DOCUMENT RESUME ED 314 807 CS 507 036 AUTHOR Mackin, Jim TITLE Beyond Cultural Relativism: An Ecological Model for Rhetorical Ethics. PUB DATE Nov 89 NOTE 8p.; Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Speech Communication Association (75th, San Francisco, CA, November 18-21, 1989). PUB TYPE Speeches/Conference Papers (150)-- Viewpoints (120) -- Reports - Evaluative/Feasibility (142) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Communication Research; Cultural Context; Ecclogy; *Ethics; *Models; Moral Values; Research Nee0s; *Rhetoric IDENTIFIERS Aristotle; Communication Theory; *Cultural Relativism ABSTRACT A model intended to overcome the cultural relativism of determining what is an ethical act draws an analogy to environmental studies. Beginning with the concepts of "telos" (final purpose) and "archai" (priority), the notion ofan ecosystem of ethics avoids limitation to a particular historical definitionof good. Since the telos of human life is the quest for the good,a communicative ecosystem's virtues are those which enable its members to seek the good. An ideal communicative system supports all parts equally, and the parts in turn support the system. The telosof the individual and of the system are interrelated; both must be taken into account in making ethical decisions. The practice of living ethically will include system building and transforming. How to help the present system become more like the ideal without making the system less viable is the central question. Combining the notionsof public and private into a systems relationship should increase understanding of the problem of morality, but also will raisenew inquiries. (Twenty-five notes are included.) (SG) ****************************.****************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best thatcan be made from the original document. k****t***************************************************************** BEYOND CULTURAL RELATIVISM AN ECOLOGICAL MODEL FORRHETORICAL ETHICS U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION by Jim Mackin Office of Eu icationai Research and Improvement "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY Dept. of Communication CENTER (ERIC) This document has been reproduced as Tulane University received from the person or organization -3-7-161 Mackin originating it New Orleans, LA 70118 Points of view or opinions slated in this docu TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES ment do not necessarily represent official INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)." BITNET: COO 1 AKF@TCS V M OERI position or policy Aayonc who has taught communication ethics is morality.Movement toward universality is taken to be aware of the difficulty in achieving a consensus on how to moral growth, but why that should be is not explained. evaluate any given action.Surveys of the field of While her approach offers sonic valuable insights into the communication ethics would generally lead us to conclude problem, I don't believe she has escaped the chargc of that it is impossible to find even a common ground for cultural relativism. argument among most of the competing theories.' We In my own study of the problem, I have found usually offer a smorgasbord of competing theories and that a synthesis of Condit's concern with the public and hope that our students make a good choice. The problem Alasdair Machityress focus on the individual offersa is not just that we cannot come to agreementon what possible escape from cultural relativism.'What I would would be an ethical act of communication ina particular like to do in this paper is provide a model that balances situation but that we cannot even agreeon what would private and public interests and that can he used to constitute an ethical act of communication in general. evaluate our own cultural ethical standards.Borrowing The smorgasbord we offer varies, but it usually from environmental studies, I propose an ,xological model includes at least three varieties of ethical fare.For those that relates the Mos of any communicative or social who follow the contemporary version of the Humean system to the tclos of the individual. A cominunicative argument that facts and values are separated by an system is an ecosystem wheel it nurtures the individuals uncrossable gap, ethical argument is emotive argument and within it in their quest for the good.Admittedly, there arc so reducible to individual sentiments or tastes.Argument many different ways an ecosystem could develop and still over subjective taste is a waste of time; de_gustibus non nurture its individual members; no given system can serve est disputanduin, On the other hand, those who have as a transcendental model for communicative ecosystems. sought to avoid the Humean problem by basing ethics ina But the formal concept that a functioning ecosystem given society's claims upon the individualseem to be supports its constituent members and that its functioning subject to the charge of cultural relativism. The rhetoric members fill a niche in the ecosystem provides the basic of Hitler and Goebbels may not live up toour cultural principle that transcends cultures while avoidinga dogmatic standards; we can give "good reasons" not to accept their definition of what should constitute the good for the model of rhetoric in our society.But a nco-Nazi might individual or for ape culture in any given else.The reply that our cultural standards do not comprehend Nazi formal principle of the ecological ethic serves only to rhetoric and so simply do not apply. Toescape cultural provide a teleological ground for public moral argument relativism, the dogmatists of different persuasion; offer about what constitutes the good in a givencase of transcendent definitions of the good from wine', specific communication.In this sense, what I mu offering is a rules for action arc derived as in the Scholastic model. metacthical pound for rhetorical ethics--a means of With an a priori definition of good, the dogmatists evaluating how well we are crafting our public morality. foreclose argument at any level beyond casuistry. I will begin by examining some basic principles, Casuistic argument can only be condom(' within the given or archai, of an ethic based on the ecological model.'the tradition that accepts the dogmatic definition of the good. term archai in Greek suggests priority in time as well as Given the current alternatives, the question for priority in authority; thus the English language has derived communication ethics is. is it possible to avoid both archeology, and hierarchy from the term. The Greek subjectivism or relativism on one hand and dogmatismon term is appropriate because, in fact, the them), I propose the other?Celeste Condit has proposed that we can here is heavily indebted to the functional approach to escape this dilemma by accepting a view of public morals contained in Aristotelian ethics, especiallyas further morality as rhetorically constructed and affected by developed by Maellityre.So in one sense the proposed objective as well as subjective factors.' theory returns to a more archaic concept of ethics. I agree with Condit's overall project, but Iam not However, the principles proposed here seek to hanseend sure that she has solved the. problem. When she tries to the cultural relativism inherent in both Aristotle's and show Ns how rhetoric can improve public morality, MacIntyre's systems by anchoring the principles in the she offers us no means ,..:;I ,d ng what is to count as formal properites of the communicative ecosystem rather improvement. Of coin, agree that the than in a particular cultural tradition.Just as we must live inclusion of Blacks intl., lusticc was a public in a biological ecosystem, we must necessarily moral advance; but the f, ireement does not communicate in a communicative ecosystem.However provide a standard by which we can know thatwe have symbolism and communication may have arisen, they must improved. The problem seems to be that Condit, in have arisen out of a relationship between people.As correcting the errors of the "privatizers," hr. not offeredus communication developed, the nature of that relationship a means of evaluating the actual state of our public was altered folo.er; but the Net that communication must 2 take place within a system of relationships has not avoids Hume's prohlem of fact and value.Value is a changed. Each of us learned to communicate withina factual claim about a given person's functioning within a system of relationships, most often, a family.As in the community. To say that a person ought to perlOrin a 'biological ecosystem, the particular form or culture of the given duty is comparable to saying that a computer ought communicative ecosystem is contingent upon historical to run the necessary software programs. Only when the circumstances. The Aristotelian version of ethics is based individual element is removed from its functional in a particular subculture of Athenian aristocrats.As a relationships does an is-ought dilemma arise. result, while suggesting a profitable approach to ethics, Machityre's major contribution to the Aristotelian Aristotle's ethics lack the authority of true archai ina ethic is anchoring the Mos of the individual in that multicultural society.Nevertheless, Aristotle's concepts person's own narrative of his or her life.Much of modern represent the reflections of a keen mind observing a thought is incapable of visualizing the human life as a particular historical ecosystem and so can help informan unity.In Sartre's existentialism, the individual is separated ecological model. from the roles that person plays; in Go ffman's sociology, The archai of an ecological ethic consist ofa life is a series of unconnected episodes.But in reinterpretation of key concepts in ethical theory-- virtue MacIntyre's concept of selfhood, the unity of the. self (arete), the telos of an individual life, practice (praxis), and "resides in the unity of a narrative which links birth tolife the mean (meson vs. hoineorhesis)--in light of the formal to death as variative beginning to middle lo end.' properties of communicative ecosystems.