Page 117 - Between One and Many The Art and Science of Public Speaking

84 Part 1 Foundations

with respect as illuminators of his problems. Just the same he is prepared in any
situation to compromise them or set them aside in the situation if love seems bet-
ter served by doing so.” 11
One problem with situational ethics, however, is that it would allow the use of
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unethical means to achieve ethical goals. That brings us to our fi nal question.

Do the Ends Justify the Means?

You may have heard the old saying “The ends don’t justify the means.” In other
words, it is not acceptable to do something that is otherwise unethical just be-
cause it will produce a desirable result. To do so raises serious ethical concerns.
As a speaker you need to concern yourself with ends (goals) as well as the means
you use to achieve them.
In terms of ends, many of your topics are likely to be about issues of right and
wrong, morality and immorality, the weighing of the good of the many against
the good of the few. Understanding how people make ethical decisions is impor-
tant to your choice of topic and the goals you seek. Obviously, the fi rst and fore-
most ethical obligation of any speaker is to seek ethical ends: that is, to make
sure you are striving to achieve a goal that is ethical and just. So, as you choose
your topics, adapt to your audience, and seek to fulfi ll your goals as a speaker,
you should always focus on accomplishing ethical ends.
Not only should your goals be ethically sound, but how you seek to reach
those goals should also be ethical. Good ends should never, for example, justify
withholding the true purpose of a speech from our audience. Suppose we want
to raise money to improve the medical care received by impoverished children
in a third world country. Suppose, too, that the missionary arm of a controver-
sial religious group would administer the money we raised. Should we reveal
this in our speech, knowing that we have atheists and agnostics in the audience
who would be less favorably disposed to donate if made aware of who would
administer the money?
Consider our earlier example regarding stem cell research. Would a speaker
raising money for the Muscular Dystrophy Society be justifi ed in not telling the
audience that some of the money could be used to fund embryonic stem cell
research? It’s not an easy question to answer, is it? But it is exactly the kind of
question we need to ask ourselves when weighing the ends we seek with a public
speech.

Ethical Norms for Public Speakers

Developing standards for ethical public speaking is not an easy task. Probably
the closest thing to a code of conduct for public speakers is the National Com-
munication Association’s Credo for Free and Responsible Communication in a
Democratic Society, reprinted in the box “Codes of Conduct for Public Speak-

ing.” More than by any specific code of conduct, however, ethical public speak-
ers are guided by the traditional standards of rhetoric that date back more than
2,000 years. Sophists were known for their philosophical relativism. Some Soph-
ists carried this philosophy to its logical extreme, arguing that virtually any rhe-
torical deception was justifi ed if it furthered their cause. 13