Guest Editorial: A Response to Patrick Moore's “Questioning the Motives of Technical Communication and Rhetoric: Steven Katz's ‘Ethic of Expediency’”

Abstract

In my 1992 College English article “The Ethic of Expediency: Classical Rhetoric, Technology, and the Holocaust” [1], I looked at the implications of a Nazi memo whose sole purpose was to improve the efficiency of the gassing vans, in order to begin to try to understand and discuss the negative uses and ethical abuses to which technical communication, and deliberative rhetoric generally, could be taken by the powerful and unscrupulous. In “Questioning the Motives of Technical Communication and Rhetoric: Steven Katz's ‘Ethic of Expediency’” [2], Patrick Moore accuses me of ignoring alternate translations, citing out of context, and focusing on the negative meaning of words to make my case. The point at issue in these charges, I believe, is whether (and to what degree) Aristotle meant to base deliberative discourse on “expediency.” I will take each of these charges up one at a time to explore them more thoroughly, discuss their interrelations, and then conclude with a few observations of my own.

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References

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