Abstract
The study of ethics is important for technical communication students and professionals because as workers and as citizens they confront ethical dilemmas and must act. In this essay I describe and contrast several foundational and nonfoundational ethical approaches. Analyzing two well-known ethics cases from the perspective of the different approaches, I argue that although foundational approaches are limited, they provide better insights than do nonfoundational approaches. Finally, I describe a problem-solving technique, based on foundational approaches and communicative ethics, that can be used by technical communication students and professionals to analyze ethical dilemmas.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 284-298 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication |
| Volume | 40 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 1997 |
Keywords
- Ethics
- Foundationalism
- Kant
- Normative ethics
- Post-modernism
- Technical communication