Marius C. Maries COM 377-01 Communication Law and Ethics First Take-Home Essay a).

Summary The moral system that Bernard Gert describes is comprised of moral rules, moral ideals, and a two-step procedure for determining whether a moral rule is justifiably violated or not. The two-step procedure includes the morally relevant features and the morally decisive questions. Gert argues that this system applies to all rational persons who implicitly use common morality when making their moral decisions and judgments. Gert describes ten moral rules which can be broken down into two categories. The first category is that of moral rules that prohibit directly the causing of all the basic harms, while the second set of five rules prohibit those actions that indirectly are causing the same harms. The moral rules are:

Do not kill. Do not cause pain. Do not disable. Do not deprive of freedom. Do not deprive of pleasure.

6. Do not deceive. 7. Keep your promises. 8. Do not cheat. 9. Obey the law. 10. Do your duty.

Knowing the moral rules means knowing what kind of actions they prohibit or require. Insofar as the applicability of the moral rules is concerned, Gert considers a sine qua non condition that the moral rules are known and understood by the persons whom we want to hold accountable to respect these rules. Implicitly, this limits the field of responsibility to human

beings, while infants, very young children, retarded and mentally alienated persons are not subject to moral judgments. Even so, these categories of persons do get the protection of moral rules; there is great controversy regarding the protection of fetuses and of animals. Gert acknowledges that equally informed, impartial, rational persons can disagree about whether a violation of a moral rule should be allowed. This is where the two-step procedure tries to shed some light on the issue by providing a framework for analyzing a morally challenging situation. The first step requires finding out all the relevant facts that surround the act, the kinds of facts that can change the moral decisions and judgments of impartial rational persons. The second step requires estimating the consequences of everyone knowing that a certain violation is allowed or that it is not allowed. b). Analysis for case #1 (Jennifer is presenting a persuasive speech...) If I would be one of Jennifer's classmates, I would first let her finish with her speech and when she allows for questions I would inquire about the research she did on the subject and also present the adequately researched facts to the class. I understand this would have to be done very delicately and politely, in such a manner that Jennifer takes it as constructive criticism and not as a personal attack. The presentation takes place during a Public Speaking 101 class, so it is meant to be an educational environment. I strongly believe that one is more likely to learn when confronted with criticism than when people are just trying to be agreeable and give no feedback. The two-step procedure starts with the identification of the morally relevant features. The facts are scarce in this case, but there are a few important details that can be concluded from the text supplied. The first issue is the fact that her speech is sprinkled by inaccuracies. Also, it is relevant that her speech is advocating student action on a matter that has high student interest on campus and that the response from everybody else is to support her ideas.

Considering this circumstances I believe my action of contending her speech would clearly not contradict on most of the moral rules presented by Gert. One rule that I might be violating if I would go ahead with my action of contesting Jennifers speech is Do not deprive of freedom, in the sense that I might deprive Jennifer of the opportunity to receive a good grade for her speech or to gain support for what she is arguing in the speech. Following I will show that the violation of the above mentioned rule would be justified. As I said earlier, the harms inflicted by my violation of the rule is the possibility of Jennifer not receiving a good grade for the speech and also causing her not to gain support for it. It could also put her into an embarrassing situation, depending on her psychological profile and self-esteem. On the other hand, I am convinced that the benefits of me bringing to her attention what she did wrong regarding her speech would only improve her as a speaker, not to mention that it would save the other students from leaving the class with information that is not accurate. I have always been one to believe that there is nothing more hurtful than thinking you hold the truth in a matter, but actually having a false view on it. It would be interesting to find out if Jennifer is giving an inaccurate speech intentionally, or if she just did not do a diligent work. I am aware that Gert is differentiating between doing some harm intentionally and only doing it knowingly, but I would like to argue in such a case that the end result of the harm is the one that matters, and therefore I do not why a differentiation is necessary. One could argue a different regime could be applied for someone who does not know the harms he or she is producing, but I believe the intentional harm and the knowing harm should be just considered together. Jennifer has a rational desire for her speech to be successful and for her to get a good grade, and this seems to have made her overlook important aspects in her research. Since she is presenting in this way she obviously believes she can get away with a half-researched speech in

front of her audience, represented by students and professors. As a listener who knows that the speech is not entirely accurate, I feel it is a duty towards myself, the other listeners, and also Jennifer to reveal the nature of the speech. This is part of an educational process and it should be treated in this way. There might be a possibility that some students could just want to be entertained by attending the speech session, but in this case it is being said that the matter has high student interest on campus, so it is more likely that this is a serious matter. The fifth question of Gerts two step procedure asks which goods or benefits are being promoted by the violation. I must admit that by correcting Jennifer I would be put in a good light in front of the professor and also the class, but the most important benefit would be for the class and not my towards myself. I think my violation of the rule is justified, because I would prevent Jennifer to completely go against the Do not deceive rule, which in her case would be morally unjustified. She has already violated the above mentioned rule by presenting, but the discussion at the end where I would reveal the inconsistencies would make try to repair the harm done. Although other actions could certainly be thought of, I believe the open discussion about the quality of the speech would be the morally preferable action in this case, which argues in favor of my action being morally justifiable. The considered violation would certainly be intentional on my part, but I believe it should have no effect in considering its moral justification, since the benefits it brings are overwhelmingly in favor of the majority. Even though it is said in the excerpt that Jennifer is getting an enthusiastic response, I do not believe it can be considered an emergency situation.

The second step is concerned with estimating the consequences of everyone knowing that a kind of violation is allowed and that it is not allowed. I believe that everyone would consider me breaking the fourth moral rule as allowed in this case, taking into account the predominant positive outcome of such an endeavor. In the end, I will use the morality flow control chart to check my action of criticizing Jennifer, considering it being a violation of the Do not deprive of freedom moral rule. My action would be publicly allowed violation by all people, thus making my action not immoral.