Chapter 3 blog
This chapter had a lot of good and engaging information in it, in comparison to the last chapter. This chapter actually gave me the necessary knowledge to understanding what communication ethics is, by using different theoretical approaches or understandings. While reading this chapter I couldn't help but, find a connection between my communication actions and some of the understandings of communication. For example the key theories of universal-humanitarian, democratic ethics, codes and procedures, contextual ethics, narrative ethics, and dialogic ethics are things that I subconsciously think about in my day to day interactions with people I know and people I don't know.
Before I got to far in the reading I figured that many of the ethical principles that are found and used in communication ethics are sort of natural to us, like we as humans beings have a norm for what good communication ethics is. As I read on the book came to the same conclusion. I found a few key quotes that I think are very important to mention. The first was Immanuel Kant's approach he stated, "enlightenment assumption that all human beings posses rational governing principles as part of their cognitive make-up." The second quote was "ethical principles are inborn and universal and exist as ideals or principles inherit or applicable to everyone everywhere." The final quote I'd like to mention was about the utilitarian perspective. This perspective referred to the, "decision making that seeks to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people."
The last quote really tied all the quotes and most of this chapter together for me, after this point I was kind of done. It was hard to move past such a huge statement. In my opinion everything that people/humans do is out of some morality which pertains to the greatest good. This quote ties directly into ethics, but gets tricky when you apply it to communication ethics. I say this because the greatest good is really determined by an individual, granted there are some goods that are common, but its al very situational. The book gave the example of an employee knowing that a coworker/friend was doing wrong, and a manager came to this employee and asked them about it. The ethical issue would be to I do the correct thing and tell the truth, or do I do the correct thing and lie for my friend. This dilemma is what makes communication ethics so individualistic in my opinion.
I thought the same thing throughout this chapter. I try to make decisions that will not only have a positive impact on myself but for others around me. Although there are six different approaches mentioned in the text, I think it is a combination of each of these communication ethics that lead to our decisions. I like to think a lot of my decisions are coming from the contextual communication ethics, where it is based off of my culture and settings, along with a mixture of the democratic communication ethic and universal-humanitarian communication ethic.
ReplyDeleteIts almost as if this chapter should have been presented as the first chapter because it more clearly outlines the usages of communication ethics by defining the six theoretical approaches to communication ethics. I agree with your comment about how these theories can be projected naturally and unknowingly. I also highly agree when you stated that communication ethics is more of an individualized standard about what defines the "greatest good." For example, what may be good for me, may not be good for you and its difficult to determine who is right or wrong and where to draw that line. In response to the example that the book gave regarding the dilemma with the co-worker/employer conflict, I also believe that it represents individual preference. I'm sure that there have been many instances where individuals have protected their co-worker and lie, rather than tell the truth. It would be difficult to determine which action would be taken more-so over the other, though.
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