Deck 4: Six Ethical Values of Communication

Question 1

Values contribute little to our understanding of what is good or bad, right or wrong.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

Each ethical value of communication concerns either or both the content and relational dimensions of the communication process.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

Truthfulness may be a universal ethical value.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

Truth concerns whether the content of communication messages is as accurate as possible and reliable.

Question 5

When making decisions, at some points we must trust the accuracy and reliability of information and ideas presented by others.

Question 6

For Plato, truth is universal, enduring, and difficult to recognize or discover.

Question 7

Searching for the truth through reasoning or other mental processes is one approach to understanding the truth.

Question 8

Plato believed that because people have different experiences, there are many different truths.

Question 9

Personal experience and observation is a second approach for understanding truth.

Question 10

If a person can never be certain she knows the complete truth, she must be open to listening to and examining other points of view.

Question 11

Both certainty and curiosity promote the search for truth.

Question 12

Telling the truth is a universal law or duty that respects human dignity, according to philosopher Immanuel Kant.

Question 13

The second expression of the categorical imperative tells us that lying is unethical because lies use others as a means to achieve the liar's goal.

Question 14

Philosopher Sissela Bok argues that since it is not possible to know the whole truth, the real ethical issue is whether a communicator intends to tell the truth as she understands it.

Question 15

The principle of veracity is the presumption that communicators are honest.

Question 16

The principle of veracity has no importance for competent communication.

Question 17

According to Bok, a lie is any intentionally deceptive message that is stated.

Question 18

Using Bok's definition of a lie it is impossible to be honest while lying.

Question 19

Bok argues that lies are a form of violence, a communicative assault on another person.

Question 20

From the perspective of the deceived, there is no such thing as a trivial lie.

Question 21

There are few or no harms to a liar, when she tells lies.

Question 22

A harm of lying is that communicators lose trust in what others say.

Question 23

Not being able to recognize when others are being truth is a danger of cynicism.

Question 24

According to Kant, telling a white or altruistic lie is ethically acceptable.

Question 25

Kant's first expression of the categorical imperative, to practice only those ethical principles that you will to be a universal law, allows for no exceptions.

Question 26

According to Kant, telling the truth is greater than any other responsibility, so you should never lie.

Question 27

The ethical value of justice develops from the moral emotion of the equality bias, where you compare what you receive or experience to what others receive or experience.

Question 28

There is only one type of justice, fairness

Question 29

Corrective justice rights a wrong by punishing a wrongdoer.

Question 30

What is most important is corrective justice is making sure the wrongdoer is punished.

Question 31

The ethical challenge of practicing corrective justice is weighing the severity of a punishment against the wrongness of an act, so a punishment is not too severe or too lenient.

Question 32

In retributive justice a victim and her family or friends are involved in deciding what is a deserving punishment for a wrongdoer.

Question 33

Conflict spirals can be an unintended consequence of practicing retributive justice.

Question 34

Research shows that victims can accurately perceive that their responses or punishments of the wrongdoer are equal in severity to the wrongs they experienced.

Question 35

Procedural justice focuses on the processes for deciding what is fair, not the actual decision itself.

Question 36

Procedural justice is a highly personalized practice of justice.

Question 37

To be fair, processes of procedural justice must be impartial.

Question 38

Drawing a name out of a hat or a jury trial are examples of procedural justice.

Question 39

Distributive justice concerns the fairness of how benefits or harms are distributed among people.

Question 40

Distributive justice uses criteria, such as equality, merit, or special needs and abilities, to
distribute goods or harms among people.

Question 41

Distributive and procedural justice are never practiced together.

Question 42

Involvement of special interests raise questions of fairness in procedural or distributive justice.

Question 43

One of the aims of restorative justice is to reconcile broken relationships and rebuild communities.

Question 44

Holding wrongdoers accountable has no role in practicing restorative justice.

Question 45

Apology and forgiveness are two practices of corrective justice.

Question 46

Harmonic justice is different from other forms of justice in that it does not involve social comparison.

Question 47

Harmonic justice is an interpersonal practice of fairness that focuses a communicator's attention on her communication partner's legitimate interests to survive and thrive.

Question 48

The communication act of acknowledgment is a practice of harmonic justice.

Question 49

The ethical value of freedom concerns the absence of coercion and constraint.

Question 50

Orlando Patterson suggests we think of freedom as a musical chord of three notes-personal freedom, sovereignal freedom, and civility.

Question 51

Personal freedom is the freedom to do what you wish, if you do not harm others.

Question 52

Examples of Isaiah Belin's concept of negative freedom are found in the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution.

Question 53

Negative freedom protects people by establishing limits on the actions of others.

Question 54

Sovereignal freedom is the power to do what you want to do as far as you possibly can.

Question 55

Accountability for one's actions is important in both personal and sovereignal freedom.

Question 56

The experience of slavery, of both the master and the slave, is important in understanding the nature of all forms of freedom.

Question 57

The practice of freedom by individuals depends on their relationships to others who resources that maintain freedom.

Question 58

Civic freedom involves both rights and responsibility for participating in the life and governance of the community.

Question 59

Fulfilling civic responsibilities such as volunteering or voting, create resources that maintain the community, making rights such as freedom of speech possible.

Question 60

Understanding and meeting the needs of persons in our interpersonal relationships involves the value of care.

Question 61

The ethical value of care prioritizes the needs of others.

Question 62

All practices of care are ethical.

Question 63

Care acknowledges and incorporates emotions of the care-giver and cared-for.

Question 64

Listening is not a critical communication skill for practicing care.

Question 65

Julia Wood describes caring as a practice of selflessness typically limited to women.

Question 66

To be ethical, the practice of care must address only the needs of the cared-for.

Question 67

Addressing the needs of both the care-giver and care-for is necessary for the ethical practice of care.

Question 68

Integrity focuses on the private practice of an ethical value.

Question 69

Integrity focuses on consistent and public practice of an ethical value or principle.

Question 70

Stephen Carter's definition of integrity does not require that the practice of integrity always be consistent.

Question 71

Discerning what is right is the first step of Stephen Carter's definition of integrity.

Question 72

Publicly stating or explaining why you acted as you did is not important for integrity.

Question 73

Encouraging public discussion and debate about what is ethical is one reason why it is important for integrity to be public.

Question 74

Publicly explaining why we did what we did allows others to challenge and test our reasoning for rationalizations or other errors.

Question 75

According to Stephen Carter, consistency alone lacks integrity.

Question 76

It is possible to act with consistency and still lack integrity.

Question 77

Compromise always lacks integrity.

Question 78

Answering the question "Will this compromise help me move toward my goal of practicing this ethical value or principle?" helps identify integrity-preserving compromise.

Question 79

Acts of respect communicate honor.

Question 80

All honor is ethical.