Weaver's 'Phaedrus' as a lens to uncover the selfish-lover: An analysis of rhetoric supporting the 2004 Marriage Protection Amendment.

摘要

It is important for members of a pluralistic society to take the ethical responsibilities of rhetoric seriously. Weaver's (1958) The Phaedrus and the Nature of Rhetoric, and Responsible Rhetoric (2002), can be combined to provide a lens to analyze the level of ethics a rhetor engages in. This study uses Weaver's concepts to analyze the Congressional member's motives and rhetoric supporting the 2004 Marriage Protection Amendment (MPA). The texts analyzed were speeches made on the floor of Congress during open debate. The study illustrated that the motives behind and the rhetorical tactics for support of the MPA were motives and tactics of, in Weaver's (1958) words, the "selfish-lover." The research continues providing an example of possible noble-lover rhetoric on the MPA and the implications of selfish-lover rhetoric. Finally, the study recommends possible future areas for political rhetorical texts to be analyzed employing Weaver's Pheadrus.