Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2001. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2003. / Title from title screen. PDF text of dissertation: vi, 133 p. Site viewed on Feb. 19, 2004. Includes bibliographical references (p. 132-133 of dissertation).

Thesis (M. Med. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 55-64).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Queensland, 2002. / Subtitle on spine: Digital images. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Thesis (DTh)--University of Stellenbosch, 2008. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (DTh)--University of Stellenbosch, 2008. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

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Rhetoric as a discipline is still touched by the shadow of ancient Greece. Rhetoric was defined famously by Aristotle as the "available means of persuasion," codified into five canons in classical Rome, and has since been a central part of Western education to train speakers and writers to effectively move their audiences. However, particularly beginning in the mid-20th Century, the discipline's understanding of rhetoric as a means of persuasion (or even manipulation) passed down from our ancient roots began to shift to a sense of rhetoric as matters of ethics and a concern for the other. It begs the question: As a discipline, how did we get to a point where ethical concerns have increasingly entered the rhetorical conversation? With a theoretical focus, this study traces and examines how rhetoric's relation to ethics has transformed over the past 60 years from our discipline's Aristotelian/Platonic/Socratic inheritance to the introduction of multiple new perspectives and voices. In suggesting that the goal of rhetoric is more than persuasion--a major focus of the Platonic and Aristotelian tradition dominant in the field of rhetoric and composition in the early 20th Century--this study traces a "turn" within our discipline from "confrontational" rhetoric to "invitational" rhetoric. It suggests that invitational rhetoric challenges a strict definition of rhetoric as persuasion seeks instead to understand rather than convert, support camaraderie and mutuality (if not unity) instead of reinforcing dominant power relationships, challenge the speaker as much as the audience, and privilege listening and invitation over persuasion when appropriate. Rhetorical ethics is defined as the ethical decisions made in the everyday interactions that constantly invite us to make rhetorical choices that inevitably have consequences in the world. The study examines kairos/sophistic rhetoric, identification, and responsibility to establish a potential framework for rhetorical ethics, as well as listening and acknowledgement as methods for enacting this model. The ambition is a rhetoric of ethics that attends to everyday situations; accommodates different, often "silenced," voices; and offers the possibility of an ethical encounter with others. The study offers several possible conclusions about the nature of rhetorical ethics. Significant areas of continued study include issues of voice, agency, and marginalization--even invitational rhetoric does not guarantee that quieter or disadvantaged voices will be heard. In all, an(other) rhetoric is both a ripe topic for continued disciplinary attention, as well as a necessary component of everyday interactions with others that long to display love over hate, listening over silencing, inclusion over exclusion, and acceptance over rejection.

The aim of this study is to reach a philosophical understanding of the concept of morality. The contemporary literature is dominated by a series of contrasts; 'individual' morality and 'social' morality, a morality of 'sensibility' and 'insight' and one of 'rules' and 'principles' , 'formal' as against 'material' characterisations. In reviewing it the suggestion arises that this dualism is systematic and depends upon some more fundamental feature of the concept. A point of general agreement is that there is an intimate relationship between. morality and the world of human actions and activities. This world makes two major intellectual demands on us. There is the need to decide how to act in particular Situations, and there is the need to see one's actions as invested with a larger significance, as elements in a meaningful pattern. Morality is a response to both demands. Thus, it consists of a dimension of assessment of action, a sphere of practical judgement, and of a way of interpreting its significance, a mode of vision. These aspects may be distinguished by speaking of 'moral assessment' on the one hand and of 'moral understanding' on the other. Moral understanding may be characterised in terms of the kind of significance it offers and the kind of reasons it can recognise. A striking feature of the distinction between moral and non-moral forms of 'understanding is its tendency to cut across conventional categories. This can be illustrated in the case of religious belief and of what may, loosely and provisionally, be called 'humanism'. But it is also possible to find familiar modes of thought l"1hichbelong wholly and unequivocally to each side. When the lesser contrasts are examined in the light of the understanding-assessment distinction it is found that the claims made for the fundamental significance of that between the 'individual' and the 'social' cannot be sustained. Only the 'individual' half can comprise both understanding and assessment and so qualify as a wholly adequate conception of morality. There are some residual problems here which involve the issue of 'form 'versus' content'. This controversy dissolves, in its turn, once it is recognised that while moral understanding is contentless, moral assessmentt is necessarily tied to certain material considerations. The stress on the contrast between 'sensibility' and 'rules' may be interpreted as an oblique way of drawing attention to that between understanding and assessment, and, more specifically, of warning against the danger of identifying morality with practical reason. The element of truth in this is safeguarded by assigning talk of 'sensibility' to understanding and of 'rules' t~ assessment. A general conclusion that emerges from the discussion of these antitheses concerns the need for moral philosophy to work with an adequate conception of what it is to be human, a philosophical theory of man. The final task is to draw together the elements of the fundamental distinction, and so exhibit the unity of the concept of morality. It is best pursued through a discussion of some problems connected with education. There is an important tendency in the philosophical literature which may be interpreted as a recognition of the conceptual link between education and moral understanding. Moreover the concept of education provides a bridge between the category provisionally known as 'humanism' and a reconstructed one from which the non-moral elements have been excluded. What remains are moral understanding and moral assessment. The essential link between them is that they constitute a coherent and systematic approach to a particular area of experience. Using a terminology that needs careful explication, morality may be characterised as the response of humanism to the demands of the practical world.