Chapter Four
Ethical Public
Speaking
Chapter Three
Table of Contents
Ethical Speaking and Responsibility
Values: The Foundation of Ethical
Speaking
Ground Rules for Ethical Speaking
Plagiarism
Ethical Speaking and Responsibility
Ethics: study of moral conduct, or how
people should act toward one another
In public speaking, the responsibilities
speakers have toward their audience and
themselves
Ethical Speaking and Responsibility
Ethics, Ethos, and Speaker Credibility
Free Speech and the Speaker’s
Responsibility
Ethical Speaking and Responsibility:
Ethics, Ethos, and Speaker
Credibility
Ethos : a Greek word meaning
character
Positive Ethos includes
competence, good moral character,
goodwill
Ethical Speaking and Responsibility:
Ethics, Ethos, and Speaker Credibility
Speaker credibility
Believability of speaker
Sound reasoning skills
Honesty
Genuine interest in the
welfare of their listeners
Ethical Speaking and Responsibility:
Free Speech and the Speaker’s
Responsibility
The First Amendment guarantees
freedom of speech.
Fighting words often provoke people to
violence and are not protected under free
speech.
Values: The Foundation of
Ethical Speaking
Values: people’s judgments of what’s
good, bad, and important
They are culturally determined by family,
schools, and religious organizations.
Values: The Foundation of
Ethical Speaking
Value Conflicts and Ethical Dilemmas
Recognizing and Respecting Listener’s
Values
Values: The Foundation of Ethical Speaking:
Value Conflicts and Ethical Dilemmas
The more diverse the society, the greater
these clashes tend to be.
Recognizing audience values is very
important for a speaker.
Values: The Foundation of Ethical Speaking:
Recognizing and Respecting
Listeners’ Values
Identify your listeners’ values, attitudes,
and beliefs to the topic and the occasion.
Use surveys and interviews
Use Milton Rokeach’s model to
conduct a values assessment
Values: The Foundation of Ethical Speaking:
Respecting Listeners’ Values
Milton Rokeach’s model
 Terminal values
Desirable in themselves
 Instrumental values
Characteristics people possess.
Ground Rules for Ethical
Speaking
Dignity : feeling worthy, honored, or
respected
Integrity: incorruptibility
Dignity and integrity should infuse every
aspect of a speech.
Ground Rules for Ethical
Speaking
Trustworthiness
Respect
Responsibility
Fairness
Ground Rules For Ethical Speaking:
Trustworthiness
Trustworthiness: a combination
of honesty and dependability
Reveal your true purpose.
Avoid misleading, deceptive, or
false information.
Acknowledge sources.
Ground Rules For Ethical Speaking:
Respect
Respect: addressing audience members
as unique human beings
Focuses on issues
Allows the audience the power of rational
choice.
Avoids in-group and out-group distinctions.
Ground Rules For Ethical Speaking:
Respect
Stereotypes: generalizations about an
apparent characteristic of a group that are
applied to all its members
Hate Speech: offensive communication
directed against people’s racial, ethnic,
religious, gender, sexual, or other
characteristics
Ground Rules For Ethical Speaking:
Responsibility
The responsible
speaker considers the
following:
Topic and purpose
Evidence and
reasoning
Accuracy
Honest use of
emotional appeals
Ground Rules For Ethical Speaking:
Fairness
Fairness: a
genuine and
open-minded
attempt to see all
sides of an issue
Plagiarism
Plagiarism: the use of other people’s
ideas or words without acknowledging
the source
Any source that requires credit in
written form should be acknowledged
in oral form.
Plagiarism
Direct Quotations
Paraphrased Information
Plagiarism:
Direct Quotations
Direct quotations: statements
made verbatim (word for word) by
someone else
Plagiarism:
Paraphrased Information
Paraphrase: a restatement of
someone else’s statements, ideas, or
written work in the speaker’s own
words
Plagiarism:
Paraphrased Information
Any data other
than that
gathered by you
should be cited.