On the purposes and ends of natural rhetoric

Abstract

Despite traditional viewpoints that see rhetoric as nothing more than a techné or bios, rhetoric may be viewed as being capable of instantiating basic human goods. This paper proposes that rhetoric motivates our capacities for action and brings the processes involved in action - including the bearing of practical reason on them - into accord with virtue, enabling us to exercise practical wisdom in and through prudential judgments so that when these judgments have a direct bearing on others we may say that they are just. © The author 2009.