ABSTRACT
Virtue ethics has had a long association with the field of communication studies. This association results from the fact that the earliest systematic study of the art of persuasion, called rhetoric, was developed in classical Greece, as was the early study of ethics as a field of philosophy. The proper domain of political communication, or rhetoric, as Aristotle called it, is not based on the logical exposition and proof associated with mathematics and science. Logic and science attempt to get at general truths that apply across all circumstances as do mathematical proofs and scientific laws. Virtue ethics can be compared with the other major ethical systems of utilitarianism and the universalism of Kant. Courage can be the relevant virtue when people need to speak up and challenge an authority, especially when such speaking out places us in some jeopardy.
