3.1: Introduction to Ethics

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this chapter, readers will be able to do the following:

1. Define ethics.
2. Analyze a situation with regard to utility, right, justice, and care.
3. Explain the importance of ethical behavior.
4. Explain copyright law, why it is important, and how to make ethical decisions regarding it.
5. Explain how to ethically analyze data.
6. Explain how biases can lead to unethical decisions/behavior in technical communication.

Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e. the mean relative to us, this being determined by a rational principle, and by that principle by which the man of practical wisdom would determine it. Now it is a mean between two vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defect; and again it is a mean because the vices respectively fall short of or exceed what is right in both passions and actions, while virtue both finds and chooses that which is intermediate. Hence in respect of its substance and the definition which states its essence virtue is a mean, with regard to what is best and right an extreme.

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book II

Ethics is one of the most important topics in technical communication. When you can communicate clearly and effectively, and when it is your task to help others to understand an object, process, or procedure, it is your responsibility to do so in an ethical fashion.

After all, good writing isn't just grammatically correct, or even functional. As Zuidema and Bush state, "If we define good writing simply as writing that gets the audience to do or think what the writer wants, we fail to take into consideration the needs or well-being of the audience, and we ignore the ways in which writing may hurt others or cause harm" (Zuidema and Bush 95). But what does it mean to communicate ethically with regard to technical communication? There is a lot of confusion regarding what "ethics" means, and when you drill down to what ethical technical communication means, the answer becomes very complicated.

We might think asking someone if he or she is an ethical person is the same as asking someone if he or she is a good person. Certainly, my Aunt Maudie, who always held herself to be the definitive judge of whether someone was a good person or not, would tell you that a good person does what he or she feels is right in his or her heart. But the human heart can be very complicated. If you find a dollar on the floor, what is the right thing to do?

• run around asking anyone if he or she lost a dollar? What if the person who says "yes" is lying and didn't lose the dollar? Was it right, then, to give the dollar to him or her? What about the person who really lost the dollar? How do you know?
• turn the dollar into lost and found?
• keep the dollar, with the rationalization that you probably lost a dollar in the past, and this is just karma returning that dollar to you?
• give the dollar to charity with the rationalization that by doing so, at least you know it will do some good?

Any of these potential answers might feel right in your heart. Such a criterion really isn't the best to use to judge more complex ethical problems such as you might find in technical communication situations.

Also, note all of these potential answers are legal. Just because something is legal doesn't make it ethical. In the past, in the United States, it was legal for health care insurance companies to deny coverage to persons who had health problems. That is, if a person had a heart attack and did not have insurance, then he or she would not be able to purchase insurance afterward, even though it was clear that he or she would not be able to afford health care without health insurance. Such a practice was common and legal, but it was not at all ethical to deny sick persons the ability to afford the health care they needed.

Key Concepts: Utility, Rights, Justice, and Caring

According to ethicist Manuel G. Velasquez, there are four basic kinds of moral standards: "utility" (61), "rights, justice, and caring" (59). While each of these categories is complex, at the basic level, these categories can be explained as follows:

• Utility: "The inclusive term used to refer to the net benefits of any sort produced by an action" (61). This standard favors the solution that yields "the greatest net benefits to society or impose[s] the lowest net costs" (61).
• Rights: This standard "look[s] at individual entitlements to freedom of choice and well-being" (68).
• Justice: This standard "look[s] at how the benefits and burdens are distributed among people" (68).
• Care: With regard to the "ethic of care,....the moral task is not to follow universal and impartial moral principles, but instead to attend and respond to the good of particular concrete persons with whom we are in a valuable and close relationship. Compassion, concern, love, friendship, and kindness are all sentiments or virtues that normally manifest this dimension of morality" (102).

You may have noticed that these standards can quite easily contradict each other. Let's think through a rather silly example.

Let's say you have a face to face technical communication class at a local college or university. It meets twice a week, and you attend the scheduled class periods. One of your classmates, let's call him Percival, likes to sleep in class. More than that, he snores loudly while the professor is trying to teach. The first class period this problem manifests itself, the professor first tries calling on Percival to keep his attention, and then the professor nicely suggests he go get a drink of water to wake himself up. Percival, however, is having none of this. He evidently prefers to spend classtime sleeping—and snoring. The snoring is really distracting, and everyone is finding it hard to learn in this environment. The second class period, the drama repeats itself, but the professor has come prepared. At the first loud, earsplitting snore, the professor pulls out a water gun at Percival. She aims, fires, and SPLAT! Percival is awake! The class laughs uproariously, and every time Percival snores, he gets water in the face. It's still kind of hard to concentrate, with the professor watergunning Percival every 15 minutes or so, but it's very entertaining.

This scenario is a little off the wall, but let's evaluate it, anyway. The professor's solution to the problem is effective, at least in this one instance. But how does it stack up to an ethical evaluation?

• Rights—people in contemporary societies have a wide variety of rights. For example, students have the right to a conducive learning environment. So on the one hand, students have the right to attend class and not have to fight through Percival's snoring to hear the professor's lectur.On the other hand, students have the right to attend class and not be shot at with a water gun.
• Justice—the benefit to the professor's solution to the problem is that it is effective. It stops Percival's plan to snore through class and make learning difficult for the other students. It also seems, at first, to bring the class together against a common distraction and provide some temporary amusement. Everyone is having fun at Percival's expense. But let's think. Students have a right to attend class and not be subjected to abuse. Shooting a student with a water gun is abuse. It's very much outside of the appropriate treatment a student might expect from a professor. And it is humiliating. Kant's categorical imperative has been translated thus: "Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law," (Kant 24). Granted, all sleeping students will be attacked with a water gun would be a pretty silly maxim. Reasonable people wouldn't even consider such a rule. But if they were to, it would be clear that we wouldn't want to be attacked with a water gun if we accidentally fell asleep and started snoring, and we wouldn't want our loved ones subjected to such treatment, either. Certainly, Percival never consented to be attacked with a water gun. His rights are being violated in this example. With regard to justice, sure, at first the water gun accomplishes the goal, but it is also distracting. And how long will it take for students to wonder, who else will get watergunned? Suddenly, the professor's blatant disrespect for Percival can easily move to disrespect for anyone. Morale can drop. The students can lose respect for the professor, and then the learning environment is compromised. The entire class suffers, and the learning outcomes also suffer, because the professor made the decision to employ a water gun.
• Utility: One of the ways to look at utility is to ask the question, "Is there a better solution that helps everyone achieve the desired outcomes?" Or at least, is there a solution that minimizes the disadvantages to the larger population? In this case, yes. At most institutions, the professor has a variety of ways to deal with a disruptive student. After informing the student of the consequences of repeating his or her disruptive actions, the professor may call campus security to remove the student. The professor may also contact the student's academic advisor to discuss a solution, and at some institutions, the professor can have the student removed from the class roster. While official solutions may not be as dramatic, as fun, and as quickly effective as watergunning as student, they do protect all students' dignity and right to a safe environment conducive to learning.
• Care: At the end of the day, a professor is a human being, too. And he or she may be at wit's end trying to deal with students do not want to be in the class are actively working against the professor's efforts to do his or her job. It is frustrating. And it might even be understandable that he or she wants to pull out a water gun and just solve the problem and blow off a little steam. But the professor has a job, and that job brings in income. It's highly likely that the professor has a family to support. Watergunning a student will bring in negative publicity to the professor, the class, the academic department, and the institution that he or she teaches in. With public scrutiny, the professor might earn a reprimand or, at worst, lose his or her job. How will he or she help to support his or her family?

As we analyze this situation, we quickly see that watergunning the student is unethical. It violates the rights of the student and can impede upon the professor's ability to care for his or her family. Furthermore, it may lower morale in the classroom, which may rob all students in the class of an environment conducive to learning. And finally, there are better, accepted channels to use to deal with this situation.

Such a simple scenario, but so many ways to look at the situation. Analyzing any situation with regard to ethics should take time and care so that the best evaluation can be produced. And here, we have only invoked some of the ethical aspects of Aristotle, Kant, and Velasquez. In this short introduction to ethics, we are only scratching the surface of a much larger and very complicated and fascinating field.

Here are some sample scenarios that you can analyze with regard to rights, justice, utility, and care.

Click here to access the sample scenarios.