AN EHTICS OF WRITING? ON WRITING AS A SOCIAL ACTIVITY

• Dirk J Smit University of the Western Cape
• Francois Wessels University of the Western Cape

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7833/57-0-1577

Keywords: Ethics on writing, Power of writing, Social function of writing, Gregory Clark

Abstract

This article is a plea for ‘an ethics of writing’.  In a first section, the authors point to the power of writing, drawing on Martin’s recent study of the nature and the power of writing and Thiel’s study of the vocational responsibility of theologians in modernity, seeing themselves primarily as ‘authors’.  In a second section, they appeal to recent rhetorical theories that also underscore the importance of questions like who writes for whom and why.  In a third section, the social function of writing is further discussed with reference to Gregory Clark’s instructive study on dialogue, dialectic and conversation.  In a final paragraph, the necessity of an ethics of writing is proposed.