Ethics In Communication

Ethics in communication

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Part 1st

Kant moral values and human rights:

The moral theory of Immanuel Kant proposes that the wrongness or the rightness of an action does not depend on the consequences of those actions but on the fact that whether those actions full fill our duties or not. Kant said the human morality comes from the thinking of an ordinary mind and thus he rejected the notion that moral values can always be expected from educated individuals. He further said that moral laws are fundamental and are not person specific (Sullivan, 1989).

While human rights are the essential parts of natural law which contain the moral element. The human right has a moral doctrine and its aim is to find out the basic prerequisites of a good life. The human right’s aim is to identify both negative as well as positive prerequisites like right to health and right against torture (Haule, 2006). Kant also believed that certain actions are prohibited even in case those will bring happiness like murder is prohibited in Kant theory of morality and also according to contemporary human right.

Postmodernist’s concept of power:

Postmodernism is a western concept of marinating economic and political power by suspicion of reason and by asserting the role of ideology (O’neill, 2002).

The political or economically powerful gender or racial group do most of the decision makings inside a state and they do not understand the needs of the privileged part of the society and wants to enhance their own power which makes them design policies against the ethical norms of the society. For example, capitalism believes in the postmodern concept of power and has divided societies based on a class system so the privileged class has to follow the footsteps of the high class for survival. Thus the high class makes laws for them which need to be followed in order to get something to eat so such privileged societies make children and women part of the labor group so that they can earn more and keep up with the lifestyle set by the high class. Thus the thrust of power let us take a decision against our moral and ethical beliefs.

Cultural relativism and ethics

Cultural relativism is a concept that says that the beliefs, value, and ideas of an individual should be understood based on his or cultural rather than judging them based on your culture (Donnelly, 1984).

It tells us that every culture has a unique set of ethical practices. I belong to the part of the society where we cannot call our elders by their names but most of the western societies have a fashion to address elders or professors with their names. When I get a chance to experience such a scenario I felt that such societies lack respect for elders but later I came to know that people prefer to call by their names and most of them love it. It was a cultural shock for me and then I became used to such a way of communication.

Part 2

Ethics in communication

Ethical communication is the base of a perfect decision making and is fundamental to responsible thinking. It issued to develop an understanding between communities, and various cultural channels. Ethical communication makes a person responsible for his or her actions within a social setup (Huang, 2004).Ethics in communication can be maintained by following several principals. Those are the freedom of expression, tolerance in communication, diversity of perspective, honesty, accessible convey of message and accountability.

Those elements can be implemented in order to maintain ethics in communication. Such as ethical communication in a workplace could be maintained by giving the appropriate reference while sharing information and thus maintain accountability. However, the objective of my research is to understand ethical in communication. It also focuses on ethical decision making in a society that is polarized by power. It focuses on the ethical communication in perspective to cultural relativism and general moral values of the society.

The International Association of Business Communicators has set a code of ethics for professional communication and it serves a guide for responsible, ethical, consistent and legal communication choices. This principle is based on three codes of ethics including, good taste, ethical and legal professional communication (Buchholtz, 1989).

This code can be implemented to maintain ethics in communication by engaging oneself in communications that are not sensitivities to cultural beliefs and social values. Communication could be truthful, fair and accurate in order to maintain ethics and mutual respect. Education and research will be conducted in order to improve professional communication and to improve self-competence.

According to the code ethics in communication could be maintained by delivering truthful facts in communication while those facts do not hurt someone and if communication lacks honesty as happens in corporate crises so that communication is having ethical issues. The code of ethics is helpful because the guide an individual to master in professional ethics by maintaining

The code of ethics provides guidance by the help of its articles which says that professional communicators should practice honesty in communication and should communicate timely in order to maintain their credibility. The communicator should correct someone who is miscommunicating and is not following ethical values. The professional communicator should understand the importance of free speech, freedom of expression, exploring an idea and act honestly. The articles of the code also tackle cultural sensitivity and encourage mutual understanding. The article says that every professional communication should obey rules and regulations of the state and should not be violated any of them.

So the above articles will help to identify the issues in communication and those provide a set of guidelines that will help in decision making. For instance, the IABC code suggests communicating with its team member if anybody has any concern regarding ethical issues in communication and IABC is providing a platform to discuss every sort of ethical issue in communication.

Ethics in communication can be maintained by following the principals of good communication and by applying the various codes of ethics being designed by scholars.

References ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY

Buchholtz, W. J. (1989). Deciphering professional codes of ethics. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 32(2), 62–68.

Donnelly, J. (1984). Cultural relativism and universal human rights. Hum. Rts. Q., 6, 400.

Haule, R. R. (2006). Some Reflections on the Foundation of Human Rights―Are Human Rights an Alternative to Moral Values? Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law Online, 10(1), 367–395.

Huang, Y.-H. (2004). Is symmetrical communication ethical and effective? Journal of Business Ethics, 53(4), 333–352.

O’neill, J. (2002). The poverty of postmodernism. Routledge.

Sullivan, R. J. (1989). Immanuel Kant’s moral theory. Cambridge University Press.