Ethics in Technical Communication

Chapter 1
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Nature of Ethics:

Ethics and especially ethics in technical communication is becoming increasingly studied.

why growth?
The awarness of ethical implications of technical commnication and public outcry

which is due to the recent ethical lapses in communication especially about technology:
-charred O-rings on the Challenger
-danger from leaking silicone breast implants
-inadequate safety documentation at Bhopal
-botched technical procedures at Chernobyl
-Enron and Worldcom

Ethics involves making judgments about values

A Value Shift is occuring-
-The scpeialized nature of knowlede gained from technology ad science is no longer seen as an adequate warrant for excluding the pbulic form policy decisions.

Technology of communication itself
World Wide Web implicaitons
Information technology
Ethical concerns: privacy, ownership of information, copyright, access, freedom of speech, personal and national security, and access to markets in other countries.

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Technical Communication:

Historical Perspective-->

role: chiefly to relay information to the recipient as clearly and faithfully as possible

ethical responsiblities: to relay faithfully info between treansmitter and receiver and is attached primarily to the technology and its users, no so much the communicators.


Current Perspective-->

Ethics in technical communication is less cut and dry. There is an expanded role in providing infomration for spefcific audiences
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Why Study Ethics?

We all face everyday the internal question of what is the right thing to do.

Responsible judgment: Without a clear understanding of why we decided as we did, we might be unable to justify our decision and thus unable to justify our decidsion to pursuade another person to support our decision and give a similar judgment.

*How do the supreme court make decisions?
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What is Ethics?

It has been studied by both philosophical thought and practical investigation for many centuries.

It is not an exact science like mechanics and physics

Every ethical situation is unique and thus expert can only so much

According to all ethical theorists:
Each of us in responsible for decisions on the basis of some principle of responsibility that connnects us all as human beings.

To enact our ethical responsibility as indviduals, we need to:
- understand what others have thought on the subject
- understand what those who are affected by our decision think and feel about ethical responsiblity
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Ethics is problematic?
The unabsolute understanding of a situation and the unclear solutions

personal and social cirumstances--> the essential component of ethical deliberations which allow for input of sensible, responsible others.

We must be open to other viewpoints and opinions and only then can we say we have arrived at truly ethical decisions. (the precondition for ethics)
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Assumptions:

The term ethics is used broadly

principal asssumptions:
1) No easy answers of right and wrong
2) ethics is both individual and social
3) is neither an entirely absolute nor an entirely relative matter
4) will exam several ethical theories to learn from all
5) no single ethical theory or approach will always be best for all situation

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Perspectives:
theroies of:
-Aristotle
-Kant
-utilitarianism
-feminist
-care-based theoires
-Levinas
-Gert
-Confucius
by studying historical persepcives we can see how we apply ancient theories to modern times.-Perspectives center on European-American traditions.
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Scope-
Focus on how ethics relates to technical communication in ways that are unapparent but no less powerful.
Organization
Terminology-Values are the intentions that guide an action.-Ethics deals with values but involves a sense of careful responsibility.-Ethics usually involves values, but values don’t always include ethics.-Absolute is definite and unchanging.-Relative is changing in relation to circumstances (don’t carry relative to extreme).

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Chapter 2

Historical:

Plato

philosophy is a matter of discovering and pursuing truth, goodness, and rightness.

ethics is the brach of philosophy concerned with determining right conduct.

ethics is a matter of pleasing the gods and absolute

his ethics was authoritarian because only the brightest, most sensitive, and most conscientour people could have a clear preception of the will of god.

1st learn what is right; 2nd then communicate

Socrates
important for:
1st he insisted on doing the right thing regardless of consequences
2nd ethics is a matter of pleasing the gods
3rd ethical behavior requres active social involvment

Aristotle
-the right course of action cannot be known clearly
-He described rhetoric as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion
-ethical course is determined through debate
-Ethics is virtue

The Sophists
- the were a category of emerging freethinkers and teachers
- who they were is very unclear and only material from them is from their critics who were hostile toward them.
- their rhetorical discourse did not stem from absolute truth but from other basis
- they said that our words refer not thing but to other words. That language essentially is not real.
- they called reality socially constructed and thus there is no single, absolute, true reality but only a diverse collection of similarly valid realities.
Plato held that there are absolute standards of rightness because they originate from god.
- were more skeptical(did not recognize god's existence)(or anything's existence for that matter)

2nd difference to Plato:
Plato - teacher's responsiblity to instill both ethical values and rehetorical arts
Sophists - held rhetoric is only a skill anyone can learn, not connected to the learning ethical values

For Plato ethics and rehtoric are closely tied, but ethics comes first, and the only purpose of rhetoric is to serve theics.
For Sophists ethic and rehtoric are also closely tied, but rehetoric comes first because it allows the negotiation and persuasion taht defines social values.