What Chariot?

"It would seem that there may be friendship between a man and himself, when the rational and irrational parts are no longer two things but one thing" Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics B1 Ch4

Unlike Plato, who always saw the irrational, or emotional, side of man as destructive, Aristotle postulates that it is possible for emotion and reason to come into balance. 

Aristotle's statement doesn't match exactly with Plato's allegory. The horses of Plato's chariot were emotion and desire (or mind and body). The charioteer was the soul or reason. The difference between the chariot and Aristotle's idea lies less in how the person is divided than in the intent of the allegory--one to find balance, the other to gain control.  

Turtle in the Road

Almost didn't see this guy. Skidded to a stop and almost clipped him. He hissed at me when I picked him up to move him to the side of the road.

Featherless "Running" Biped

According to legend, Diogenes (who, incidentally, Oscar the Grouch is supposedly based upon) brought a plucked chicken into Plato or Aristotle’s school (legend is a bit iffy here) and declared, “Behold, a man!” He did so because Plato wrote in The Statesman, that Socrates defined man as a featherless biped. This story, humorous in itself, simply illustrates how often Plato’s readers misread the Socratic Dialogues, perhaps because they think philosophy is serious, or simply should be serious.

Even a cursory reading of The Statesman should reveal that the “featherless biped” definition is intended to be ironic—and cutting humor. Our first clue is that the topic of The Statesman is to be “the art of man herding.” From that phrase, Socrates slowly hones his definition of man by first distinguishing them from quadrupeds, and finally coming up with “herds of voluntary bipeds.” 

Today we might use phrases such as “herd mentality,” or “led by the nose.” By defining man in this way, Socrates is pointing out how easily men are led by a strong leader—just like a herd of cows—not the physical attributes of man. 

Aristotle takes man as a biped more seriously. However, he never actually defines man as a biped, he simply says that biped could be one property of man. Even with that he doesn’t actually say that being a biped is a property of man, but only that it’s possible to argue that being a biped is a property of man. 

How strange that both Plato and Aristotle are victims of “sound bites” thousands of years before that particular term was coined.

The Rhetor and the Audience: Why Can't We Be Friends?

In Book Eight of Nicomechean Ethics, Aristotle talks about three kinds of friendships:

"There are therefore three kinds of friendship, equal in number to the things that are lovable; those who love each other for their utility do not love each other for themselves but in virtue of some good which they get from each other. So too with those who love for the sake of pleasure; it is not for their character that men love ready-witted people, but because they find them pleasant. Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in virtue; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good themselves."

As soon as I heard this I realized how these three types of friendships mesh with the problem of rhetorical ethics, particularly the question of whether the rhetoric is engaging the audience or manipulating the audience. As long as the friend relationship is understood by both parties, then the rhetorical moment is ethical. So, as long as the rhetor and the audience realize that their relationship is one of utility, say the relationship between a used car salesman and a customer, or a lawyer and his client, or . . . the relationship is ethical. Most political speeches would fall under this category. The politician has a use for the audience as voters, and the audience has a use for the politician as a leader. In relationships based on pleasure, the same holds true. For instance, Gorgias's "Encomium to Helen" was intended as entertainment. As long as his listeners realized that and didn't assume there was metaphysical significance to his speech, it was ethical. In like mind, virtue. Plato would probably argue that all of the Socratic Dialogues fall under this heading, even though many of Socrates's interlocutors didn't realize he was trying to make them virtuous.

That last example highlights the problem.When the audience and the rhetor do not agree on the relationship, when one assumes a different relationship is in play than the other does, then the rhetorical moment is in danger of being unethical. Let's go back to the used car salesman. To the extent he tries to act as though our relationship is one of virtue, to that extent he has, or has attempted to, manipulate me. This holds true with all those relationships. In the worst case scenario, the scenario Plato always saw for rhetoric, the rhetor is constantly using utility and pleasure as means to imitate virtue. No wonder he hated rhetoric. 

Just Between Friends

In Chapter Eight of Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle identifies three types of friendship--friendship based on virtue, friendship based on pleasure, and friendship based on utility. While his categorization may be overly simple, it is instructive, particularly when run across the concept of audience in rhetoric and the question of the ethics of rhetoric brought up so often by Plato. If we think of friendship as the the relationship between the rhetor and the audience, when friendship is based on virtue, then rhetoric will be ethical. The ethics of the rhetor/audience relationship based on pleasure and utility is less obvious. As long as the audience and the rhetor know that their relationship is due to pleasure or utility, then there shouldn't be an ethical dilemma.

At least that's the theory. Even so, when I walk onto a used care lot, I know that the salesman wants to sell me a car for as much as possible, just as I want to buy a car for as little as possible. This does not sound like a relationship built on ethics at all.


We run into even more problems when the audience thinks that the relationship is based on virtue when it is really based on utility. That car salesman is doing everything he can to convince me that he is on my side, that he wants to help me. He is trying to be my friend. The ethics of that situation becomes even murkier, particularly if he is successful.

Pleasure adds another dimension that makes those clear categorizations even murkier. Plato was always worried that pleasure would disguise the true nature of the relationship, although he expressed this worry in terms of truth. For Plato, since truth did not need decorative language designed to please the audience, whenever he heard rhetorical devices he worried that their very use could only mean one thing, to disguise truth.

When rhetoric disguises the relationship what happens to truth?

(In a previous version of this post I erroneously identified this passage as being in the ninth chapter. Thanks for catching that, Danny. I'm referencing the W. D. Ross found at the International Classics Archive,  http://classics.mit.edu//Aristotle/nicomachaen.html.

Trails across the red granite outcroppings at Ink's Lake State Park

Nailed it again, Ari!

"They pursue honour to convince themselves that they are good." 

You Nailed It, Ari!

Listening to Nicomahean Ethics. Aristotle drops this bomb--which succinctly nails the concept Plato has been trying to get across about the ethical problems with rhetoric, problems that Quintilian's "Good man, speaking well," doesn't satisfy.

                                          "All flatterers are mercenaries." Aristotle

You nailed it, Ari. Now, all we have to do is figure out when we're being complemented and when we're being flattered. (Ari hints at this in Book Eight, though he doesn't make the connection explicitly.)

If Socrates had said this to Callicles in Gorgias, ole Callicles wouldn't have had an answer. Callicles extolled the virtues of power, of having power over others through verbal manipulation. He saw that as the highest good. But, Callicles, who saw himself as a knight of the city, would have never stooped to becoming a mercenary. This simple definition of flattery (rhetoric as verbal manipulation) would have forced him to face the incompatibilities between honor as he saw it and the use of power he recommended.