Speaking, Writing, and Morality

Mary Astell argues that both Truth and morality are vital for the speaker/writer. According to Astell, it is "a mistake to think that any Argument can be rightly made, or any Discourse truly Eloquent that does not illustrate and inforce Truth" (852 3.5). She then goes further, arguing that "we can never plead for Error and Vice with true Eloquence. We may trick 'em up in a handsom Garb, adorn 'em with quaint Expressions, and give them such a plausible turn as may enable them to do very much Mischief; but this is only a fulsom Carcass, the substance and Life are not there if Vertue and Truth are wanting" (858 3.5). Without Truth and morality, Astell claims, no speaker/writer can be truly eloquent nor even have their work be truly meaningful. For me, these claims harken back to Quintilian and his discussion of the orator and how "he cannot speak well unless he be a good man" (389 14.34).

Ramus, however, presents us with an opposing argument. Ramus claims that rhetoric "is a virtue of the mind and the intelligence, as in all the true liberal arts, whose followers can still be men of the utmost moral depravity" (685). He also extends his arguments to dialectic when he states that "dialectic is not a moral virtue which can shape a good man" (Ramus 685). For Ramus, at least, rhetoric and dialect are not necessarily connected with morality, which more properly belongs as a subject of inquiry for moral philosophers (683).

I have found the argument concerning the place of morality in speech and writing to be an interesting one mainly because it is one of the many places where the guidance of our different thinkers and theorists diverge. And I find myself agreeing with Ramus as to where the study of morality belongs. I have trouble making morality a condition of good speaking and writing, especially since the idea of morality is an unfixed one. Just look at one aspect of the ideology of the two discussed writers/theorists who claim that morality is a key part of speaking and writing. Quintilian certainly doesn't write from a religious standpoint, and his thoughts on morality are also not based in religious ideals. Astell, on the other hand, speaks quite frequently of God and even asserts that "the way to be good Orators is to be good Christians" (855 3.5). It's pretty doubtful that Quintilian and Astell have the same moral codes, even without considering all the other differences between them (you know, like the passing of a millennia and a half).

The only way that I think morality can even be considered to be a condition of good writing and speaking is if we are speaking from a basis of premodernism or modernism like Quintilian and Astell seem to have been. From a postmodern frame, however, it's difficult for us (or at least me) to connect to the idea that there is one absolute or most likely moral Truth (click here for a very, very frustratingly simplified view of premodernism-postmodernism if necessary, as I couldn't find a better short summary). After all, there are just so many versions of morality to choose from. And we don't want to end up like Javert in the video below, stuck with one view of the just that we cannot let go of even if it won't make sense anymore.