The Call of Conscience (Studies in Rhetoric/Communication): Heidegger and Levinas, Rhetoric and the Euthanasia Debate (Studies in Rhetoric/Communication) by Michael J. Hyde

Studies in Rhetoric & Communication

by Michael J. Hyde

Michael J. Hyde's pathbreaking study considers the relationship between the phenomenon of conscience and the practice of rhetoric as it relates to one of the most controversial issues of our time-euthanasia. Hyde investigates how the practice of rhetoric becomes a voice of conscience and influences the moral standards of individuals and communities. In doing so, he offers the first extensive treatment of Martin Heidegger's and Emmanuel Levinas's philosophical investigations of conscience and an in-depth analysis of the justifiability and social acceptability of euthanasia. Hyde establishes the theoretical basis of his study by discussing and critically assessing the phenomenological theories of conscience set forth in the works of the two philosophers. To illustrate in concrete terms how the relationship between the call of conscience and the practice of rhetoric shows itself in everyday existence, Hyde surveys the moral discourse that informs ongoing debates over euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. He focuses on a cluster of related topics that emerge from his discussion of the work of Heidegger and Levinas, including the phenomena of deconstruction and acknowledgment, emotion and the reconstructive power of language, and the discursive creation of heroes. Through these investigations Hyde accounts for some of the key definitions, arguments, and narratives that contribute to the rhetoric of the euthanasia debate, especially as the discussion has evolved since the late 1980s.

Paperback

First published February 1, 2001

About the author

Michael J. Hyde is professor and University Distinguished Chair in Communication Ethics at Wake Forest University. He is a distinguished scholar of the National Communication Association, a fellow of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, and a recipient of national, state, and university research grants for his work in “the rhetoric of medicine.”

Reviews

[Stephen Drake · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is not for everyone. It's a pretty densely-written text on rhetoric. In the interest of full disclosure, I have a special interest in it because one chapter recounts the "invasion" of a "right to die" email list by disability activists. I organized that "invasion" and am quoted in the relevant chapter.