2
Chapter
Ethics and Public
Speaking
Chapter Objectives
After reading this chapter, students should be able to:
1.
Explain why a strong sense of ethical responsibility is vital for public speakers.
2.
Discuss the five guidelines for ethical speechmaking presented in the chapter.
3.
Define the differences among global plagiarism, patchwork plagiarism, and
incremental plagiarism, and explain why each type of plagiarism is unethical.
4.
Identify the three basic guidelines for ethical listening discussed in the chapter.
Chapter Outline
I.
Questions of ethics are central to the art of public speaking (text pages 34-36).
A. Ethics is the branch of philosophy that deals with issues of right and wrong in
human affairs.
B. Ethical issues arise when we ask whether a course of action is moral or
immoral, fair or unfair, just or unjust, honest or dishonest.
C. Questions of ethics come into play whenever a public speaker faces an audience.
1.
Because speechmaking is a form of power, it carries heavy ethical
responsibilities.
2.
Public speakers face ethical issues at every stage of the speechmaking
process.
D. As stated by the Roman rhetorician Quintilian, the ideal of commendable
speechmaking is the good person speaking well.
90 CHAPTER-BY-CHAPTER GUIDE TO THE ART OF PUBLIC SPEAKING
II.
As there are guidelines for ethical behavior in other areas of life, so are there guidelines
for ethical behavior in public speaking (text pages 36-41).
A. Public speakers should make sure their goals are ethically sound.
1.
As history demonstrates, public speaking can be used for either worthy or
unworthy goals.
2.
Although there can be legitimate disagreements when it comes to assessing
a speaker’s goals, this is not a reason to avoid asking ethical questions.
3.
Responsible public speakers take care to assess the ethical soundness of
their goals.
B. Public speakers should be fully prepared for each speech.
1.
Being fully prepared is vital to delivering an effective speech, but it is also
important ethically.
2.
Unprepared speakers waste the collective time of their listeners.
3.
Unprepared speakers may give the audience erroneous information or faulty
advice that can lead to grievous consequences.
C. Public speakers should be honest in what they say.
1.
Nothing is more important to ethical speechmaking than honesty.
2.
Ethical public speakers avoid blatant forms of dishonesty such as telling
outright lies.
3.
They also avoid more subtle forms of dishonesty such as juggling statistics,
quoting out of context, painting tentative findings as firm conclusions,
citing unusual cases as typical examples, and the like.
D. Public speakers should avoid name-calling and other forms of abusive language.
1.
Name-calling is the use of language to demean other individuals or groups.
2.
Whether based on race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender,
name-calling degrades the personal dignity of the people being attacked.
a.
It conveys negative, stereotyped, and misleading information about
those people.
b.
It implies that they are inferior and do not deserve to be treated with
the same respect as other members of society.
3.
Name-calling also creates problems in public speaking when it is used to
silence opposing voices.
a.
In the U.S. all citizens have the right to voice their ideas on issues of
public consequence.
b.
Public speakers have an ethical obligation to help preserve that right
by avoiding tactics such as name-calling that automatically impugn
the accuracy or respectability of statements made by groups or
individuals who disagree with the speaker.
E. Public speakers should put ethical principles into practice.
1.
Being ethical means behaving ethically all the time, not only when it is
convenient.
2.
Public speakers need to take their ethical responsibilities as seriously as
their strategic objectives.
3.
They should do their best to follow the guidelines for ethical speechmaking
whenever they address an audience.
CHAPTER 2ETHICS AND PUBLIC SPEAKING
III.
Plagiarism is one of the most serious ethical lapses a public speaker can commit (text
pages 42-47).
A. Plagiarism is presenting another person’s language or ideas as one’s own.
B. Plagiarism is a serious offense.
1.
In the classroom, it can be punished with a failing grade or even expulsion
from school.
2.
Outside the classroom, it can damage a speaker’s reputation or career.
C. There are three types of plagiarism.
1.
Global plagiarism is taking an entire speech from a single source and
passing it off as one’s own.
2.
Patchwork plagiarism occurs when a speaker patches a speech together by
copying verbatim from two or three sources.
a.
Copying word for word from a few sources is no less plagiarism than
is copying from a single source.
b.
Giving a speech is just like putting one’s name on a paper in an
English class.
c.
The speaker warrants that the speech represents his or her own
thinking, beliefs, and language.
3.
Incremental plagiarism occurs when a speaker fails to give credit for
specific parts—increments—of the speech that are borrowed from other
people.
a.
One form of incremental plagiarism is quoting someone verbatim
without attributing the words to that person.
b.
A second form of incremental plagiarism is paraphrasing an author
without citing the author.
D. Just as one needs to credit the authors of print books and articles, so one needs to
credit the authors of documents found online.
1.
Taking careful research notes is imperative when working with Internet
documents.
2.
Internet sources need to be identified both in the speech bibliography and
when the speech is presented orally.
IV.
Listeners, as well as speakers, have ethical obligations (text pages 47-50).
A. Listeners should be courteous and attentive during the speech.
1.
This responsibility is a matter of civility in any situation.
2.
It is especially important in a speech classroom because novice speakers
need encouraging and supportive audiences.
B. Listeners should avoid prejudging the speaker.
1.
In addition to being a major cause of poor listening, jumping to conclusions
about a speaker’s ideas has serious ethical implications.
2.
Just as speakers have an obligation to prepare fully and conscientiously,
listeners have a responsibility to hear a speaker out before deciding to
accept or reject the speaker’s message.
C. Listeners should maintain the free and open expression of ideas.
1.
A free society depends on the right of individual citizens to speak their
minds on public issues.
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92 CHAPTER-BY-CHAPTER GUIDE TO THE ART OF PUBLIC SPEAKING
2.
3.
Just as speakers need to avoid name-calling and other tactics that can
undermine free speech, so listeners have an obligation to maintain the right
of speakers to be heard.
Listeners can disagree entirely with a message but still support the
speaker’s right to express it.