Sorry Robt -- I used the word "charge" without heat to mean "objection" -- it's one of several habits of speech that (Anglo-American) philosophers employ to make the comparison of theories seem more dramatic. I didn't even consider that I might sound insulted or anything. Feel free to ignore it if I sound like that again.
I've always liked that joke (the version I heard was with Churchill and a woman next to him at a dinner party).
I'd have said the essence of language was communication. Sometimes I may only want you to know how I feel -- and by telling you I've achieved my end already. There's no persuasion involved (and certainly no manipulation). Sometimes I signal my intentions, not so as to persuade, but simply so that you and I can coordinate our plans -- turning on my turn signal to indicate I'm turning left or telling you that I've already vacuumed so you don't waste the effort. Can these really be called "persuasion" -- let alone "manipulation"?
Just in order to draw the distinction, we don't need to talk about morality or "good" and 'bad', but rather a distinction between two kinds of persuasive strategy:
Open persuasion
The strategy can be fully understood by the hearer, without undercutting its persuasive force.
Deception
The strategy of persuasion cannot be fully understood by the hearer without undercutting its persuasive force.
Even someone who doesn't believe in morality or good and bad could make this distinction -- in fact he'd need to. When he's deceiving, he won't want to let his strategy out of the bag "and here's the place where I will get you to slide illicitly from one meaning of the word to a quite different meaning..."
But perhaps you are doubting the possibility of open persuasion (as I defined it). In other words, persuasion necessarily involves fallacies or distortions of the facts?
[This message has been edited by ChrisW (edited April 06, 2004).]
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