Critical, postmodern, and constitutive rhetorics are typically guided by an ethical stance opposing domination and marginalization. However, this stance often functions as an unreflective morality operating outside the constitutive practices of rhetoric itself. To locate an ethical stance within rhetorical practice, we can turn to Isocrates, who practiced a constitutive rhetoric that had a strong moral orientation. His dependence on piety as a receptive attitude toward persuasive discourse may provide the insight necessary to develop an ethic supporting the critical orientation of current rhetorical theory. (Contains 82 notes.)