Jimmy Carter's presidential rhetoric: Panama Canal, human rights, and Zimbabwe.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Many politicians, and United States Presidents in particular, justify their policies and actions through moral appeals. Often, these moral appeals are little more than labels or slogans which declare a policy or action to be moral because a politician says that it is so. In foreign policy rhetoric, such appeals use the concept of morality to persuade other nations to view world events through the prism of U.S. moral values and, ultimately, to bend to U.S. will.
President Jimmy Carter's moral rhetoric can be distinguished from that of other U.S. presidents through the application of the classical concept of phronesis, the ability to understand the virtues required in a specific situation. Such an ability can be learned through the study of models. In addition to labeling his positions as moral, Carter modeled for his audience different ways of thinking about international problems. He demonstrated a deliberative process that he felt would best reflect his own morality as well as the goodness of the United States and its people. That process emphasized sacrifice, identification, and taking responsibility for one's actions.
This project will study President Carter's public statements regarding the Panama Canal Treaties, the majority rule movement in Zimbabwe, and his human rights doctrine. In response to each of these issues, Carter demonstrated for the U.S. public virtuous thinking and decision-making, invited them to participate in that process, and attempted to reconstitute the national character of the post-Vietnam and post-Watergate United States. Overall, the project contributes to a better understanding of phronesis, the use of morality in presidential rhetoric in general, and President Carter's discourse in particular.