Ethics, p 1-38

-ethics involves making judgments about values

-ethical responsibilities involved in technical communication- faithfully relay information between transmitter and receiver

-in order to operate ethically you need to understand all of your responsibilities as a communicator

-deliberations must be open to different voices to truly be ethical decisions

-ethics is time-consuming, both individual and social

Values- intentions or ends that guide an action

Rhetoric- use of reasoned arguments based on socially accepted values in order to persuade

Persuasion- willing,, informed collective agreement of a critically thinking audience

What we learn from past ethical judgments essentially is how complex they can be

Plato- absolutist, do what pleases god and what your soul wants you to do

Socrates- do the right thing regardless of the consequences, social involvement

Aristotle- more practical, less metaphysical than Plato

Sophists- there are no absolutes, communication is very important

Social constructionism- all knowledge is only a construct deriving from its social context

Gorgias- powerful persuader, Encomium of Helen

-Sophists believed rhetoric is simply a skill, can be used to support the unethical or lesser argument

Hegel- supported Sophists’ arguments

Perelman- language is our values, we express them through rhetoric

Burke- values are worked out socially and rhetorically rather than received from on high

Weaver- critical of science and technology in our culture, antisophist

Foucault- language use of the privileged class perpetuates itself while it discounts anything different

Habermas- public discussion about values, goals, and policy amounts to a valid sort of knowledge