M. WEAVER\u27S THEORY OF ETHICAL PUBLIC SPEAKING

This work attempts to provide an ethical approach to rhetorical criticism that is based upon the writings of Richard M. Weaver. During his rather short life of 53 years, Weaver wrote extensively about the proper service of rhetoric. Generally, he was convinced that public speaking should advise society emphasizing the improvement of the lot of the individual. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights were written to preserve important essences or universals that had been proven worthy by the test of time. The Constitution, then, is secondary to a culture\u27s memory of those things that ought to be. Weaver develops a list of four arguments that he considers to be ethical. First, he lists argument from definition, then similarity, then cause and effect and finally authority. All are ethical but the most ethical and honorable argument is from definition or universals and essences which are preserved through memory. Argument from circumstance is no argument at all unless it can be related to higher principles. If a speaker argues for action based only upon circumstance, his or her ethical principles should become suspect. This research develops a rhetorical-ethical theory of speech criticism that can be applied effectively to current public speaking events, and therefore could form the basis for future research using this methodology