The Ethics of Public Speaking and Persuasion

The Ethics of Public Speaking and Persuasion Brian Rogers Chemical Engineering 4903

Overview • Ethics in Speaking • Persuasion • Arguing Effectively • Organization

The Ends and The Means • Have ethical goals • Employ ethical means

The Ends and The Means • Ethical dilemmas • Professional obligations can create • Circumstances can create

Professional Obligation • A conflict of responsibilities • A choice between “the lesser of two evils”

Circumstances • Situations dictate a change • Does the end justify the means?

Your Ethical Guidelines • Are your purposes consistent w/ prevailing norms? • Would you violate your own ethics by speaking out? • Are you willing to stick to your ethical principles? • What are the ethical standards?

Honesty & Accountability • Your basic ethical obligation • Tell the truth • Take responsibility

Honesty & Accountability To avoid plagiarism • Give credit where it is due • Cite sources in the speech • Credit when you paraphrase

The Costs of Plagiarism • Tough penalties for “academic dishonesty” • In your career, you could lose your job and professional respect

The Ethical Speaker • Is not expected to be perfectly objective • Provides good arguments, sound reasoning and solid evidence • Remains open to new information • Is well informed and fully prepared • Contributes useful presentations

Deliberating in Good Faith • Tell the truth, as you see it • Back up your opinions • Accept your burden of proof

Questions of Fact, Value, and Policy

Is That The Truth? • Involve existence, scope or causality • Questions about past / present • Predictions of the future • Require empirical proof: real examples, statistics, and expert testimony Issues of Fact

Is This Good or Bad? Issues of Value • Involve what we consider good or bad, right or wrong • Focus on what we believe to be appropriate, legal, ethical or moral • Determine how we should evaluate facts, ideas or actions

What Are We Going To Do? Issues of Policy • Determine our future actions • Deal with how to solve problems • Evaluate options by costs, feasibility, advantages and disadvantages

Ethical Proof in Persuasive Speaking

Ethos • The audience’s perception of the speaker’s credibility

Qualities of Positive Ethos • Trustworthiness • Competence • Open-Mindedness • Dynamism

Contextual Factors • Characteristics we admire may vary by situation • Some factors may be beyond our control • Context affects ethos positively or negatively

Ethos • Each time you speak, people form impressions of you

Strengthen Your Ethos • Share audience concerns • Cite reputable experts • Use personal experience • Be clear and interesting • Consider different points of view • Deliver with dynamism

Appealing to Audience Emotions

Appealing to Emotions • Fundamental to motivating an audience • Never a substitute for logical arguments and available evidence

Affective Language • Strong language that plays on emotions • Words must be chosen carefully

Identifying Shared Values • Show your audience that you share values • Show how your ideas relate to those values

Use Vivid Detail • Listeners respond to concrete examples better than abstractions • Speakers can reinforce ideas with vivid details

Use Visualization • Helps the audience to “see” • Stirs emotions • Gets audience to think more deeply • Help your audience visualize with a picture • Paint ‘word pictures’

Compare Unfamiliar to Familiar • Complicated and even controversial ideas can seem more familiar, and more acceptable

Ethical Considerations • Avoid deception and manipulation • Recognize and respect power of emotions • Avoid distraction and disorientation • Don’t overwhelm audience • Use emotional appeals to supplement and complement well-reasoned arguments

Constructing a Reasonable Argument

Claims • Debatable assertions by the speaker • Takes a side on a controversial matter and invites debate

Claims • Fact • Value • Policy

Qualifiers • Words that indicate our level of confidence • Examples: “possibly”, “probably”, or “beyond any doubt”

A Reasonable Argument • Qualified at a level appropriate to the strength of the reasoning and evidence behind it

Reservations • Exceptions to our claim, or conditions under which we no longer hold the claim • “Unless”

Evidence • Use statistics, specific examples or expert testimony or other support • Consider the criteria or standards that support your evaluation • Reflect on the rules, principles or standard we employ in making judgments

Tests of Evidence • Quality • Relevancy • Amount

Warrants • General assumptions that connect evidence to the claim • Some warrants may be accepted by audience, and may be unstated • If a warrant is controversial, it may require backing

Burden of Proof • Advocates of new policies are expected to establish • Need for change • A specific plan • Proof the plan is workable

Construction of the Argument

The Forms of Reasoning

Inductive Reasoning • Moves from a set of specific examples to a general conclusion • A number of representative examples makes the case • Claims must carefully qualified • Reservations may be needed • Can be strengthened with evidence

Deductive Reasoning • Draws a conclusion about a specific case based on generally accepted premise • Syllogism is a classic example • Usually we reason from qualified premises to probable conclusions

Deductive Reasoning • Premises often already accepted by audience • Speaker may assume the audience will fill in the missing premise • This is “rhetorical syllogism” or enthymeme

Causal Reasoning • From effect to cause, or cause to effect • At the heart of scientific investigation • Rarely simple • Reputable sources are important • Qualified due to complexity

Analogical Reasoning • What is true in one case will be true in another • Literal analogy compares similar examples • Figurative analogy is similar to metaphor; rarely proves anything • Should be qualified

How Patterns of Organization Connect Ideas

Chronological or Sequential • Good for step-by-step process or historical events • Begin with a specific point in time, move ahead or back from there

The Ethics of Public Speaking and Persuasion