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St Augustine and the problem of deception in religious persuasion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Alan Brinton
Alan Brinton
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Philosophy, Boise State University, Idaho
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Extract

A substantial body of literature has been produced in the twentieth century by religious and philosophical writers on the ethics of belief. Discussion of this topic has generally focused on the processes leading up to belief within the individual, so that it would not be inaccurate to say that for most of these writers ‘the ethics of belief’ means ‘the ethics of coming–to–believe’. There has been little attention among these writers, however, to the moral questions which surround the production or inducement of beliefs in others, to the ethics of persuasion. An extension of the ethics of belief to cover moral issues which arise in connection with persuasion seems reasonable; the ethics of belief, widely construed, might be said to encompass questions about both the production of beliefs within oneself and the inducement of beliefs in others.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , December 1983 , pp. 437 - 450
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

page 437 note 1 The point of departure for most of the twentieth-century literature on the ethics of belief is James, William essay, ‘The Will to Believe’, in ‘The Will to Believe’ and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897; rpt. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979).Google Scholar Important recent treatments include Ammerman, Robert R., ‘Ethics and Belief’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, N.S. LXV (1969), 41–58Google Scholar; Gale, Richard M., ‘William James and the Ethics of Belief’, American Philosophical Quarterly, XVII (1980), 1–14Google Scholar; Harvey, Van A., ‘Is There an Ethics of Belief?’, Journal of Religion, XLIX (1969), 41–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘The Ethics of Belief Reconsidered’, Journal of Religion, LIX (1979), 406–20Google Scholar; Meiland, Jack W., ‘What Ought We to Believe? or The Ethics of Belief Revisited’, American Philosophical Quarterly, XVII (1980), 15–24Google Scholar; Price, H.H., ‘Belief and Will’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Sociey, supp. vol. XXVIII (1954), 1–26Google Scholar; and Williams, Bernard, ‘Deciding to Believe’, in Language, Belief, and Metaphysics, eds. Kiefer, H. E. and Munitz, Milton (Albany: SUNY Press, 1970).Google Scholar

page 437 note 2 Among the more significant contributions to the recent literature are Diggs, B.J., ‘Persuasion and Ethics’, Quarterly Journal of Speech, L (1964), 359–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Johannesen, Richard L., ‘Richard M. Weaver on Standards for Ethical Rhetoric’, Central States Speech Journal, XXIX (1978), 127–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Johnstone, Christopher L., ‘An Aristotelian Trilogy: Ethics, Rhetoric, Politics, and the Search for Moral Truth’, Philosophy and Rhetoric, XIII (1980), 1–24Google Scholar; Murphy, Richard, ‘Preface to an Ethic of Rhetoric’, in The Rhetorical Idiom: Essays in Rhetoric, Oratory, Language and Drama, ed. Bryant, Donald C. (NY: Russell and Russell, 1966)Google Scholar; Schrier, William, ‘The Ethics of Persuasion’, Quarterly Journal of Speech, XVI (1930), 476–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Weaver, Richard M., ‘A Responsible Rhetoric’, Intercollegiate Review, XII (1976–1977), 81–7.Google Scholar For further references, see Antczak, F.J. and Brinton, A., ‘The Ethics of Rhetoric: A Bibliography’, Rhetoric Sociey Quarterly, XI (1981), 187–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 438 note 1 On Christian Doctrine, trans. Robertson, D. W. Jr, (Indianapolis: Bobbs–Merrill, 1958)Google Scholar; all references here are to this edition.

page 439 note 1 For an insightful discussion of Augustine's intentions in writing Bk. IV of De Doctrina, see Murphy, James J., ‘St. Augustine and the Debate about a Christian Rhetoric’, Quarterly Journal of Speech, XLVI (1960), 400–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 439 note 2 For the Latin text of Bk. IV, with commentary, see Augustin, A. Aurelii, De Doctrina Cristiana liber quartas, trans. Therese, SisterGoogle Scholar

page 439 note 3 Book 1, Ch. xxii. For an even more austere account of the role of pleasure in rhetoric, we Fenelon, François, Dialogues on Eloquence, trans. Howell, Wilbur S. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951)Google Scholar, which originally appeared in 1717.

page 441 note 1 508c, trans. W.R.M. Lamb in the Loeb Classical Library (1925; rpt. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975). Further references to Plato, as here, will be by Stephanus page numbers. References to the Phaedrus are to the H.N. Fowler translation, also in the Loeb Classical Library (1914; rpt. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966).

page 441 note 2 Weaver, Richard M., The Ethics of Rhetoric (South Bend, Indiana: Refinery/Gateway, 1953), chap. i.Google Scholar

page 441 note 3 While Augustine does hold that rhetorical skills may be turned to either good or evil purposes, there are good reasons for thinking that his commitment to the instrumental view is only apparent. The passage itself suggests that he believes that the natural use of rhetoric is to promote truth, and that its use to promote false belief is a perversion, a usurpation. As is well known, Augustine holds that evil is a privation, involving the absence of something which ought to be present or the distortion of things which are in themselves good. In De Magistro, he expresses the view that the natural end of human language and communication is to communicate the truth. The highest end of rhetoric, then, will be to promote the highest of truths.

page 443 note 1 Both works are translated by the Browne, Rev. H. in The Niters and Post-Nuene Fathers of tht Christian Church, ed. Schaff, Philip (1887; rpt. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1976), vol. III.Google Scholar The comments on lying in De Doctrina are in chapter xxxvi of Bk. I; Augustine admits there, as elsewhere in his writings, that a person may benefit from being deceived.

page 445 note 1 See, for instance, the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, trans. Rackham, H., in the Loeb Classical Library (1937; rpt. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965), chs. 29–34Google Scholar; and the Rhetorica ad Herennium, trans. Caplan, Harry, also in the Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954)Google Scholar, Bk. 1, ch. vi. There is also some discussion of such techniques in Aristotle's, Art of Rhetoric, trans. Freese, J. H., Loeb Classical Library (1926; rpt. Cambridge, 1975)Google Scholar, Bk. III, chs. 14 ff.

page 448 note 1 See Sattler, William M., ‘Conceptions of Ethos in Ancient Rhetoric’, Speech Monographs, XII (1947), 55–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar There are, however, complications, some of which arise from the fact that the ancients were less inclined than we are to distinguish sharply actual character from reputation, and others of which arise from etymological considerations. See Corts, Thomas E., ‘The Derivation of Ethos’, Communication Monographs, XXXV (1968), 201–2.Google Scholar

page 448 note 2 The issue of autonomy has been addressed in a more general way by a number of writers on the ethics of rhetoric. See, for example, Diggs, , p. 372Google Scholar; Haiman, Franklyn S., ‘A Re-Examination of the Ethics of Persuasion’, Central States Speech Journal, III (1952), 1–9Google Scholar; and Parker, Douglas H., ‘Rhetoric, Ethics and Manipulation’, Philosophy and Rhetoric, V (1972), 69–87.Google Scholar

page 449 note 1 This same line of argument will apply within the context of Plato's view of the true art of rhetoric, in which the ‘lover’ aims to improve the soul of the ‘beloved’, since this improvement is to be understood in terms of the education of the reasoning part of the soul and in terms of the soul's acquiring noesis. The contrast between deceptive seduction of the soul and its genuine improvement is nicely drawn in the early pages of Plato's Lysis, in the playful banter between Socrates and Hippothales, who has his sights set on Lysis.