what is ethical rhetoric?

Answer 1

onlyoneme has the right idea. Basically, rhetoric is verbal debate or persuasion (it's debate if two or more; persuasion if only one speaker), and ethical rhetoric is using rhetorical devices without fraud or deceit.

Or, you might also use the term to describe the rhetorical arguments used to defend a particular ethical principle. I prefer the first interpretation, but I am long enough out of the schoolroom that I do not know if one or the other definition has risen to the level of a "term of art" in the philosophy department.

Answer 2

To most people, rhetoric is a nasty, terrible word associated with the abuse of power. The O.J. case didn't help this viewpoint, for it seemed to confirm what many believed about rhetoric. However, this debate on what is rhetoric and its possible abuses goes back in Western society to the another trial: Socrates' trial.
Socrates' student, Plato, attacked the rhetoric that he felt was responsible for his teacher's death. It was a sophistic rhetoric developed to win at all costs. Words ruled over truth, indeed, created truth (epistemic in nature). This went against everything Socrates taught. Truth is knowable and should win, but with this new sophistic rhetoric, Socrates was forced to drink hemlock and became a martyr for Truth. Plato was obsessed with attacking this type of rhetoric. His obsession would rub off on his student, Aristotle, who would develop a more ethical rhetoric.

Aristotle, Plato's student, was a more logical person and developed his own brand of rhetoric. It became the model from which Western society would be based. To understand Aristotelian rhetoric, the ABC's of our rhetoric, one must begin by understanding the basic principles.

Answer 3

Rhetoric is like practical philosphy, but more of argumentation than anything else. Ethical Rhetoric would be argumentation in the topics of ethics like Euthanasia, Animal Experimentation, etc.