Retorik som lykke:Etiske implikationer af Aristoteles' Retorik eksemplificeret gennem Perikles' eulogi

Abstract

This article maps out the interrelationship between the rhetorical and the ethical uses of happiness (eudaimonia) in Aristotle’s Rhetoric and Nicomachean Ethics and within the framework of the democratic polis in Greek antiquity. The main contention is that happiness, in this context, functions as a fundamental premise in rhetorical deliberations, allowing rhetorical discourse and the structure of a people’s moral character (ethos) to organize each other. A brief analysis of Pericles’ eulogy demonstrates how epideictic oratory can function as argumentation that simultaneously advances happiness as a political and a personal goal. Finally, the article concludes that the interrelationship between rhetoric and ethics makes it possible to critically test any rhetorical statement in terms of happiness.