We had a really interesting discussion this morning in TW5212 around ethics in theory and practice relating to technical communication. We know that there has been a discourse around ethics since Socrate’s philosophy of good and justice almost 2,500 years ago. He believed a sense of community, friendship and being loyal to the truth was important for humankind.
Around that time Mohist consequentialism also emerged. This philosophy evaluates the moral worth of an action, based on how much it contributes to the welfare of a state. This was very advanced for the time. In the 21st century countries around the world are struggling with these ethical decisions.
While watching ‘Africa’ with Ade Adepitan last night on BBC, I was considering the ethics of the decisions these emerging African nations are making. In Ethiopia, he visited an area of magnificent natural beauty with large rivers and millions of trees that the government is planning to tear down to build a dam. Trees, animals and villages will be destroyed and displaced. The benefits will be power and irrigation. The population of Africa is due to grow by one billion by 2050 and 50% of Ethiopians don’t have access to electricity. We know the dam will have positive consequences but will they surpass the negative ones and make the state a better place?
Closer to home, the western world is trying to deal with cyberethics and the ethics around big data. Can we quantify how technology contributes to the state and the globe? Herschel and Miori in their 2017 article on Ethics and Big Data write that we cannot determine what the positive and negative consequences of big data are. How can we measure these consequences if they cannot be defined? Their study concluded that big data had little to recommend itself from an ethical perspective.
Thankfully ethical considerations in technical communication are more black and white. Our ethical standards are based on rules of confidentiality, legality, honest, quality, fairness and professionalism. What strikes me about these principles is that they apply to all aspects of our lives. They are the backbone of society and how we are taught to behave from our parents, our educators and the whole community.
As Socrates declared, we need to be loyal to the truth. In technical communications, this means serving our employers and clients as long as they are consistent with the public good. We also need to ensure that we are serving the public with the information they need e.g. safety documentation to keep them safe when using a product. I’m hoping that my future career will be easy to navigate from an ethical perspective. I’m just going to treat others as I would like to be treated.
References
Africa (2019) BBC2, 17 Feb, 21:00
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002p4d
Ethical principles: Society for Technical Communication (1998) stc.org, available: www.stc.org/about-stc/ethical-principles [accessed 18 Feb 2019].
Herschel, R. and Miori, V. (2017) ‘Ethics & Big Data’. Technology in Society. 49. [online]. Available from: http://search.proquest.com/docview/1952473313/.
Contemplating Writing 