Turning Kant Against the Priority of Autonomy: Communication Ethics and the Duty to Community

Abstract

Communication ethics scholars afford Immanuel Kant significantly less attention than one might expect. This may be because, as Robert Dostal notes, Kant argues that rhetoric merits respect whatsoever (223). This rejection of rhetoric, Dostal writes, is grounded in the significant emphasis given to Kant's concept of autonomy (232). The focus on autonomy and, hence, rhetoricians' relative neglect of Kant's ethical theory are both connected to the separation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (hereinafter CPuR) from his subsequent ethical and moral philosophy. Kenneth Burke writes that Kant's first critique has ethical implications, no 'wills,' 'oughts,' 'shoulds,' or 'thou shalt nots' . . . nothing but an inevitable is, a description of conditions as they necessarily are for human experience (191; emphasis in original). Such readings lose much of the richness and complexity of Kant's thought and tend instead to produce simple moral duties, such as Mike Markel's assertion that technical communicators must be truthful.