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Credit: Adam Simpson

The Ethics of Self-Driving Cars

Self-driving cars have the potential to make roads safer. but what do we do while they learn from their mistakes.

By J. Cavanaugh Simpson

" Numerous arrests, flat tires, and confrontations with angry pedestrians failed to quench Willie's insatiable driving thirst. Many assumed the cars to be just a passing fad ." —Willie K. Vanderbilt II: A Biography, by Steven H. Gittelman

I n 1900, Willie K. Vanderbilt II, an early adopter of the motorcar, tore across New England in a 28-horsepower Daimler Phoenix he had nicknamed the White Ghost. At 22, this scion of the Vanderbilt railroad dynasty matched the locomotive speed record at the everyone-hang-on-tight pace of 60 mph. On the jaunt between Newport and Boston (2 hours, 47 minutes), he was fined by a Boston policeman for "scorching."

There were no speed limits. There soon would be.

The roadway antics of Vanderbilt and other prosperous drivers of "road engines" (they had to be prosperous—the White Ghost cost $10,000, or about $280,000 in current dollars) led to America's first speed limits, in Connecticut, enacted in 1901: 12 mph in cities and 15 mph on country roads. The restrictions were rarely heeded.

Three years later, Vanderbilt hosted one of America's first major international races: the Vanderbilt Cup on Long Island public roads. Bedecked in goggles and sheathed in dust, drivers in open-cockpit vehicles with spoked wheels and pneumatic tires sped around bends lined with spectators. During the race's second year, Swiss driver Louis Chevrolet crashed his Fiat into a telegraph pole and survived. A year later, a race spectator was hit and did not survive. Other fatalities followed. "The trail of dead and maimed left in the smoke makes it almost certain the mad exhibition of speed will be the last of its kind," reported the Chicago Daily Tribune .

Image caption: A dusty start to the Vanderbilt Cup race on October 24, 1908.

Image credit : Bain News Service / Wikimedia Commons

America avidly followed motorists like Vanderbilt, whose flashy new machines would set the pace for the century of the automobile—altering public safety, economies, and the way humans live. Though not without backlash. Biographer Gittelman writes that Vanderbilt's "racing down country roads invoked not awe but ire from the local citizenry," including farmers who lost horses, chickens, and pigs on rural byways. Drivers met with tacks and nails strewn across their path. "Other times it was upturned rakes and saws."

Today we are, like Vanderbilt, in the early days of an automotive technology transformation. Autonomous vehicles—or AVs—"may prove to be the greatest personal transportation revolution since the popularization of the personal automobile nearly a century ago," noted the U.S. Department of Transportation in the first Federal Automated Vehicles Policy in 2016, which suggested but did not require safety assessments.

When the motorcar arrived on the scene, an unsanctioned social experiment unfolded on public thoroughfares. Only after accidents and deaths did most regulation and safety measures follow. Now, a new wave of prosperous early adopters are beta testing AV technology—and venture-capital-fueled self-driving vehicles are honing their computerized skills on urban streets and highways—in yet another ad hoc experiment. The result: ethical dilemmas in safety, society, and culture. Question is, do we really need to reinvent the wheel on how best to adapt to what's coming, or can history offer some clues?

A utonomous vehicles could change societies across the globe, erasing millions of jobs while saving thousands of lives. Reconfiguring cities. Transforming economies. In what some term the early years of a Jetsonian dream, an autonomous vehicle revolution seems inevitable, at least to those investing lots of money and hope. A 2017 Brookings Institution report estimates recent investment in the AV industry at $80 billion, spearheaded by familiar competitors such as Ford, Mercedes-Benz, and General Motors, as well as Tesla, Google's Waymo, Uber, and China's Baidu. Fully self-driving vehicles, and those that augment a human driver with features like automated steering and braking, have been road tested or rolled out with limited restrictions in cities worldwide including Pittsburgh, Austin, Phoenix, San Francisco, Nashville, London, Paris, and Helsinki. In the U.S., a few states allow computers to be "drivers," at least to an extent, or vehicles that have no steering wheels or gas pedals.

Not without human cost. In March, pedestrian Elaine Herzberg , 49, of Tempe, Arizona, was hit by an Uber vehicle that had a driver but was operating in "autonomous mode." Following her death, Uber halted public road testing. The National Transportation Safety Board launched an investigation. Experts like Raj Rajkumar, co-director of the General Motors–Carnegie Mellon Autonomous Driving Collaborative Research Lab, urged a freeze on public road testing. "This isn't like a bug with your phone. People can get killed. Companies need to take a deep breath. The technology is not there yet," Rajkumar told Axios. "This is the nightmare all of us working in this domain always worried about."

As AV tech improves, there's an expectation among public health advocates and others that self-driving vehicles will eventually save many lives. Motor vehicle–related deaths in the U.S. hover above 35,000 annually. Various studies indicate more than 90 percent of traffic accidents are caused by human error, usually speeding or inattention. "Humans are better drivers than squirrels, but we're terrible drivers," lamented Jennifer Bradley, director of the Aspen Institute's Center for Urban Innovation, at a recent symposium at the Bloomberg School of Public Health .

AV development overall won't be stopped by the first pedestrian death—Bridget Driscoll was the first known pedestrian killed by a "horseless carriage," in London in 1896, less than two decades after Karl Benz debuted the first practical gasoline-powered vehicle, the one-cylinder, three-wheeled Motorwagen. The death of the 44-year-old mother didn't prevent Benz's invention from taking over roads worldwide.

Yet the first AV-related pedestrian death and other fatal accidents have prompted growing concern over unintended consequences. And now's likely the time to get ahead of the problems. Otherwise, few people will end up buying or trusting vehicles without human drivers. "There's a window of opportunity but it's not clear how quickly it's closing," says Jason Levine, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety , an independent nonprofit advocacy group. "We are at a moment of tremendous excitement, and there's potentially tremendous value to the tech but also consumer skepticism about its safety and utility."

Autonomous vehicle testing on public roads is nothing like how pharmaceutical "drugs or even children's toys are introduced to the public," Levine adds. "The hubris of putting this tech on roads in a way the average person has not given consent to raises a lot of questions."

Joshua Brown, who died in self-driving accident, tested limits of his Tesla

The ethics of autonomous cars, autonomous trucks will haul your stuff before you ride in a self-driving car, for a much-needed win, self-driving cars should aim lower.

To foster possibly safer scenarios, and with computer-driven cars already en route (Waymo, in particular, reports that it has logged 5 million test miles on public roads), ethical frameworks are emerging. Researchers in public health and engineering at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere are seeking guideposts such as shared incident databases, or studying how humans interact with the vehicles (to avoid, for example, human drivers drifting off to sleep in a car that's not fully autonomous, so they are unable to take over if needed, what's been termed a "fatal nap").

In December, in the Bloomberg School of Public Health's Sheldon Hall, ethics underscored " The Future of Personal Transportation: Safe and Equitable Implementation of Autonomous Vehicles—A Conversation on Public Health Action ," co-sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy . Panelists discussed how autonomous vehicles might ease "transportation deserts" in cities but add to the "slothification" of people who won't walk if a self-driving urban podcar awaits. There were equity questions. "Will the technology be affordable?" asked Keshia Pollack Porter, a professor and director of the Bloomberg School's Institute for Health and Social Policy. A probable social consequence—job loss—prompted calls to action. A PowerPoint map indicating that tractor-trailer and delivery driving is a top occupation in 29 U.S. states drew gasps: Many of the nation's more than 3.5 million professional trucking jobs would likely disappear if tractor-trailers were to drive themselves.

The U.S. needs to make a major social commitment, researchers said, including transitional job training and education. "Many times over in human history, tech innovation has meant that machines have replaced humans," says Nancy Kass , a professor of bioethics and public health and a deputy director at the university's Berman Institute of Bioethics . "I'm not sure we in the United States are a model for committing to the human beings who are being replaced."

T ech developers have warned that stringent regulation of AV inventions could hamper innovation. Until recent accidents, members of Congress seemed to agree—for example, supporting bills to exempt up to 100,000 autonomous vehicles per manufacturer from federal safety regulations. Should society simply wait and see how that all goes? A group of Johns Hopkins researchers doesn't think so, and recently won a grant from the Berman Institute's JHU Exploration of Practical Ethics program. On a Tuesday in Hampton House Café at Johns Hopkins' East Baltimore campus, Johnathon Ehsani , an assistant professor of health policy and management, and Tak Igusa , a professor of civil engineering, described the aims of the project and related research. Society is "figuring it out as we go along," Ehsani said. "There's the ethical behavior of the machine, and that captures the popular imagination. 'Is the car I buy going to kill me or other people?' And there are situations in which the vehicle would make ethical decisions.

"Yet as safety experts, our unique contribution seems to lie in how we can shepherd a safe and efficient deployment," Ehsani said. "How can we balance public safety concerns with the potential benefits this will bring society?"

Experts are analyzing roadway crash data to identify things like problematic intersections, to help guide AVs to less tricky routes that allow for sensors and software to gradually become more sophisticated. "In many ways, an autonomous vehicle is like a teenage driver. When you first start going out, you take them out only in parking lots or on quiet residential streets where you know they'll be safe," Ehsani explained.

Regarding safety, two issues seem paramount: 1) how to program self-driving cars to make their own lightning-fast decisions just before a crash, which may require prioritizing some lives over others; and 2) the ethical questions raised by testing software and sensors on public streets—to develop computerized motion control, path planning, or perception—potentially putting people at unnecessary risk. As Drexel University researcher Janet Fleetwood wrote in a seminal 2017 article in the American Journal of Public Health , programmers "recognize that the vehicles are not perfect and will not be anytime soon. What are we to do in the interim while the autonomous vehicles are learning from their mistakes?"

Video credit : TED-Ed

The prospect of robotic car decision making has meant revisiting a thought experiment known as the trolley problem. Imagine a run-away trolley. Five people are tied to the trolley tracks. If you pull a lever, the trolley switches to a different track where there's only one person in harm's way. Do you let the five be killed incidentally, or pull the lever, diverting the trolley and saving them but deliberately killing the one? "The trolley problem is taught in every philosophy class because it doesn't have a clear answer morally," Kass says. "It might behoove a company to do public engagement around this issue on how to program the cars, to determine what most people want—or at least have people understand the trade-offs at stake."

With AV tech being so new, there are many unknowns, but for likely crash situations, human programmers might code such decisions via a forced-choice algorithm: The car's computer would be forced to select, for example, whether to hit a pedestrian or swerve, striking another vehicle or a concrete wall, saving the pedestrian but potentially killing the driver. Although the need for "a forced-choice algorithm may arise infrequently on the road, it is important to analyze and resolve," researcher Fleetwood wrote. Human drivers have long made such last-second decisions. Yet how do we pre-program a "correct" option, or let AI machine learning determine "crash optimization" based on a code of conduct built into the software? "You could say you have a public health responsibility to protect pedestrians," Kass says. "Yet it's not an unreasonable expectation that people buy a car that would keep them [as passengers] safe."

This dilemma remains a substantial barrier to humans ceding control. Among other studies, in a survey of 2,000 people—by researchers at the University of Oregon, the Toulouse School of Economics in France, and MIT Media Lab titled " The Social Dilemma of Autonomous Vehicles "—respondents initially favored a utilitarian morality: that an autonomous vehicle should strive to save the most people. Yet would they buy an AV that prioritized strangers over themselves or their families? The general response: No.

J oshua Brown adored his Tesla Model S, which he named "Tessy." Brown, a former Navy SEAL, made YouTube videos of himself driving no-hands via Autopilot, the semi-autonomous option that controlled his sedan's speed and steering within lanes. Tesla founder Elon Musk tweeted one of those video clips. Brown, 40, later told a neighbor, according to The New York Times , "For something to catch Elon Musk's eye, I can die and go to heaven now."

A few weeks after Musk's tweet in 2016, on a sunny day near Williston, Florida, Brown engaged Autopilot. A National Transportation Safety Board report later revealed the driver's hands remained off the wheel for all but 25 seconds of a 37-minute drive. An alarm sounded six times because his hands were disengaged. Since he did this often, such notification chimes, what some drivers call a "nag," might have become for him mere background noise that he ignored.

When a white semitrailer turned in front of him, his Tesla smashed into it in an explosion of white metal and dust. The NTSB report linked the fatal crash to human error, yet criticized Tesla for systemic concerns , giving "far too much leeway to the driver to divert his attention to something other than driving." Following Brown's death, Tesla updated the software to disable Autopilot after the no-hands alarm sounds for the third time.

Could designers have predicted that Brown would, like Vanderbilt and other auto enthusiasts, push the limits of a cutting-edge machine? "The fact that the driver went so long with his hands off the wheel shouldn't come as a complete surprise," said Jake Fisher, Consumer Reports auto testing director, after the NTSB report. "If a car can physically be driven hands-free, it's inevitable that some drivers will use it that way."

Some argue that AV pioneers end up putting people at risk who haven't chosen to participate in the experiment. "We are going forward a little too fast, and there are no guardrails," says auto safety advocate Levine. "Not taking action as a society until it's abundantly clear there is danger would unfortunately be a repetition of past mistakes."

Image caption: Pictured above is the first traffic light to be installed and operated in Bucharest

Image credit : The Library of the Romanian Academy / Wikimedia Commons

In the first automotive era, collateral damage indeed ensued. In 1900, America counted 8,000 vehicles. By the early 1920s, vehicle numbers hit 10 million, federal records show. Drunk driving, drag racing, and hit-and-run incidents also rose, and U.S.-tracked motor vehicle fatalities mushroomed from just 36 in 1900 to more than 20,000 by 1925. Only after such chaos did most safety measures—including traffic lights, driver's licenses, uniform signage, shatterproof windshields—result, mostly starting in the early 1930s, nearly three decades after the popularization of the car.

As safety plays out today, regulators could proactively require, for example, AV sensor standards; proof of safety testing; clearly visible warnings of limitations (much like airbag warnings); mandatory incident and data reporting and sharing; and road signage notifying people of testing, experts note. "There are no electronic standards. No cybersecurity standards. No baseline metric that self-driving vehicles meet X standard," Levine says. "There's no national framework around autonomous vehicle technology to minimize potential for damage."

Rigorous safety monitoring would be top priority, Kass says. And other testing templates could be adapted, such as some used for pharmaceuticals. "In drug testing there's a Stopping Rule: If you see a rate of adverse effects above a certain predetermined threshold, you call things off. And thinking about that threshold in advance is important," she says. "We as human beings tend to rationalize and justify: 'Well, we don't really think it's a problem. Or, the benefits outweigh the risks.'" Safety test rules can foster essential objectivity.

Entrepreneurs racing for market dominance tend to protect trade secrets, yet sharing incident reports and solutions could prove financially beneficial—much like the Federal Aviation Administration incident databases and the collaborative Commercial Aviation Safety Team that record data, detect risk, and come up with prevention strategies. "A crash for one autonomous vehicle company is bad business for all of them," Ehsani says.

Federal regulators and Congress will likely need to set AV safety and onboard tech standards. Yet anticipating outcomes can prove complex. Safety experts cite lessons from the history of vehicle airbags: Touted as lifesaving, vehicle airbags were installed mostly starting in 1993. By 1996, airbag deployments had caused 25 deaths among children, prompting public outrage. The auto industry had installed high-powered bags designed to shield a 160-pound, nearly 6-foot-tall person. Federal agencies later determined that the tech had not been sufficiently tested on children and smaller adults. After so many fatal accidents, newer "depowered" airbags and highly visible warnings against placing children in front seats resulted, though even those measures took a few years and airbag safety recalls continue.

A global perspective might make a difference. While both America and Europe dominated early automobile innovation, a philosophical split led Europeans to emphasize a "precautionary principle": If there's potential for significant risk of human harm, proceed slowly.

Overall, the United States "tends to privilege entrepreneurial thinking, and people credit the United States for being the engine of discovery," Kass notes. "It's a climate that is conducive to this: more cowboy, less precautionary, less risk averse."

A utonomous vehicles could bring societywide change even more complex than coding a vehicle's moral compass. Potential public health benefits could be impressive: Drunk driving and overall traffic injuries would likely decline; older drivers could increase their mobility and alleviate depression or mental decline with better access to doctors' offices, groceries, and events. At the same time, however, stretched public transportation funds might be siphoned away from buses or light rail. Some states "will want to put in infrastructure for autonomous vehicle lanes," Ehsani says. "It's a good idea now to think: Would the public have benefited more from investment in public transportation? Will the least advantaged be worse off?"

If popularized, self-driving vehicles could remake American cities and suburbs. On the upside, fewer parking lots might be needed for 24-hour shared vehicles, fostering greener urban areas. Yet cities would lose revenue from parking meters, garages, and citations, forcing higher taxes. (Such city parking revenue is not small change. San Francisco brings in $130 million annually.) Self-driving vehicles could also exacerbate suburban sprawl, as people might live farther out if they can text-and-scroll all the way to work.

Yet the biggest societal shift might be what happens to sustainable livelihoods. A projected decimation of delivery, taxi, and especially truck driving jobs seems the most alarming. America is currently facing a truck driver shortage, and some experts predict automated steering and other driver-assist tech might actually enhance trucking safety, drawing more drivers. Yet other experts say that as AI advances, humans won't be needed. And, since computers or robots don't require sleep or food, a ripple effect would hit supporting industries: restaurants, truck stops, and hotels, affecting millions more. Some truckers could transition to other well-paid jobs, which likely need training, licenses, or certifications, such as firefighters, commercial pilots, or charter boat captains. IT-trained humans could troubleshoot a semi's computer glitches. At the end of the day, however, there's no convincing solution, as similar declines have been faced in the coal and steel industries. The breadth of this transformation might require progressive action.

"With predictions of an enormous impact—millions of jobs and millions of Americans affected—there's an analogy to what happened [during] the Industrial Revolution. With autonomous vehicles, there are positive public health, safety, and environmental outcomes but also human consequences with job loss," Kass says. "Large numbers of Americans are disrupted by something significant—disproportionately affecting those with a high school education or less. A government function would be to identify strategies to help people transition." Kass suggests such measures as federal incentives, taxation, and investment in job training.

Economic adaptations can evolve alongside new technologies, and history again offers a few clues. When motorcars started chugging in the late 1800s, someone quickly had to figure out how to fix them. An economic boon resulted. Among the wealthy, longtime carriage drivers sometimes became "chauffeur mechanics." Vanderbilt, for example, toured Europe in the early 1900s, logging 26 punctured tires, over-heated radiators, broken brake shoes, and locked-up carburetors, fixed mostly by his shot-gun-seat mechanic "Mr. Payne." Articles in the early motorcar journal Horseless Carriage Gazette recommended drivers carry wrenches, hammers, pliers, wire, and a ball of twine for roadside repairs. Across the nation, a growing number of vehicles needed regular repair (especially after Henry Ford produced the more affordable Model T in 1908). Varied craftspeople adapted their skill sets: blacksmiths, bicycle mechanics, electricians, plumbers, carriage makers, and machinists. "The invention and commercialization of automobile technology created the automobile mechanic's occupation de novo ," wrote Kevin L. Borg in Auto Mechanics: Technology and Expertise in Twentieth-Century America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007). A training economy was born—YMCA courses, World War I training centers, and later high school auto shops—that quickly proved lucrative. Take New York's West Side YMCA "auto school." "Receipts for the 1905 calendar year totaled nearly twenty thousand dollars, swamping the income generated by all the other courses," Borg wrote. "Many young Americans rushed to embrace the new technology."

Today, tech-enthralled youth might answer a similar call for higher paying IT-mechanic jobs. A February article in Automotive News posed: "Who will repair and maintain these robotic and technological marvels?" Via engineering firm Robert Bosch's internship program in Plymouth, Michigan, community college electronics students have received training with "software and electrical integration of sensors in automated vehicle prototypes." (In regard to tech entrepreneur lineage, the company's founder was a younger contemporary of Benz and a colleague of inventor Thomas A. Edison. In 1886, Bosch, an electrical engineer, opened a precision mechanics workshop in Germany the same year a patent was awarded for Benz Patent Motor Car, Model No. 1.)

T he early automobile, and the romantic recklessness of drivers like Vanderbilt, prompted nothing less than a cultural earthquake, shaking loose a new modernity and sense of personal agency—power, speed, freedom, and control—which seems at odds with self-driving cars. Does such a legacy matter?

T.E. Schlesinger , Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering dean and professor of electrical and computer engineering, grew up in Canada just across the border from Detroit. He's among those who understand the cult of the car: "The human relationship with the automobile is special. People love their cars. People write songs about cars. People don't write songs about their toasters or their TVs." There's the freedom to go where you want to go, to drive down the open road. "If we have autonomous vehicles, will we be able to do that? What is that relationship?"

Overall, the future of autonomous vehicles depends on what humans desire from their modes of transport, and the risks or benefits they glimpse on the horizon. Schlesinger, a founding co-director of the General Motors–Carnegie Mellon collaborative lab, welcomes potentially safer roadways and thinks auto culture will adapt: "All bets are off on design." Cars have resembled a carriage, with an engine in front where the horse used to be, he says. "The driver is sitting there to hold the 'reins.'" A truly self-driving vehicle could resemble "a game room or a virtual reality environment."

Other drivers aren't so sure. At a classic car show 20 minutes north of Johns Hopkins' Homewood campus, restored cars, some from Vanderbilt's era, fill a parking lot beside another tribute to beloved machinery, the Fire Museum of Maryland. Members of the Chesapeake region Antique Automobile Club of America, founded 63 years ago, display vehicles ranging from a shiny black Model T to an elegant 1930s Packard with whitewall tires, from a baby blue 1950s Chevy to a sleek 1970s Corvette Stingray.

Three longtime classic car owners sit in the shade of a tree. When asked about the specter of autonomous cars, they seem resigned. "In 1903, people resisted automobiles," says Al Zimmerman. "They said they would never work. That people would always ride horses."

Norm Heathcote, chapter president, jokes that his wife would likely prefer riding in an autonomous car, instead of having him at the wheel, especially of his maroon 1950 Ford coupe: "With a car that drives itself, she would probably feel a whole lot better." Car colleague Ken Stevenson worries about increasing tech reliance, and the men discuss threats to privacy, such as vehicle software hackers, internet-connected cars, and GPS. "I like a map," Stevenson says. "GPS just makes me feel dumb."

Driving today has already forfeited much of the original thrill, Zimmerman adds: "Modern automobiles versus old cars is already like night and day. Now you just drive along. All you do is aim a little bit. Autonomous cars are not much different."

In the end, what will become of the rebellious American-style independence the automobile has long represented? "Will you be able to light up?" Heathcote asks. Light up? He means: Burn out. Smoke the tires. "Smoke 'em if you got 'em."

J. Cavanaugh Simpson, A&S '97 (MA), is an essayist and a lecturer in the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars.

Posted in Health , Science+Technology , Politics+Society

Tagged berman institute of bioethics , ethics , driverless cars , autonomous vehicles

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Should Self-Driving Cars Have Ethics?

Laurel Wamsley

New research explores how people think autonomous vehicles should handle moral dilemmas. Here, people walk in front of an autonomous taxi being demonstrated in Frankfurt, Germany, last year. Andreas Arnold/Bloomberg via Getty Images hide caption

New research explores how people think autonomous vehicles should handle moral dilemmas. Here, people walk in front of an autonomous taxi being demonstrated in Frankfurt, Germany, last year.

In the not-too-distant future, fully autonomous vehicles will drive our streets. These cars will need to make split-second decisions to avoid endangering human lives — both inside and outside of the vehicles.

To determine attitudes toward these decisions a group of researchers created a variation on the classic philosophical exercise known as " the Trolley problem ." They posed a series of moral dilemmas involving a self-driving car with brakes that suddenly give out: Should the car swerve to avoid a group of pedestrians, killing the driver? Or should it kill the people on foot, but spare the driver? Does it matter if the pedestrians are men or women? Children or older people? Doctors or bank robbers?

To pose these questions to a large range of people, the researchers built a website called Moral Machine , where anyone could click through the scenarios and say what the car should do. "Help us learn how to make machines moral," a video implores on the site.

The grim game went viral, multiple times over.

"Really beyond our wildest expectations," says Iyad Rahwan, an associate professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the MIT Media Lab, who was one of the researchers. "At some point we were getting 300 decisions per second."

What the researchers found was a series of near-universal preferences, regardless of where someone was taking the quiz. On aggregate, people everywhere believed the moral thing for the car to do was to spare the young over the old, spare humans over animals, and spare the lives of many over the few. Their findings, led by by MIT's Edmond Awad, were published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Author Interviews

What happens when a.i. takes the wheel.

Using geolocation, researchers found that the 130 countries with more than 100 respondents could be grouped into three clusters that showed similar moral preferences. Here, they found some variation.

For instance, the preference for sparing younger people over older ones was much stronger in the Southern cluster (which includes Latin America, as well as France, Hungary, and the Czech Republic) than it was in the Eastern cluster (which includes many Asian and Middle Eastern nations). And the preference for sparing humans over pets was weaker in the Southern cluster than in the Eastern or Western clusters (the latter includes, for instance, the U.S., Canada, Kenya, and much of Europe).

And they found that those variations seemed to correlate with other observed cultural differences. Respondents from collectivistic cultures, which "emphasize the respect that is due to older members of the community," showed a weaker preference for sparing younger people.

Maddie About Science

Watch: self-driving cars need to learn how humans drive.

Rawhan emphasized that the study's results should be used with extreme caution, and they shouldn't be considered the final word on societal preferences — especially since respondents were not a representative sample. (Though the researchers did conduct statistical correction for demographic distortions, reweighing the responses to match a country's demographics.)

What does this add up to? The paper's authors argue that if we're going to let these vehicles on our streets, their operating systems should take moral preferences into account. "Before we allow our cars to make ethical decisions, we need to have a global conversation to express our preferences to the companies that will design moral algorithms, and to the policymakers that will regulate them," they write.

But let's just say, for a moment, that a society does have general moral preferences on these scenarios. Should automakers or regulators actually take those into account?

Last year, Germany's Ethics Commission on Automated Driving created initial guidelines for automated vehicles. One of their key dictates? A prohibition against such decision-making by a car's operating system.

No Driver Input Detected In Seconds Before Deadly Tesla Crash, NTSB Finds

"In the event of unavoidable accident situations, any distinction between individuals based on personal features (age, gender, physical or mental constitution) is strictly prohibited," the report says. "General programming to reduce the number of personal injuries may be justifiable. Those parties involved in the generation of mobility risks must not sacrifice non-involved parties."

But to Daniel Sperling, founding director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at University of California – Davis and author of a book on autonomous and shared vehicles , these moral dilemmas are far from the most pressing questions about these cars.

"The most important problem is just making them safe," he tells NPR. "They're going to be much safer than human drivers: They don't drink, they don't smoke, they don't sleep, they aren't distracted." So then the question is: How safe do they need to be before we let them on our roads?

• artificial intelligence
• self-driving cars
• autonomous vehicles

Loyola University > Center for Digital Ethics & Policy > Research & Initiatives > Essays > Archive > 2018 > Self-Driving Car Ethics

Self-driving car ethics, october 10, 2018.

Earlier this spring 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg was walking her bike across the street in Tempe, Ariz., when she was  hit and killed  by a car traveling at over 40 miles an hour.

There was something unusual about this tragedy: The car that hit Herzberg was driving on its own. It was an autonomous car being tested by Uber.

It’s not the only car crash connected to autonomous vehicles (AVs) as of late. In May, a Tesla on “autopilot” mode   accelerated briefly  before hitting the back of a fire truck, injuring two people.

The accidents unearthed debates that have long been simmering around the ethics of self-driving cars. Is this technology really safer than human drivers? How do we keep people safe while this technology is being developed and tested? In the event of a crash, who is responsible: the developers who create faulty software, the human in the driver’s seat who fails to recognize the system failure, or one of the hundreds of other hands that touched the technology along the way?

The need for driving innovation is clear: Motor vehicle deaths   topped  40,000 in 2017 according to the National Safety Council. A   recent study  by RAND Corporation estimates that putting AVs on the road once the technology is just 10 percent better than human drivers could save thousands of lives. Industry leaders continue to push ahead with development of AVs: Over $80 billion has been invested so far in AV technology, the Brookings Institute   estimated . Top automotive, rideshare and technology companies   including  Uber, Lyft, Tesla, and GM have self-driving car projects in the works. GM   has plans  to release a vehicle that does not need a human driver--and won’t even have pedals or a steering wheel--by 2019.

But as the above crashes indicate, there are questions to be answered before the potential of this technology is fully realized.

Ethics in the programming process

Accidents involving self-driving cars are usually due to sensor error or software error, explains Srikanth Saripalli, associate professor in mechanical engineering at Texas A&M University, in   The Conversation . The first issue is a technical one: Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) sensors won’t detect obstacles in fog, cameras need the right light, and radars aren’t always accurate. Sensor technology continues to develop, but there is still significant work needed for self-driving cars to drive safely in icy, snowy and other adverse conditions. When sensors aren’t accurate, it can cause errors in the system that likely wouldn’t trip up human drivers. In the case of Uber’s accident, the sensors identified Herzberg (who was walking her bike) as a pedestrian, a vehicle and finally a bike “with varying expectations of future travel path,” according to a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) preliminary   report  on the incident. The confusion caused a deadly delay--it was only 1.3 seconds before impact that the software indicated that emergency brakes were needed.

Self-driving cars are programmed to be rule-followers, explained Saripalli, but the realities of the road are usually a bit more blurred. In a 2017 accident in Tempe, Ariz., for example, a human-driven car attempted to turn left through three lanes of traffic and   collided  with a self-driving Uber. While there isn’t anything inherently unsafe about proceeding through a green light, a human driver might have expected there to be left-turning vehicles and slowed down before the intersection, Saripalli pointed out. “Before autonomous vehicles can really hit the road, they need to be programmed with instructions about how to behave when other vehicles do something out of the ordinary,” he writes.

However, in both the Uber accident that killed Herzberg and the Tesla collision mentioned above, there was a person behind the wheel of the car who wasn’t monitoring the road until it was too late. Even though both companies require that drivers keep their hands on the wheel and eyes on the road in case of a system error, this is a reminder that humans are prone to mistakes, accidents and distractions--even when testing self-driving cars. Can we trust humans to be reliable backup drivers when something goes wrong?

Further, can we trust that companies will be thoughtful--and ethical--about the expectations for backup drivers in the race for miles? Backup drivers who worked for Uber   told CityLab  that they worked eight to ten hour shifts with a 30 minute lunch and were often pressured to forgo breaks. Staying alert and focused for that amount of time is already challenging. With the false security of self-driving technology, it can be tempting to take a quick mental break while on the road. “Uber is essentially asking this operator to do what a robot would do. A robot can run loops and not get fatigued. But humans don’t do that,” an operator told CityLab.

The limits of the trolley scenario

Despite the questions that these accidents raise about the development process, the ethics conversation up to this point has largely been focused on the moment of impact. Consider the “ trolley problem ,” a hypothetical ethical brain teaser frequently brought up in the debate over self-driving cars. If an AV is faced with an inevitable fatal crash, whose life should it save? Should it prioritize the lives of the pedestrian? The passenger? Saving the most lives? Saving the lives of the young or elderly?

Ethical questions abound in every engineering and design decision, engineering researchers Tobias Holstein, Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic and Patrizio Pelliccione argue in their recent paper,   Ethical and Social Aspects of Self-Driving Cars , ranging from software security (can the car be hacked?) to privacy (what happens to the data collected by the car sensors?) to quality assurance (how often does a car like this need maintenance checks?). Furthermore, the researchers note that some ethics are directly at odds with the private industry’s financial incentives: Should a car manufacturer be allowed to sell cheaper cars outfitted with cheaper sensors? Could a customer choose to pay more for a feature that lets them influence the decision-making of the vehicle in fatal situations? How transparent should the technology be, and how will that be balanced with intellectual property that is vital to a competitive advantage?

The future impact of this technology hinges on these complex and bureaucratic “mundane ethics,” points out Johannes Himmelreich, interdisciplinary ethics fellow at Stanford University in   The Conversation . We need to recognize that big moral quandaries don’t just happen five seconds before the point of impact, he writes. Programmers could choose to optimize acceleration and braking to reduce emissions or improve traffic flow. But even these decisions pose big questions for the future of society: Will we prioritize safety or mobility? Efficiency or environmental concerns?

Ethics and responsibility

Lawmakers have already begun making these decisions. State governments and municipalities have scrambled to play host to the first self-driving car tests, in hopes of attracting lucrative tech companies, jobs and an innovation-friendly reputation. Arizona governor Doug Ducey has been one of the most vocal proponents,   welcoming Uber  when the company was kicked out of San Francisco for testing without a permit.

Currently there is a   patchwork  of   laws and executive orders  at the state level that regulate self-driving cars. Varying laws make testing and the eventual widespread roll-out more complicated and, as it is, it is likely that self-driving cars will need a   completely unique set  of safety regulations. Outside of the US, there has been more concrete discussion. Last summer Germany adopted   the world’s first ethical guidelines  for driverless cars. The rules state that human lives must take priority over damage to property and in the case of unavoidable human accident, a decision cannot be made based on “age, gender, physical or mental constitution,” among other stipulations.

There has also been discussion as to whether consumers should have the ultimate choice over AV ethics. Last fall, researchers at the European University Institute suggested the implementation of an “ ethical knob ,” as they call it, in which the consumer would set the software’s ethical decision-making to altruistic (preference for third parties), impartial (equal importance to all parties) or egoistic (preference for all passengers in the vehicle) in the case of an unavoidable accident. While their approach certainly still poses problems (a road in which every vehicle prioritizes the safety of its own passengers could create more risk), it does reflect public opinion. In a   series of surveys , researchers found that people believe in utilitarian ethics when in comes to self-driving cars--AVs should minimize casualties in the case of an unavoidable accident--but wouldn’t be keen on riding in a car that would potentially value the lives of multiple others over their own.

This dilemma sums up the ethical challenges ahead as self driving technology is tested, developed and increasingly driving next to us on the roads. The public wants safety for the most people possible, but not if it means sacrificing one’s own safety or the safety of loved ones. If people will put their lives in the hands of sensors and software, thoughtful ethical decisions will need to be made to ensure a death like Herzberg’s isn’t inevitable on the journey to safer roads.

Karis Hustad  is a Denmark-based freelance journalist covering technology, business, gender, politics and Northern Europe. She previously reported for  The Christian Science Monitor  and  Chicago Inno . Follow her on Twitter  @karishustad  and see more of her work at  karishustad.com .

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The self-driving car revolution reached a momentous milestone with the U.S. Department of Transportation’s release in September 2016 of its first handbook of rules on autonomous vehicles .

Many members of the Stanford community are debating ethical issues that will arise when humans turn over the wheel to algorithms. (Image credit: AlealL / Getty Images)

Discussions about how the world will change with driverless cars on the roads and how to make that future as ethical and responsible as possible are intensifying.

Some of these conversations are taking place at Stanford. The topic of ethics and autonomous cars will be discussed during a free live taping of an episode of Philosophy Talk , a nationally syndicated radio show co-hosted by professors Ken Taylor and John Perry , on Wednesday, May 24, at the Cubberley Auditorium.

Stanford News Service talked to several Stanford scholars for their insights on the most significant ethical questions and concerns when it comes to letting algorithms take the wheel.

Trolley problem debated

A common argument on behalf of autonomous cars is that they will decrease traffic accidents and thereby increase human welfare. Even if true, deep questions remain about how car companies or public policy will engineer for safety.

“Everyone is saying how driverless cars will take the problematic human out of the equation,” said Taylor, a professor of philosophy. “But we think of humans as moral decision-makers. Can artificial intelligence actually replace our capacities as moral agents?”

That question leads to the “trolley problem,” a popular thought experiment ethicists have mulled over for about 50 years, which can be applied to driverless cars and morality.

In the experiment, one imagines a runaway trolley speeding down a track which has five people tied to it. You can pull a lever to switch the trolley to another track, which has only one person tied to it. Would you sacrifice the one person to save the other five, or would you do nothing and let the trolley kill the five people?

Engineers of autonomous cars will now have to tackle this question and other, more complicated scenarios, said Taylor and Rob Reich , the director of Stanford’s McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society .

“It won’t be just the choice between killing one or killing five,” said Reich, who is also a professor of political science. “Will these cars optimize for overall human welfare, or will the algorithms prioritize passenger safety or those on the road? Or imagine if automakers decide to put this decision into the consumers’ hands, and have them choose whose safety to prioritize. Things get a lot trickier.”

Minimizing risk

But Stephen Zoepf , executive director of the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford (CARS) , along with several other Stanford scholars, including mechanical engineering Professor Chris Gerdes , argue that agonizing over the trolley problem isn’t helpful.

“It’s not productive,” Zoepf said. “People make all sorts of bad decisions. If there is a way to improve on that with driverless cars, why wouldn’t we?”

Zoepf said the more important ethical question is what is the level of risk society would be willing to incur with self-driving cars on the road. For the past several months, Zoepf and his CARS colleagues have been working on a project on ethical programming of automotive vehicles.

“We say, ‘let’s look at the tradeoffs inherent in safety and mobility,’” Zoepf said. “Should there be a designated right of way for automated vehicles, for example, or how fast should we permit automated vehicles to travel?”

Loss of jobs

Another ethical concern is the number of jobs that will be lost if self-driving vehicles become the norm, Taylor and Reich said.

More than 3.5 million truck drivers haul cargo on U.S. roads, according to the latest statistics by the American Trucking Associations , a trade association for the U.S. trucking industry.

“You can’t outsource driving,” Taylor said. “Technology has always destroyed jobs but created other jobs. But with the current technology revolution, things may look differently.”

Technological developments can cause the loss of jobs. But tech companies and governments can and must take steps to prepare for those losses, said Margaret Levi , professor of political science and the director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences .

“We have to be prepared for this job loss and know how to deal with it,” Levi said. “That’s part of the ethical responsibility of society. What do we do with people who are displaced? But it is not only the transformation in labor. It is also the transformation in transport, private and public. We must plan for that, too.”

Transparency and collaboration

Some scholars have also pointed out the need for greater transparency in the design of driverless cars.

“Should it be transparent how the algorithms of these cars are made?” Reich said. “The public interest is at stake, and transparency is an important consideration to inform public debate.”

But no matter their stance on a particular issue with self-driving cars, the scholars agree that there needs to be greater collaboration among disciplines in the development stage of this and other revolutionary technology.

“We need social scientists and ethicists on the design teams from the get-go,” Levi said. “That won’t resolve all the questions, but it would at least be a start to dealing with some of them.”

At Stanford, some of these collaborations are already taking place.

Jason Millar, an engineer and postdoctoral research fellow with the Center of Ethics in Society, is also working on the CARS ethical programming project. He is tackling how to translate knowledge developed in academic and philosophical circles into the daily design work of technology and artificial intelligence products.

“The idea is to address the concerns upfront, designing good technology that fits into people’s social worlds,” Millar said.

The Ethics of Self-driving Cars

Lesson Plan

Self-driving cars are already cruising the streets today. And while these cars will ultimately be safer and cleaner than their manual counterparts, they can’t completely avoid accidents altogether. How should the car be programmed if it encounters an unavoidable accident? Patrick Lin navigates the murky ethics of self-driving cars. Patrick Lin navigates the murky ethics of self-driving cars.

After watching the video on the ethical dilemma of self-driving cars , use the discussion questions to investigate the issues that are raised.

Discussion Questions

• In the situation described, would you prioritize your safety over everyone else’s by hitting the motorcycle?
• In the situation described, would you minimize danger to others by not swerving? if so, you would hit the large object and potentially die?
• In the situation described, would you take the middle ground by hitting the SUV since it’s less likely the driver will be injured? Compare this to hitting the motorcycle.
• What should a self-driving car do?
• What is the difference between a ”reaction” (human driver’s split second response) and a “deliberate decision” (driverless car’s calculated response)?
• Programing a car to react in a certain way in an emergency accident situation could be viewed as premeditated homicide. Do you think this is a valid argument? Why or why not?

If you would like to change or adapt any of PLATO's work for public use, please feel free to contact us for permission at [email protected] .

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PLATO is part of a global UNESCO network that encourages children to participate in philosophical inquiry. As a partner in the UNESCO Chair on the Practice of Philosophy with Children, based at the Université de Nantes in France, PLATO is connected to other educational leaders around the world.

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Exploring the Ethics Behind Self-Driving Cars

How do you code ethics into autonomous automobiles? And who is responsible when things go awry?

August 13, 2015

Illustration by Abigail Goh

Imagine a runaway trolley barreling down on five people standing on the tracks up ahead. You can pull a lever to divert the trolley onto a different set of tracks where only one person is standing. Is the moral choice to do nothing and let the five people die? Or should you hit the switch and therefore actively participate in a different person’s death?

In the real world, the “trolley problem” first posed by philosopher Philippa Foot in 1967 is an abstraction most won’t ever have to actually face. And yet, as driverless cars roll into our lives, policymakers and auto manufacturers are edging into similar ethical dilemmas.

Quote One of the questions that comes up in class discussions is whether, as a driver, you should be able to program a degree of selfishness, making the car save the driver and passengers rather than people outside the car. Attribution Ken Shotts

For instance, how do you program a code of ethics into an automobile that performs split-second calculations that could harm one human over another? Who is legally responsible for the inevitable driverless-car accidents — car owners, carmakers, or programmers? Under what circumstances is a self-driving car allowed to break the law? What regulatory framework needs to be applied to what could be the first broad-scale social interaction between humans and intelligent machines?

Ken Shotts and Neil Malhotra , professors of political economy at Stanford GSB, along with Sheila Melvin , mull the philosophical and psychological issues at play in a new case study titled “ ‘The Nut Behind the Wheel’ to ‘Moral Machines’: A Brief History of Auto Safety .” Shotts discusses some of the issues here:

What are the ethical issues we need to be thinking about in light of driverless cars?

This is a great example of the “trolley problem.” You have a situation where the car might have to make a decision to sacrifice the driver to save some other people, or sacrifice one pedestrian to save some other pedestrians. And there are more subtle versions of it. Say there are two motorcyclists, one is wearing a helmet and the other isn’t. If I want to minimize deaths, I should hit the one wearing the helmet, but that just doesn’t feel right.

These are all hypothetical situations that you have to code into what the car is going to do. You have to cover all these situations, and so you are making the ethical choice up front.

It’s an interesting philosophical question to think about. It may turn out that we’ll be fairly consequentialist about these things. If we can save five lives by taking one, we generally think that’s something that should be done in the abstract. But it is something that is hard for automakers to talk about because they have to use very precise language for liability reasons when they talk about lives saved or deaths.

What are the implications of having to make those ethical choices in advance?

Right now, we make those instinctive decisions as humans based on our psychology. And we make those decisions erroneously some of the time. We make mistakes, we mishandle the wheel. But we make gut decisions that might be less selfish than what we would do if we were programming our own car. One of the questions that comes up in class discussions is whether, as a driver, you should be able to program a degree of selfishness, making the car save the driver and passengers rather than people outside the car. Frankly, my answer would be very different if I were programming it for driving alone versus having my 7-year-old daughter in the car. If I have her in the car, I would be very, very selfish in my programming.

Who needs to be taking the lead on parsing these ethical questions — policymakers, the automotive industry, philosophers?

The reality is that a lot of it will be what the industry chooses to do. But then policymakers are going to have to step in at some point. And at some point, there are going to be liability questions.

There are also questions about breaking the law. The folks at the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford have pointed out that there are times when normal drivers do all sorts of illegal things that make us safer. You’re merging onto the highway and you go the speed of traffic, which is faster than the speed limit. Someone goes into your lane and you briefly swerve into an oncoming lane. In an autonomous vehicle, is the “driver” legally culpable for those things? Is the automaker legally culpable for it? How do you handle all of that? That’s going to need to be worked out. And I don’t know how it is going to be worked out, frankly. Just that it needs to be.

Are there any lessons to be learned from the history of auto safety that could help guide us?

Sometimes eliminating people’s choices is beneficial. When seatbelts were not mandatory in cars, they were not supplied in cars, and when they were not mandatory to be used, they were not used. Looking at cost-benefit analysis, seatbelts are incredibly cost effective at saving lives, as is stability control. There are real benefits to having things like that mandated so that people don’t have the choice not to buy them.

The liability system can also induce companies to include automated safety features. But that actually raises an interesting issue, which is that in the liability system, sins of commission are punished more severely than sins of omission. If you put in airbags and the airbag hurts someone, that’s a huge liability issue. Failing to put in the airbag and someone dies? Not as big of an issue. Similarly, suppose that with a self-driving car, a company installs safety features that are automated. They save a lot of lives, but some of the time they result in some deaths. That safety feature is going to get hit in the liability system, I would think.

What sort of regulatory thickets are driverless cars headed into?

When people talk about self-driving cars, a lot of the attention falls on the Google car driving itself completely. But this really is just a progression of automation, bit by bit by bit. Stability control and anti-lock brakes are self-driving–type features, and we’re just getting more and more of them. Google gets a lot of attention in Silicon Valley, but the traditional automakers are putting this into practice.

So you could imagine different platforms and standards around all this. For example, should this be a series of incremental moves or should it be a big jump all the way to a Google-style self-driving car? Setting up different regulatory regimes would favor one of those approaches over the other. I’m not sure whether it’s the right policy, but incremental moves could be a good policy. But it also would be really good from the perspective of the auto manufacturers, and less good from the perspective of Google. And it could be potentially to a company’s advantage if they could try to influence the direction that the standards go in a way that favors their technology. This is something that companies moving into this area have to think about strategically, in addition to thinking about the ethical stuff.

What other big ethical questions do you see coming down the road?

At some point, do individuals get banned from having the right to drive? It sounds really far-fetched now. Being able to hit the road and drive freely is a very American thing to do. It feels weird to take away something that feels central to a lot of people’s identity.

But there are precedents for it. The one that Neil Malhotra, one of my coauthors on this case, pointed out is building houses. This used to be something we all did for ourselves with no government oversight 150 years ago. That’s a very immediate thing — it’s your dwelling, your castle. But if you try to build a house in most of the United States nowadays, there are all sorts of rules for how you have to do the wiring, how wide this has to be, how thick that has to be. Every little detail is very, very tightly regulated. Basically, you can’t do it yourself unless you follow all those rules. We’ve taken that out of individuals’ hands because we viewed there were beneficial consequences of taking it out of individuals’ hands. That may well happen for cars.

Graphics sources: newyorkologist.org; oldcarbrocheres.com; National Museum of American History; Academy of Achievement; iStock/hxdbzxy; Reuters/Stephen Lam.

For media inquiries, visit the Newsroom .

Explore More

Communicating the future: defining where we want ai to take us, navigating the ai revolution: practical insights for entrepreneurs, invisible matchmakers: how algorithms pair people with opportunities, editor’s picks.

‘The Nut Behind the Wheel’ to ‘Moral Machines:’ A Brief History of Auto Safety Neil Malhotra, Ken Shotts, Sheila Melvin

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Viterbi Conversations in Ethics

The Ethics of Self-Driving Cars

Self-driving cars process huge amounts of sensory information in a very short amount of time. The processing speed of this information allows self-driving cars to make an informed decision on how to act in the case of an accident. In scenarios where casualties are unavoidable, this produces an ethical dilemma in determining who should survive, raising questions about how the value of a life should be calculated. Ultimately, because all lives are equal and no individual should have power over deciding the fate of the lives of others, self-driving cars are unethical.

Introduction

Imagine you’re driving in your car after a long day of work and approach an intersection displaying a green light. However, as you get closer, a family quickly runs across the intersection illegally, and you judge that you will not stop in time before the intersection. You’re left with two choices: you could swerve to the side and hit a barrier, likely ending your life, or you could run into the family, killing two children and four people total. What do you do? Given only a split second, you likely don’t have the chance to make an informed judgment in regard to whose life you think is more valuable and what you should do in the moment. However, imagine instead that a computer controlled your car and could evaluate all conditions in a fraction of a second and make a calculated decision on how to respond. Should the car swerve into the barrier in order to save children’s lives? What if a homeless man were crossing the street instead of a family? These questions show the ethical dilemma that naturally exists from the car’s quick ability to collect and process data moments before an accident. Ultimately, self-driving cars are unethical because accident avoidance programming inherently places a higher value on some lives over others and gives programmers the power to decide whose lives should be considered more valuable.

About Self-Driving Cars

A self-driving car is a vehicle that doesn’t require human operation to safely function and travel to destinations. It uses a variety of sensors to observe conditions surrounding the car and analyzes the information with software algorithms that determine the best course of action for the car to take. The car then repeats this process continually, as self-driving cars are constantly taking in new information from their changing surroundings [1]. This technology behind self-driving vehicles is not completely new, however–– it’s already been used for years in blind-spot monitoring, lane-keep assistance, and forward collision warning.

Companies such as Alphabet have been working to produce completely autonomous self-driving vehicles ready for the consumer market. In December 2018, Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving technology company, launched the first self-driving car service in Phoenix, Arizona. Waymo’s autonomous vehicles are currently being tested on a group of 400 people and still require a Waymo-trained driver to oversee the car’s functions. Once Waymo has ensured the feasibility of the program, it hopes to expand it to more people and remove the Waymo-trained driver. Throughout this process, however, Waymo has been unclear about how they’ve handled the clear ethical dilemma in cases surrounding accidents [2]. At the rapid rate that autonomous technology is advancing and completely self-driving vehicles are emerging in commercial markets, it’s imperative to delve into the ethical dilemma of accident avoidance on the road.

The Dilemma: Calculating the Value of a Life

Because self-driving cars collect and process data so quickly, new predicaments arise out of their ability to consider more decision-making factors–– especially in regard to calculating the value of a life. A study by the University of Michigan found that in addition to age, sex, and appearance of individuals involved prior to the accident, self-driving cars can even predict future pedestrian movements with machine learning technology. For example, if a pedestrian is playing with their phone, the car recognizes that the pedestrian is distracted and can predict that they may make a mistake such as stepping into moving traffic [3]. Additionally, self-driving cars can react in 0.5 seconds, much faster than the approximate 1.6 seconds humans require while driving [4]. These combined features mean that self-driving cars can detect possible accidents before they even occur and react to them much quicker than humans can. While these features make self-driving cars safer, they force self-driving cars to make decisions to avoid accidents that humans otherwise wouldn’t be able to make. When a car can’t stop in time to avoid an accident and casualties are inevitable, the car must be programmed on who should be saved and who should be hit. In turn, this dilemma suggests an inherent need to calculate the relative value of a life, which could be based on a variety of factors such as youth or fitness. Should a self-driving car even act on this value to determine who will be the victim of an accident?

According to the fairness and justice approaches to ethics, all people in this crash scenario should be treated equally. Philosopher John Rawls explains the Fairness Approach by claiming that no individual deserves to be born into a certain socioeconomic group, have a certain sex or race, or be naturally gifted at something. Therefore, he declares, these personal features are morally arbitrary; Rawls’s first principle of justice states that “each person has the same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic liberties” [5]. According to this theory of fairness, no life is more valuable than another–– everyone is equally deserving of life. Therefore, by extension, it is ethically wrong for self-driving cars to consider extrinsic qualities when determining how to act in a situation when death is inevitable. A self-driving car can neither determine one’s life to be more valuable based on information collected nor act on this value in determining the victim of an incident.

However, while individual lives can’t be valued based on their background, another ethics approach suggests they can be valued based on quantity. Utilitarian ethics evaluates the consequences of a situation in order to minimize negative outcomes and increase positive outcomes [6]. Philosopher Jeremy Bentham established Utilitarianism around the basic principle of greatest welfare, claiming that the most ethical act is the one that does the greatest amount of good and the least amount of harm [7]. From a Utilitarian view, self-driving cars should act in order to save the most lives, reducing the amount of harm and producing the best outcome for the greatest number of people. In this way, if given a choice between steering into a path with multiple people versus a path with a single pedestrian, the lives in the former path would be more valuable than the life in the latter. However, if given a scenario where the same number of lives are at hand in each possible outcome, it is impossible and ethically wrong to determine who should be killed. This forces the same dilemma of using individuals’ features to determine which individual to kill, making self-driving cars unethical.

Who Makes the Decision?

The heart of the issue with self-driving cars lies in the programming of the cars themselves. Instructions on how a given company’s cars should react in the case of an accident are programmed into the vehicles by a small group of staff. In other words, the fates of different parties in an accident rest entirely in these programmers’ hands. Millions and millions of people can be affected by the moral convention that a small group of people in a large corporation believes is right. So, what makes these individuals qualified to calculate the value of lives for an entire society and designate how millions of cars will operate in a scenario where a split-second decision could end people’s lives?

The answer is that these individuals have no right to decide on a moral code that dictates the lives of all members of society. According to the rights approach to ethics, humans have three inalienable rights that no individual can infringe upon. The Declaration of Independence outlines these basic rights as central to the moral code of the United States, proclaiming that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” [8]. John Locke, a famed philosopher who favored the rights approach, further affirmed the unethicality of denying others the right to life: “There cannot be supposed any such subordination among us that may authorize us to destroy one another, as if we were made to one another’s uses” [9]. Under this rights approach, every person has the basic right of life; in other words, it is ethically wrong for a person to take away this basic right. When a programmer writes self-driving software that intentionally makes a decision with a fatal outcome in a car crash–– regardless of whether there was a way to avoid killing–– they commit an act that violates right to life. Programmers of self-driving cars therefore act unethically by writing code that provides for an option to end another’s life.

Unlike humans, autonomous vehicles can act in an instant and evaluate all sensory information involved before a car accident. They can be programmed to act a certain way based on this sensory information, naturally producing the ethical dilemma: should cars be programmed to save certain lives based on a predetermined value? The answer is no, as all people are created equal and doing so can ultimately result in a group of individuals being unfairly targeted, which is both unethical and illegal. While self-driving cars may initially seem like the future of driving, programming them ultimately compromises the ethical obligations that engineers have.

By Isabel Yarwood-Perez, Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California

About the Author

At the time of writing this paper, Isabel Yarwood Perez was a sophomore studying Mechanical Engineering and involved in a variety of clubs at USC including Science Outreach, the AUV Design Team, and the Society of Women Engineers.

[1] “How do Self-Driving Cars Work?,” IoT For All , 05-Oct-2018. [Online]. Available: https://www.iotforall.com/how-do-self-driving-cars-work/. [Accessed: 14-Mar-2019].

[2] M. DeBord, “Waymo has launched its commercial self-driving service in Phoenix – and it’s called ‘Waymo One’,” Business Insider , 05-Dec-2018. [Online]. Available: https://www.businessinsider.com/waymo-one-driverless-car-service-launches-in-phoenix-arizona-2018-12. [Accessed: 19-Mar-2019].

[3] K. Beukema, “Teaching self-driving cars to predict pedestrian movement,” University of Michigan News , 14-Feb-2019. [Online]. Available: https://news.umich.edu/teaching-self-driving-cars-to-predict-pedestrian-movement/. [Accessed: 26-Mar-2019].

[4] A. Marshall, “Puny Humans Still See the World Better Than Self-Driving Cars,” Wired , 06-Mar-2018. [Online]. Available: https://www.wired.com/story/self-driving-cars-perception-humans/. [Accessed: 26-Mar-2019]

[5] L. Wenar, “John Rawls,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , Apr. 2017.

[6] Santa Clara University, “A Framework for Ethical Decision Making,” Markkula Center for Applied Ethics . [Online]. Available: https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/a-framework-for-ethical-decision-making/. [Accessed: 27-Mar-2019].

[7] “Jeremy Bentham,” The Basics of Philosophy , 2019. [Online]. Available: https://www.philosophybasics.com/philosophers_bentham.html. [Accessed: 26-Mar-2019].

[8] The Declaration of independence, 1776. Literal print . Washington: Govt. Print. Off., 1921.

[9] J. J. Jenkins, “Locke and Natural Rights,” Philosophy , vol. 42, no. 160, p. 149, 1967.

Related Links

https://www.ted.com/talks/patrick_lin_the_ethical_dilemma_of_self_driving_cars/up-next

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/11/9/18072678/self-driving-cars-philosophy-safety-trolley-problem-mit

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/10/24/self-driving-cars-will-have-decide-who-should-live-who-should-die-heres-who-humans-would-kill/

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• Future Perfect

This is the most important moral question about self-driving cars

Hint: It’s not whether an autonomous car should choose to hit a person or a dog.

by Kelsey Piper

A self-driving car has lost control of its brakes and is heading down the road toward some pedestrians. Which one should it hit — an elderly person or a child?

For the last four years, the MIT Media Lab has been inviting visitors to answer a series of questions like these. It’s part of a project to learn more about moral decision-making. The project has been immensely popular, with more than 2 million participants from more than 200 countries.

This week, Nature published a new study that makes use of that data to understand how people around the world think about hard moral tradeoffs. The study, called “The Moral Machine Experiment,” mines the data to understand when human preferences around questions like these are universal, and when those preferences are culturally specific.

The study found that almost everyone cares about preserving more lives than fewer, but that people in individualist cultures value this more. It also found that participants in some countries care more about age, status, and whether pedestrians were crossing against the light. While there are some moral instincts that seem fairly universal, many vary across human societies.

“We wanted to collect data to identify which factors people think are important for autonomous cars to use in resolving ethical tradeoffs”, said Iyad Rahwan , one of the study authors.

Much of the coverage of the study has focused on the self-driving cars angle , and the morbidly fascinating question of how we ought to program machines to make tradeoffs like these. Nature pitched the study as the “ largest ever survey of machine ethics .”

But the study doesn’t actually offer much of an insight into any questions we need to answer to deploy self-driving cars, which are mostly when and how to deploy them in the place of human drivers.

The framing of the survey questions asks us to consider a self-driving car, and some coverage of the study has suggested these are problems self-driving cars will need to be programmed to solve. They aren’t. To deploy self-driving cars, there are more profound — but also simpler — questions we need to answer.

Self-driving cars won’t use this data for moral decisions — and will likely never face scenarios like these hypotheticals

The MIT Media Lab posed questions such as this one: The car is careening towards four pedestrians, crossing the street. You can make it swerve, but this will kill the three passengers. What do you do? Other questions added complications: What if the pedestrians are doctors? What if they are pregnant women? What if they are criminals escaping a bank robbery? What if they are elderly?

Situations like the ones that MIT’s lab put in front of survey respondents don’t occur in real life, or occur so infrequently that it’d be exceptionally difficult to write rules for them. In the real world, a driver would never find herself in a situation where she is certain to kill a person if she swerves and is certain to kill a different person if they stay the course.

Thankfully, cars are vanishingly unlikely to find themselves rounding a corner to see both a baby and an elderly person lying in the street, with no time to stop, and if they do, they’re unlikely to do anything more complicated than slam on the brakes and hope for the best.

“The big worry that I have is that people reading this are going to think that this study is telling us how to implement a decision process for a self-driving car,” Benjamin Kuipers, a computer scientist at University of Michigan, told the Washington Post .

The Post’s headline itself claims “Self-driving cars will have to decide who should live and who should die.” But they largely won’t. Existing autonomous cars on the road don’t have any such programming. In general, like a human, if they see an accident coming they’ll just slam on the brakes and do their best to endanger no one.

In fact, the entire “self-driving car” setup is mostly just a novel way to bring attention to an old set of questions. What the MIT Media Lab asked survey respondents to answer was a series of variants on the classic trolley problem, a hypothetical constructed in moral philosophy to get people to think about how they weigh moral tradeoffs. The classic trolley problem asks whether you would pull a lever to move a trolley racing towards five people off-course, so instead it kills one. Variants have explored the conditions under which we’re willing to kill some people to save others.

It’s an interesting way to learn how people think when they’re forced to choose between bad options. It’s interesting that there are cultural differences. But while the data collected is descriptive of how we make moral choices, it doesn’t answer the question of how we should . And it’s not clear that it’s of any more relevance to self-driving cars than to every other policy we consider every day — all of which involve tradeoffs that can cost lives.

The important moral question about self-driving cars is something else entirely

That doesn’t mean there isn’t a high-stakes moral question we need to answer about self-driving cars. There is. The important question is how good at driving they need to be before we should allow them everywhere.

Last year, about 40,000 people in the United States and in recent years more than a million globally have died in vehicle accidents. Nearly half of those deaths are among people who aren’t in cars, but are vulnerable to them — motorcyclists, cyclists, and pedestrians. Getting behind the wheel is the most dangerous thing most people do on a typical day.

It’s hard to confidently guess if self-driving cars are safer than humans. In 2016, there were 1.18 fatalities for every 100 million miles driven in the United States. Self-driving cars have driven much, much fewer than 100 million miles. Waymo, associated with Google’s parent company Alphabet, is the leader in miles driven, with more than 10 million . That’s simply not enough to confidently guess whether Waymo’s cars are safer than humans, about the same, or more dangerous.

Even if they’d driven 100 million miles without a crash, that wouldn’t be enough to make us confident. Researchers Nidhi Kalra and Susan Paddock with the RAND Corporation have demonstrated in a 2016 paper that under some reasonable statistical assumptions, “fully autonomous vehicles would have to be driven hundreds of millions of miles and sometimes hundreds of billions of miles to demonstrate their reliability in terms of fatalities and injuries.”

How do we estimate whether self-driving cars are safer than human drivers, when we can’t feasibly collect enough data to draw those conclusions? Presuming self-driving cars will continue to get safer after they’ve been released (just like human-driven cars did), what threshold for safety should we require before they’re allowed on the roads? And if self-driving cars are eventually much safer than human drivers, should we ban vehicles without self-driving capabilities?

These are the real questions we have to wrestle with when it comes to self-driving vehicles, not whether to run over a crowd of doctors or babies. These questions have concrete policy implications today, and are poised to affect millions of lives in a few years, as self-driving cars become a reality .

Sign up for the Future Perfect newsletter. Twice a week, you’ll get a roundup of ideas and solutions for tackling our biggest challenges: improving public health, decreasing human and animal suffering, easing catastrophic risks, and — to put it simply — getting better at doing good.

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Form Ethical Opinions in Writing: Self-Driving Cars & Accident Ethics

Innovating Instruction

Aligned to standards W.7.7: Conduct a short research project, W.7.9: Write a text analysis

The technology of driverless cars is here. By 2020, it’s predicted that 10 million self-driving cars will be on the roads. As some of us welcome what once seemed to be a sci-fi fantasy, others warn of the ethical complexities that will accompany this technology. In the event of an imminent collision, how will the automated vehicle choose what (or whom) to hit?

We’re featuring a mini-project that asks students to explore the various perspectives on this timely and contentious issue. Students will formulate their opinions and compare their points of view before and after the project. Aligned to state standards and designed to be rigorous, this project plan helps students learn to argue their case and develop rules of operation that will ensure safety down the road.

The complete project plan is available here for download in Word or PDF format.

Here’s an overview of activities you’ll find in the project plan:

• Students will explore the topic of self-driving cars via text and multimedia.
• Students will partner with their classmates to read accident scenarios and choose the most desirable outcome.
• Students will engage with classmates to design ethical rules for engineers to follow when programming self-driving cars.

The detailed project plan/packet on Goalbook includes:

Engaging Hook — Students are introduced to the topic by an animated video clip on the ethical dilemmas of self-driving cars

Scavenger Hunt — Students will survey their classmates’ opinions that are similar and different from their own

Rules for Operation — At the end of the project, students will write up rules of operation that describe how a driverless car should behave in different scenarios.

Written by Goalbook

We empower educators to transform instruction so that ALL students succeed. Follow us on Twitter (@goalbookapp)

Text to speech

Module 2: Ethical Speech

Putting it together: ethical speech.

As you’ve just seen, the subject of ethics in public speaking covers a lot of ground! That’s because ethics are rarely obvious or self-evident. Instead, they require a lot of thought and a system of principles against which to judge a person’s words, behaviors, and actions. Here are some of the key concepts we discussed:

• Ethics are a set of standards that govern the conduct of a person. Ethical behavior should not be confused with moral or legal behavior.
• Within any public speaking scenario, ethical speech is of paramount importance.
• Unconscious or implicit bias can interfere with fair and ethical communication. Conflicts of interest are an important ethical consideration in public speaking.
• One of the most important parts of ethical communication is to avoid inadvertently excluding parts of the audience. Using inclusive language is a good way to make sure all listeners feel included in our message.
• Hate speech of any kind is never acceptable in public communications.
• Although free speech is Constitutionally protected in the U.S., free speech should not be confused with speech without consequences.
• An important aspect of ethical communication is to give proper credit for other people’s words, ideas, and other intellectual work.
• Putting It Together: Ethical Speech. Authored by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution

PRDV217: Introduction to Sales

Ethics in public speaking.

This article offers guidance on ensuring you do not mislead your audience. It touches on the importance of honest communication and the long-term consequences of violating your audience's trust.

The study of ethics in human communication is hardly a recent endeavor. One of the earliest discussions of ethics in communication (and particularly in public speaking) was conducted by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato in his dialogue Phaedrus. In the centuries since Plato's time, an entire subfield within the discipline of human communication has developed to explain and understand communication ethics.

Communication Code of Ethics

In 1999, the National Communication Association officially adopted the Credo for Ethical Communication (see the following sidebar). Ultimately, the NCA Credo for Ethical Communication is a set of beliefs communication scholars have about the ethics of human communication.

National Communication Association Credo for Ethical Communication

Questions of right and wrong arise whenever people communicate. Ethical communication is fundamental to responsible thinking, decision making, and the development of relationships and communities within and across contexts, cultures, channels, and media. Moreover, ethical communication enhances human worth and dignity by fostering truthfulness, fairness, responsibility, personal integrity, and respect for self and others. We believe that unethical communication threatens the quality of all communication and consequently the well-being of individuals and the society in which we live. Therefore we, the members of the National Communication Association, endorse and are committed to practicing the following principles of ethical communication:

We advocate truthfulness, accuracy, honesty, and reason as essential to the integrity of communication.

We endorse freedom of expression, diversity of perspective, and tolerance of dissent to achieve the informed and responsible decision making fundamental to a civil society.

We strive to understand and respect other communicators before evaluating and responding to their messages.

We promote access to communication resources and opportunities as necessary to fulfill human potential and contribute to the well-being of families, communities, and society.

We promote communication climates of caring and mutual understanding that respect the unique needs and characteristics of individual communicators.

We condemn communication that degrades individuals and humanity through distortion, intimidation, coercion, and violence, and through the expression of intolerance and hatred.

We are committed to the courageous expression of personal convictions in pursuit of fairness and justice.

We advocate sharing information, opinions, and feelings when facing significant choices while also respecting privacy and confidentiality.

• We accept responsibility for the short- and long-term consequences of our own communication and expect the same of others.

Applying the NCA Credo to Public Speaking

The NCA Credo for Ethical Communication is designed to inspire discussions of ethics related to all aspects of human communication. For our purposes, we want to think about each of these principles in terms of how they affect public speaking.

We Advocate Truthfulness, Accuracy, Honesty, and Reason as Essential to the Integrity of Communication

As public speakers, one of the first ethical areas we should be concerned with is information honesty. While there are cases where speakers have blatantly lied to an audience, it is more common for speakers to prove a point by exaggerating, omitting facts that weigh against their message, or distorting information. We believe that speakers build a relationship with their audiences, and that lying, exaggerating, or distorting information violates this relationship. Ultimately, a speaker will be more persuasive by using reason and logical arguments supported by facts rather than relying on emotional appeals designed to manipulate the audience. It is also important to be honest about where all your information comes from in a speech. As speakers, examine your information sources and determine whether they are biased or have hidden agendas. For example, you are not likely to get accurate information about nonwhite individuals from a neo-Nazi website. While you may not know all your sources of information firsthand, you should attempt to find objective sources that do not have an overt or covert agenda that skews the argument you are making. The second part of information honesty is to fully disclose where we obtain the information in our speeches. As ethical speakers, it is important to always cite your sources of information within the body of a speech. Whether you conducted an interview or read a newspaper article, you must tell your listeners where the information came from. We mentioned earlier in this chapter that using someone else's words or ideas without giving credit is called plagiarism . The word "plagiarism" stems from the Latin word plagiaries, or kidnapper. The American Psychological Association states in its publication manual that ethical speakers do not claim "words and ideas of another as their own; they give credit where credit is due". In the previous sentence, we placed quotation marks around the sentence to indicate that the words came from the American Psychological Association and not from us. When speaking informally, people sometimes use "air quotes" to signal direct quotations - but this is not a recommended technique in public speaking. Instead, speakers need to verbally tell an audience when they are using someone else's information. The consequences for failing to cite sources during public speeches can be substantial. When Senator Joseph Biden was running for president of the United States in 1988, reporters found that he had plagiarized portions of his stump speech from British politician Neil Kinnock. Biden was forced to drop out of the race as a result. More recently, the student newspaper at Malone University in Ohio alleged that the university president, Gary W. Streit, had plagiarized material in a public speech. Streit retired abruptly as a result. Even if you are not running for president of the United States or serving as a college president, citing sources is important to you as a student. Many universities have policies that include dismissal from the institution for student plagiarism of academic work, including public speeches. Failing to cite your sources might result, at best, in lower credibility with your audience and, at worst, in a failing grade on your assignment or expulsion from your school. While we will talk in more detail about plagiarism later in this book, we cannot emphasize enough the importance of giving credit to the speakers and authors whose ideas we pass on within our own speeches and writing. Speakers tend to fall into one of three major traps with plagiarism. The first trap is failing to tell the audience the source of a direct quotation. In the previous paragraph, we used a direct quotation from the American Psychological Association; if we had not used the quotation marks and clearly listed where the cited material came from, you, as a reader, would not have known the source of that information. To avoid plagiarism, you always need to tell your audience when you are directly quoting information within a speech. The second plagiarism trap public speakers fall into is paraphrasing what someone else said or wrote without giving credit to the speaker or author. For example, you may have read a book and learned that there are three types of schoolyard bullying. In the middle of your speech you talk about those three types of schoolyard bullying. If you do not tell your audience where you found that information, you are plagiarizing. Typically, the only information you do not need to cite is information that is general knowledge. General knowledge is information that is publicly available and widely known by a large segment of society. For example, you would not need to provide a citation within a speech for the name of Delaware's capital. Although many people do not know the capital of Delaware without looking it up, this information is publicly available and easily accessible, so assigning credit to one specific source is not useful or necessary. The third plagiarism trap that speakers fall into is re-citing someone else's sources within a speech. To explain this problem, let's look at a brief segment from a research paper written by Wrench, DiMartino, Ramirez, Oviedio, and Tesfamariam: The main character on the hit Fox television show House, Dr. Gregory House, has one basic mantra, "It is a basic truth of the human condition that everybody lies. The only variable is about what". This notion that "everybody lies" is so persistent in the series that t-shirts have been printed with the slogan. Surprisingly, research has shown that most people do lie during interpersonal interactions to some degree. In a study conducted by Turner, Edgley, and Olmstead, the researchers had 130 participants record their own conversations with others. After recording these conversations, the participants then examined the truthfulness of the statements within the interactions. Only 38.5% of the statements made during these interactions were labeled as "completely honest". In this example, we see that the authors of this paragraph cited information from two external sources: Shore and Barclay and Tummer, Edgley, and Olmstead. These two groups of authors are given credit for their i deas. The authors make it clear that they (Wrench, DiMartino, Ramirez, Oviedio, and Tesfamariam) did not produce the television show House or conduct the study that found that only 38.5 percent of statements were completely honest. Instead, these authors cited information found in two other locations. This type of citation is appropriate. However, if a speaker read the paragraph and said the following during a speech, it would be plagiarism: "According to Wrench DiMartino, Ramirez, Oviedio, and Tesfamariam, in a study of 130 participants, only 38.5 percent of the responses were completely honest". In this case, the speaker is attributing the information cited to the authors of the paragraph, which is not accurate. If you want to cite the information within your speech, you need to read the original article by Turner, Edgley, and Olmstead and cite that information yourself. There are two main reasons we do this. First, Wrench, DiMartino, Ramirez, Oviedio, and Tesfamariam may have mistyped the information. Suppose the study by Turner, Edgley, and Olstead really actually found that 58.5 percent of the responses were completely honest. If you cited the revised number (38.5 percent) from the paragraph, you would be further spreading incorrect information. The second reason we do not re-cite someone else's sources within our speeches is because it is intellectually dishonest. You owe your listeners an honest description of where the facts you are relating came from, not just the name of an author who cited those facts. It is more work to trace the original source of a fact or statistic, but by doing that extra work you can avoid this plagiarism trap.

We Endorse Freedom of Expression, Diversity of Perspective, and Tolerance of Dissent to Achieve the Informed and Responsible Decision Making Fundamental to a Civil Society

This ethical principle affirms that a civil society depends on freedom of expression, diversity of perspective, and tolerance of dissent and that informed and responsible decisions can only be made if all members of society are free to express their thoughts and opinions. Further, it holds that diverse viewpoints, including those that disagree with accepted authority, are important for the functioning of a democratic society. If everyone only listened to one source of information, then we would be easily manipulated and controlled. For this reason, we believe that individuals should be willing to listen to a range of speakers on a given subject. As listeners or consumers of communication, we should realize that this diversity of perspectives enables us to be more fully informed on a subject. Imagine voting in an election after listening only to the campaign speeches of one candidate. The perspective of that candidate would be so narrow that you would have no way to accurately understand and assess the issues at hand or the strengths and weaknesses of the opposing candidates. Unfortunately, some voters do limit themselves to listening only to their candidate of choice and, as a result, base their voting decisions on incomplete - and, not infrequently, inaccurate - information. Listening to diverse perspectives includes being willing to hear dissenting voices. Dissent is by nature uncomfortable, as it entails expressing opposition to authority, often in very unflattering terms. Legal scholar Steven H. Shiffrin has argued in favor of some symbolic speech (e.g., flag burning) because we as a society value the ability of anyone to express their dissent against the will and ideas of the majority. Dissent, injustice and the meanings of America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ethical communicators will be receptive to dissent, no matter how strongly they may disagree with the speaker's message because they realize that a society that forbids dissent cannot function democratically. Ultimately, honoring free speech and seeking out a variety of perspectives is very important for all listeners. We will discuss this idea further in the chapter on listening.

We Strive to Understand and Respect Other Communicators before Evaluating and Responding to Their Messages

This is another ethical characteristic that is specifically directed at receivers of a message. As listeners, we often let our perceptions of a speaker's nonverbal behavior – his or her appearance, posture, mannerisms, eye contact, and so on – determine our opinions about a message before the speaker has said a word. We may also find ourselves judging a speaker based on information we have heard about him or her from other people. Perhaps you have heard from other students that a particular teacher is a really boring lecturer or is really entertaining in class. Even though you do not have personal knowledge, you may prejudge the teacher and his or her message based on information you have been given from others. The NCA credo reminds us that to be ethical listeners, we need to avoid such judgments and instead make an effort to listen respectfully; only when we have understood a speaker's viewpoint are we ready to begin forming our opinions of the message. Listeners should try to objectively analyze the content and arguments within a speech before deciding how to respond. Especially when we disagree with a speaker, we might find it difficult to listen to the content of the speech and, instead, work on creating a rebuttal the entire time the speaker is talking. When this happens, we do not strive to understand the speaker and do not respect the speaker. Of course, this does not just affect the listener in the public speaking situation. As speakers, we are often called upon to evaluate and refute potential arguments against our positions. While we always want our speeches to be as persuasive as possible, we do ourselves and our audiences a disservice when we downplay, distort, or refuse to mention important arguments from the opposing side. Fairly researching and evaluating counterarguments is an important ethical obligation for the public speaker.

We Promote Access to Communication Resources and Opportunities as Necessary to Fulfill Human Potential and Contribute to the Well-Being of Families, Communities, and Society

Human communication is a skill that can and should be taught. We strongly believe that you can become a better, more ethical speaker. One of the reasons the authors of this book teach courses in public speaking and wrote this college textbook on public speaking is that we, as communication professionals, have an ethical obligation to provide others, including students like you, with resources and opportunities to become better speakers.

We Promote Communication Climates of Caring and Mutual Understanding That Respect the Unique Needs and Characteristics of Individual Communicators

Speakers need to take a two-pronged approach when addressing any audience: caring about the audience and understanding the audience. When you as a speaker truly care about your audience's needs and desires, you avoid setting up a manipulative climate. This is not to say that your audience will always perceive their own needs and desires in the same way you do, but if you make an honest effort to speak to your audience in a way that has their best interests at heart, you are more likely to create persuasive arguments that are not just manipulative appeals. Second, it is important for a speaker to create an atmosphere of mutual understanding. To do this, you should first learn as much as possible about your audience, a process called audience analysis. We will discuss this topic in more detail in the audience analysis chapter. To create a climate of caring and mutual respect, it is important for us as speakers to be open with our audiences so that our intentions and perceptions are clear. Nothing alienates an audience faster than a speaker with a hidden agenda unrelated to the stated purpose of the speech. One of our coauthors once listened to a speaker give a two-hour talk, allegedly about workplace wellness, which actually turned out to be an infomercial for the speaker's weight-loss program. In this case, the speaker clearly had a hidden (or not-so-hidden) agenda, which made the audience feel disrespected.

We Condemn Communication That Degrades Individuals and Humanity through Distortion, Intimidation, Coercion, and Violence and through the Expression of Intolerance and Hatred

This ethical principle is very important for all speakers. Hopefully, intimidation, coercion, and violence will not be part of your public speaking experiences, but some public speakers have been known to call for violence and incite mobs of people to commit attrocities. Thus distortion and expressions of intolerance and hatred are of special concern when it comes to public speaking. Distortion occurs when someone purposefully twists information in a way that detracts from its original meaning. Unfortunately, some speakers take information and use it in a manner that is not in the spirit of the original information. One place we see distortion frequently is in the political context, where politicians cite a statistic or the results of a study and either completely alter the information or use it in a deceptive manner. FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center (http://www.factcheck.org), and the St. Petersburg Times's Politifact (http://www.politifact.com) are nonpartisan organizations devoted to analyzing political messages and demonstrating how information has been distorted. Expressions of intolerance and hatred that are to be avoided include using ageist , heterosexist , racist , sexist , and any other form of speech that demeans or belittles a group of people. Hate speech from all sides of the political spectrum in our society is detrimental to ethical communication. As such, we as speakers should be acutely aware of how an audience may perceive words that could be considered bigoted. For example, suppose a school board official involved in budget negotiations used the word "shekels" to refer to money, which he believes the teachers' union should be willing to give up. Conn. shekel shellacking. New York Post. The remark would be likely to prompt accusations of anti-Semitism and to distract listeners from any constructive suggestions the official might have for resolving budget issues. Although the official might insist that he meant no offense, he damaged the ethical climate of the budget debate by using a word associated with bigotry. At the same time, it is important for listeners to pay attention to expressions of intolerance or hatred. Extremist speakers sometimes attempt to disguise their true agendas by avoiding bigoted "buzzwords" and using mild-sounding terms instead. For example, a speaker advocating the overthrow of a government might use the term "regime change" instead of "revolution"; similarly, proponents of genocide in various parts of the world have used the term "ethnic cleansing" instead of "extermination." By listening critically to the gist of a speaker's message as well as the specific language he or she uses, we can see how that speaker views the world.

We Are Committed to the Courageous Expression of Personal Convictions in Pursuit of Fairness and Justice

We believe that finding and bringing to light situations of inequality and injustice within our society is important. Public speaking has been used throughout history to point out inequality and injustice, from Patrick Henry arguing against the way the English government treated the American colonists and Sojourner Truth describing the evils of slavery to Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech and Army Lt. Dan Choi's speeches arguing that the military's "do not ask, do not tell policy" is unjust. Many social justice movements have started because young public speakers have decided to stand up for what they believe is fair and just.

We Advocate Sharing Information, Opinions, and Feelings When Facing Significant Choices While Also Respecting Privacy and Confidentiality

This ethical principle involves balancing personal disclosure with discretion. It is perfectly normal for speakers to want to share their own personal opinions and feelings about a topic; however, it is also important to highlight information within a speech that represents your own thoughts and feelings. Your listeners have a right to know the difference between facts and personal opinions. Similarly, we have an obligation to respect others' privacy and confidentiality when speaking. If information is obtained from printed or publicly distributed material, it is perfectly appropriate to use that information without getting permission, as long as you cite it. However, when you have a great anecdote one of your friends told you in confidence, or access to information that is not available to the general public, it is best to seek permission before using the information in a speech. This ethical obligation even has legal implications in many government and corporate contexts. For example, individuals who work for the Central Intelligence Agency are legally precluded from discussing their work in public without prior review by the agency. And companies such as Google also have policies requiring employees to seek permission before engaging in public speaking in which sensitive information might be leaked.

We Accept Responsibility for the Short- and Long-Term Consequences of Our Own Communication and Expect the Same of Others

The last statement of NCA's ethical credo may be the most important one. We live in a society where a speaker's message can literally be heard around the world in a matter of minutes, thanks to our global communication networks. Extreme remarks made by politicians, media commentators, and celebrities, as well as ordinary people, can unexpectedly "go viral" with regrettable consequences. It is not unusual to see situations where a speaker talks hatefully about a specific group, but when one of the speaker's listeners violently attacks a member of the group, the speaker insists that he or she had no way of knowing that this could possibly have happened. Washing your hands of responsibility is unacceptable: all speakers should accept responsibility for the short-term and long-term consequences of their speeches. Although it is certainly not always the speaker's fault if someone commits an act of violence, the speaker should take responsibility for her or his role in the situation. This process involves being truly reflective and willing to examine how your speech could have tragic consequences. Furthermore, attempting to persuade a group of people to take any action means you should make sure that you understand the consequences of that action. Whether you are persuading people to vote for a political candidate or just encouraging them to lose weight, you should know what the short-term and long-term consequences of that decision could be. While our predictions of short-term and long-term consequences may not always be right, we have an ethical duty to at least think through the possible consequences of our speeches and the actions we encourage.

Practicing Ethical Public Speaking

Thus far in this section we have introduced you to the basics of thinking through the ethics of public speaking. Knowing about ethics is essential, but even more important to being an ethical public speaker is putting that knowledge into practice by thinking through possible ethical pitfalls prior to standing up and speaking out.

This Public Speaking Ethics Checklist is based on our discussion in this chapter to help you think through some of these issues.

Public Speaking Ethics Checklist

Instructions: For each of the following ethical issues, check either true or false.

• I have knowingly added information within my speech that is false.
• I have attempted to persuade people by unnecessarily tapping into emotion rather than logic.
• I have not clearly cited all the information within my speech.
• I do not know who my sources of information are or what makes my sources credible.
• I wrote my speech based on my own interests and really have not thought much about my audience.
• I have not really thought much about my audience's needs and desires.
• I have altered some of the facts in my speech to help me be more persuasive.
• Some of the language in my speech may be considered bigoted.
• My goal is to manipulate my audience to my point of view.
• I sometimes blend in my personal opinions when discussing actual facts during the speech.
• My personal opinions are just as good as facts, so I do not bother to distinguish between the two during my speech.
• I have used information in my speech from a friend or colleague that probably should not be repeated.
• I am using information in my speech that a source gave me even though it was technically "off the record."
• It is just a speech. I really do not care what someone does with the information when I am done speaking.
• I have not really thought about the short- or long-term consequences of my speech.

Scoring: For ethical purposes, all your answers should have been "false."

Key Takeaways

All eight of the principles espoused in the NCA Credo for Ethical Communication can be applied to public speaking. Some of the principles relate more to the speaker's role in communication, while others relate to both the speaker's and the audience's role in public speech.

• When preparing a speech, it is important to think about the ethics of public speaking from the beginning. When a speaker sets out to be ethical in his or her speech from the beginning, arriving at ethical speech is much easier.

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112 Persuasive Speech Topics That Are Actually Engaging

What’s covered:, how to pick an awesome persuasive speech topic, 112 engaging persuasive speech topics, tips for preparing your persuasive speech.

Writing a stellar persuasive speech requires a carefully crafted argument that will resonate with your audience to sway them to your side. This feat can be challenging to accomplish, but an engaging, thought-provoking speech topic is an excellent place to start.

When it comes time to select a topic for your persuasive speech, you may feel overwhelmed by all the options to choose from—or your brain may be drawing a completely blank slate. If you’re having trouble thinking of the perfect topic, don’t worry. We’re here to help!

In this post, we’re sharing how to choose the perfect persuasive speech topic and tips to prepare for your speech. Plus, you’ll find 112 persuasive speech topics that you can take directly from us or use as creative inspiration for your own ideas!

Choose Something You’re Passionate About

It’s much easier to write, research, and deliver a speech about a cause you care about. Even if it’s challenging to find a topic that completely sparks your interest, try to choose a topic that aligns with your passions.

However, keep in mind that not everyone has the same interests as you. Try to choose a general topic to grab the attention of the majority of your audience, but one that’s specific enough to keep them engaged.

For example, suppose you’re giving a persuasive speech about book censorship. In that case, it’s probably too niche to talk about why “To Kill a Mockingbird” shouldn’t be censored (even if it’s your favorite book), and it’s too broad to talk about media censorship in general.

Steer Clear of Cliches

Have you already heard a persuasive speech topic presented dozens of times? If so, it’s probably not an excellent choice for your speech—even if it’s an issue you’re incredibly passionate about.

Although polarizing topics like abortion and climate control are important to discuss, they aren’t great persuasive speech topics. Most people have already formed an opinion on these topics, which will either cause them to tune out or have a negative impression of your speech.

Instead, choose topics that are fresh, unique, and new. If your audience has never heard your idea presented before, they will be more open to your argument and engaged in your speech.

Have a Clear Side of Opposition

For a persuasive speech to be engaging, there must be a clear side of opposition. To help determine the arguability of your topic, ask yourself: “If I presented my viewpoint on this topic to a group of peers, would someone disagree with me?” If the answer is yes, then you’ve chosen a great topic!

Now that we’ve laid the groundwork for what it takes to choose a great persuasive speech topic, here are over one hundred options for you to choose from.

• Should high school athletes get tested for steroids?
• Should schools be required to have physical education courses?
• Should sports grades in school depend on things like athletic ability?
• What sport should be added to or removed from the Olympics?
• Should college athletes be able to make money off of their merchandise?
• Should sports teams be able to recruit young athletes without a college degree?
• Should we consider video gamers as professional athletes?
• Is cheerleading considered a sport?
• Should parents allow their kids to play contact sports?
• Should professional female athletes be paid the same as professional male athletes?
• Should college be free at the undergraduate level?
• Is the traditional college experience obsolete?
• Should you choose a major based on your interests or your potential salary?
• Should high school students have to meet a required number of service hours before graduating?
• Should teachers earn more or less based on how their students perform on standardized tests?
• Are private high schools more effective than public high schools?
• Should there be a minimum number of attendance days required to graduate?
• Are GPAs harmful or helpful?
• Should schools be required to teach about standardized testing?
• Should Greek Life be banned in the United States?
• Should schools offer science classes explicitly about mental health?
• Should students be able to bring their cell phones to school?
• Should all public restrooms be all-gender?
• Should undocumented immigrants have the same employment and education opportunities as citizens?
• Should everyone be paid a living wage regardless of their employment status?
• Should supremacist groups be able to hold public events?
• Should guns be allowed in public places?
• Should the national drinking age be lowered?
• Should prisoners be allowed to vote?
• Should the government raise or lower the retirement age?
• Should the government be able to control the population?
• Is the death penalty ethical?

Environment

• Should stores charge customers for plastic bags?
• Should breeding animals (dogs, cats, etc.) be illegal?
• Is it okay to have exotic animals as pets?
• Should people be fined for not recycling?
• Should compost bins become mandatory for restaurants?
• Should electric vehicles have their own transportation infrastructure?
• Would heavier fining policies reduce corporations’ emissions?
• Should hunting be encouraged or illegal?
• Should reusable diapers replace disposable diapers?

Science & Technology

• Is paper media more reliable than digital news sources?
• Should automated/self-driving cars be legalized?
• Should schools be required to provide laptops to all students?
• Should software companies be able to have pre-downloaded programs and applications on devices?
• Should drones be allowed in military warfare?
• Should scientists invest more or less money into cancer research?
• Should cloning be illegal?
• Should societies colonize other planets?
• Should there be legal oversight over the development of technology?

Social Media

• Should there be an age limit on social media?
• Should cyberbullying have the same repercussions as in-person bullying?
• Are online relationships as valuable as in-person relationships?
• Does “cancel culture” have a positive or negative impact on societies?
• Are social media platforms reliable information or news sources?
• Should social media be censored?
• Does social media create an unrealistic standard of beauty?
• Is regular social media usage damaging to real-life interactions?
• Is social media distorting democracy?
• How many branches of government should there be?
• Who is the best/worst president of all time?
• How long should judges serve in the U.S. Supreme Court?
• Should a more significant portion of the U.S. budget be contributed towards education?
• Should the government invest in rapid transcontinental transportation infrastructure?
• Should airport screening be more or less stringent?
• Should the electoral college be dismantled?
• Should the U.S. have open borders?
• Should the government spend more or less money on space exploration?
• Should students sing Christmas carols, say the pledge of allegiance, or perform other tangentially religious activities?
• Should nuns and priests become genderless roles?
• Should schools and other public buildings have prayer rooms?
• Should animal sacrifice be legal if it occurs in a religious context?
• Should countries be allowed to impose a national religion on their citizens?
• Should the church be separated from the state?
• Does freedom of religion positively or negatively affect societies?

Parenting & Family

• Is it better to have children at a younger or older age?
• Is it better for children to go to daycare or stay home with their parents?
• Does birth order affect personality?
• Should parents or the school system teach their kids about sex?
• Are family traditions important?
• Should parents smoke or drink around young children?
• Should “spanking” children be illegal?
• Should parents use swear words in front of their children?
• Should parents allow their children to play violent video games?

Entertainment

• Should all actors be paid the same regardless of gender or ethnicity?
• Should all award shows be based on popular vote?
• Who should be responsible for paying taxes on prize money, the game show staff or the contestants?
• Should movies and television shows have ethnicity and gender quotas?
• Should newspapers and magazines move to a completely online format?
• Should streaming services like Netflix and Hulu be free for students?
• Is the movie rating system still effective?
• Should celebrities have more privacy rights?

Arts & Humanities

• Are libraries becoming obsolete?
• Should all schools have mandatory art or music courses in their curriculum?
• Should offensive language be censored from classic literary works?
• Is it ethical for museums to keep indigenous artifacts?
• Should digital designs be considered an art form? 
• Should abstract art be considered an art form?
• Is music therapy effective?
• Should tattoos be regarded as “professional dress” for work?
• Should schools place greater emphasis on the arts programs?
• Should euthanasia be allowed in hospitals and other clinical settings?
• Should the government support and implement universal healthcare?
• Would obesity rates lower if the government intervened to make healthy foods more affordable?
• Should teenagers be given access to birth control pills without parental consent?
• Should food allergies be considered a disease?
• Should health insurance cover homeopathic medicine?
• Is using painkillers healthy?
• Should genetically modified foods be banned?
• Should there be a tax on unhealthy foods?
• Should tobacco products be banned from the country?
• Should the birth control pill be free for everyone?

If you need more help brainstorming topics, especially those that are personalized to your interests, you can  use CollegeVine’s free AI tutor, Ivy . Ivy can help you come up with original persuasive speech ideas, and she can also help with the rest of your homework, from math to languages.

Do Your Research

A great persuasive speech is supported with plenty of well-researched facts and evidence. So before you begin the writing process, research both sides of the topic you’re presenting in-depth to gain a well-rounded perspective of the topic.

Understand Your Audience

It’s critical to understand your audience to deliver a great persuasive speech. After all, you are trying to convince them that your viewpoint is correct. Before writing your speech, consider the facts and information that your audience may already know, and think about the beliefs and concerns they may have about your topic. Then, address these concerns in your speech, and be mindful to include fresh, new information.

Have Someone Read Your Speech

Once you have finished writing your speech, have someone read it to check for areas of strength and improvement. You can use CollegeVine’s free essay review tool to get feedback on your speech from a peer!

Practice Makes Perfect

After completing your final draft, the key to success is to practice. Present your speech out loud in front of a mirror, your family, friends, and basically, anyone who will listen. Not only will the feedback of others help you to make your speech better, but you’ll become more confident in your presentation skills and may even be able to commit your speech to memory.

Hopefully, these ideas have inspired you to write a powerful, unique persuasive speech. With the perfect topic, plenty of practice, and a boost of self-confidence, we know you’ll impress your audience with a remarkable speech!

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3 Chapter 3: Ethics in Public Speaking

The materials below are attributed fully to the free online Open Education Resource,  Exploring Public Speaking: The Free Dalton State College Public Speaking Textbook, 4th Edition (Chapter 11).  Another later chapter also discusses topics of plagiarism and AI use.

Chapter 3 Learning objectives

After reading this chapter, the student will be able to:

• Explain the legal, cultural, philosophical, and social origins of ethics in public speaking
• Explain the difference between plagiarism and correct appropriation of source materials
• Understand the value of ethics in building a solid reputation as a speaker
• Correctly use source material in a presentation

Chapter Preview

3.1 – sources of ethical stances on communication and public speaking, 3.2 – credibility and ethics, 3.3 – plagiarism.

As discussed in Chapter 1, there are many reasons to take a public speaking course. Among its numerous benefits,  a public speaking course will create more self-confidence; the creation of good arguments will build your critical thinking and research skills;   and you will meet new people in your class in a different way and be exposed to their ideas . Also, the course will prepare you for presentations you will be expected to give in later classes (and believe us, there will be many), in your civic and personal life, and for your eventual career.

Another very important reason to take a public speaking course such as this one goes beyond these immediate personal benefits.  Public speaking, or “rhetoric” as it was originally called,   has long been considered a method in Western culture of building community, facilitating self-government, sharing important ideas, and creating policies. In fact, these are the reasons the ancient Athenian Greeks emphasized that all citizens should be educated in rhetoric: so that they could take part in civil society.  Aristotle said that if a man was expected to defend himself physically, he should also be able to defend his ideas rhetorically, that is, t hrough persuasive public speaking:

It is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs, but not of being unable to defend himself with speech and reason, when the use of  rational speech is  more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs. (Rhetoric, Book I, p. 6).

Therefore,  public speaking has a social as well as a personal purpose and function. For that reason, the ethics of public speaking and communication in general should be addressed in any study of  public speaking.   A public speaker, whether delivering a speech in a classroom, board room, civic meeting, or in any other venue must uphold certain ethical standards. These standards will allow the audience to make informed choices, to uphold credibility as a source of information, and to avoid repercussions of bad ethical choices.

To this end, this chapter will deal with the subject of ethics.   Ethics  refers to the branch of philosophy that involves determinations of what is right and moral .  On a personal level , it is your own standard of what you should and should not do in the various situations or in all situations.   Although  ethics are based on personal decisions and values, they are also influenced by factors outside of you.  Over the next few pages, we will look at various ways ethics, particularly ethics related to speech, have been thought about. In reading, you should seek to determine how you would explain your own ethical standard for communication.  A long with being able to articulate what you would not do, you should have an appreciation for why doing the right thing is important to you.

the branch of philosophy that involves determinations of what is right and moral

One of “right things” and most important ways that we speak ethically is to use material from others correctly.   Occasionally we hear in the news media about a political speaker who uses the words of other speakers without attribution or of scholars who use pages out of another scholar’s work without consent or citation. Usually the   discussion of plagiarism  stays within the community where it occurred, but there is still damage done to the “borrower’s” reputation as an ethical person and scholar.

Why does it matter if a speaker or writer commits plagiarism? Why and how do we judge a speaker as ethical? Why, for example, do we value originality and correct citation of sources in public life as well as the academic world, especially in the United States? These are not new questions, and some of the answers lie in age-old philosophies of communication.

Legal Origins of Ethics in Public Speaking

The First Amendment to the Constitution is one of the most cherished and debated in the Bill of Rights. “Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech . . . or of the press”  has been discussed in many contexts for over two hundred and thirty years.  Thomas Emerson (1970), a Constitutional scholar and Yale Law Professor, asserted that freedom of expression is more than just a right.  It is a necessity for having the kind of society we want as Americans.   Although we think of “freedom of the press” today as referring to mass media and journalism,  “press” here refers to publishing of books, magazines, or pamphlets by anyone.

One of the bases of the First Amendment is an essay written by John Milton in the 1600s,  Aereopagitica.  This essay on freedom of speech is where the phrases “free marketplace of ideas” and “truth will arise from debate of all ideas” originated. Milton lived in a time when the King of England or Parliament could  “censor” published material or speakers, either by keeping it from being published and distributed (later called “prior restraint”), by destroying the publications afterward, or by punishing the producers of the content, sometimes harshly .

In the twentieth century, “freedom of speech” has been generalized into a freedom of expression.   This was especially true in the important Supreme Court cases on the First Amendment in the 1950s through 1970s. According to Emerson (1970), such expression is important to our development as human beings individually and in a democracy. Thanks to these historical precedents, we can express ourselves freely in our communities and classrooms,   keeping in mind  ethical responsibilities to present  serious, honest, factual, and well-supported  speeches as a matter of respect to your listeners .  Additionally, although the First Amendment to the Constitution is usually interpreted by the Supreme Court and lower courts to mean almost no restrictions on freedom of expression,  there are a few instances in which the government is held to have a “compelling interest” in controlling, stopping, or preventing certain types of free expression.

One of these instances has to do with threats on the life of the President of the United States,  although threats of physical harm against anyone might also result in penalties .   Another instance of restrictions on freedom of expression is in those cases where the speaker has the opportunity and means and likelihood of inciting an audience to violence  (this is the old “yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre” example).   The government has also allowed local governments to have reasonable requirements to avoid mobs or public danger or to uphold community standards, such as permits for parades or limiting how many people can meet in a certain size of building. “Reasonable” is sometimes a matter of debate, as the extensive history of Supreme Court cases on the First Amendment shows.

An other type of restriction on freedom of speech is   defamatory  speech , which is defined in the United States as:

a false statement of fact that damages a person’s character, fame or reputation . It must be a false statement of fact; statements of opinion, however insulting they may be, cannot be defamation under U.S. law. Under U.S. defamation law, there are different standards for public officials [and public figures] and private individuals.  (U.S. Department of State, 2013)

Defamatory Speech

a false statement of fact that damages a person’s character, fame, or reputation

With the Internet and social media, these issues become more complicated,  of course. In the past someone could express himself or herself only in limited ways: standing on a street corner, attending a public meeting, putting the words on paper and distributing them, or maybe getting on radio or television (if allowed or if wealthy).  Today, almost anyone with a laptop, a webcam, an ISP, and technical know-how can be as powerful in getting a message to the masses as someone owning a newspaper one hundred years ago.   While most  people use technology and the Internet for fun, profit, or self-expression, some use it for hurt—bullying, defamation, even spreading terrorism.  The  judicial system is trying to keep up with the challenges that the digital age brings to protecting free expression while sheltering us from the  negative consequences of some forms of free expression.

Cultural and Religious Origins of Ethics in Communication

It is hard to separate life aspects such as legal, cultural, religious, and social.  Many Americans would say they hold to the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do to you.” The Golden Rule is seen as a positive expression of fairness, equity, and trust. Even if there is no legal ruling hanging over us,  we expect honest communication and return it.   The  Golden Rule is related to and a step beyond the  “Law of Reciprocity” that determines so much of our social interaction.   We also value  straightforwardness; respect for the individual’s freedom of choice;  getting access to full information; consistency between action and words;  taking responsibility for one’s own mistakes (sometimes necessitating an apology and accepting consequences) ; and  protection of privacy .  We fear public humiliation and do not want to violate community norms. We also usually view ourselves as honest and ethical people .

Most religions teach the value of truthfulness and that lying intentionally is wrong.   The Books of Proverbs, the Ten Commandments, the Mosaic Law, and Jesus Christ’s teaching all point to the immorality of lying and the destruction lying brings personally and communally.  Quranic teaching condemns lying, and  Buddhism teaches that followers should not deliberately lie.  Individuals internalize the norms of their cultures and religions and makes them work for him or her.  Sometimes we try to find justification for times when we are untruthful, such as to smooth over relationships and say things that serve as “social lubrication”  (Floyd, 2017).   Upbringing and family teachings, religious values, experiences, peers, and just plain old “gut reaction” as well as understanding of the First Amendment contribute to our ethical behavior

Philosophers and Communication Ethics

Philosophers throughout history have also written on the subject of communication and public speaking ethics. In fact,  one of the  first philosophers, Plato , objected to the way rhetoric was practiced in his day, because “it made the worse case appear the better.”  In other words, the professional public speakers, who could be hired to defend someone in court or the assembly, knew and used techniques that could deceive audiences and turn them from truth .  Aristotle responded to this concern from his teacher Plato in his work,  Rhetoric . Later,  Quintilian,  a Roman teacher of rhetoric, wrote that  rhetoric was  “the good man speaking well, ”  meaning the speaker must meet the Roman Republic’s definition of a virtuous man.

In more modern times,  English philosophers  John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) and Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) introduced  utilitarianism, which presents the ethic of “The greatest good for the greatest number;” that is, whatever benefits the most people is right .   A related philosophy,  pragmatism , was first discussed by Charles Sanders Pierce (1839-1914). Pragmatists judge actions by their practical consequences. Some ethicists would differ with the  pragmatic position, claiming it supports an  “ends justify the means”  philosophy. When we say “the ends justify the means,” we are saying that a generally unethical action (intentional misstatement of truth, withholding information, or taking any someone’s freedom of choice) is ethical as long as something good  comes from it.  Many scholars of ethical communication would disagree with the “ends justify the means” philosophy.

The  philosopher Immanuel  Kant  (1724-1804) proposed what was been called the Categorical Imperative: “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it would become a universal law.”  To paraphrase, any behavior we engage in should be what we think everyone else on the planet should do ethically .   I n the twentieth century,  J ean-Paul Sartre and others called  “existentialists” emphasized that the  ability and necessity to freely choose our actions is what makes us human, but we are accountable for all our choices.   Jurgen Habermas, a more recent scholar, emphasizes the “equal opportunity for participation” of the communication partners (Johannessen, Valde, & Whedbe, 2008).

This very brief overview of ethics in general and in communication specifically is designed to let you know that the best minds have grappled with what is right and wrong when it comes to expression.  But what is the practical application? We believe it is adherence to the factual truth and respect for your audience: in this case, your classmates, peers, and your instructor.  An individual might be guided by the Categorical Imperative approach, the pragmatic philosophy, the Judeo-Christian view of “thou shalt not lie” and “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15),  the Golden Rule, freedom with accountability, or some other view.  However,  respect for your audience means that you will do your best to present factual, well-documented information designed to improve their lives and help them make informed, intelligent decisions with it .

In addition to respect for the humanity, intelligence, and dignity of your audience,  you should  be conscious of two other aspects related to  ethics of communication: credibility and plagiarism .

When   Aristotle used the term  ethos  in the 5th century B.C.E. to describe one of the means of persuasion,  he defined it as the “wisdom, sagacity, and character of the rhetor”  (see Chapter 13 for more coverage of  ethos  and Aristotle’s other artistic proofs).  Modern scholars of communication and persuasion  speak  more about  “ credibility ”  as an attitude the audience has toward the speaker, based on both reality and perception , rather than an innate trait of the speaker .   Audience members trust the speaker to varying degrees, based on the evidence and knowledge they have about the speaker and how that lines up with certain factors:

• Similarity: does the speaker have experiences, values, and beliefs in common with the audience? Can the audience relate to the speaker bec ause of these commonalities?
• Character: does the speaker, in word and action, in the speech and in everyday life, show honesty and integrity?
• Competence: does the speaker show that he/she has expertise and sound knowledge about the topic, especially through firsthand experience? And does the speaker show competence in his/her ability to communicate that expertise?
• Good will: does the audience perceive the speaker to have ethical intentions toward the audience?

In addition to these key areas will be the audience’s perceptions,  o r even gut feelings, about more  intangible  characteristics of the speaker, such as appearance, friendliness, sense of humor, likability, appearance, poise, and communication ability.  Many of these  traits are conveyed through nonverbal aspects, such as facial expression, eye contact, good posture, and appropriate   gestures   (see Chapter 11 on Delivery).

Understandably, the same speaker will have a different level of credibility with different audiences. For example, in regard to presidential campaigns,  it is interesting to listen to how different people respond to and “trust” different candidates. Donald Trump entered the presidential race as a Republican nominee and quickly became a frontrunner in many of the early polls and primaries, eventually winning the Electoral College votes, to the surprise of many. Those who voted for him often stated that they value his  candor  and willingness to say what he thinks because they perceive that as honest and different from other politicians. Others think he makes unwise and thoughtless statements, and they see that as a lack of competence and demeanor to be the national leader.  Donald Trump is the same person, but different audiences respond to his behavior and statements in divergent ways.

The point is that character and competence are both valued by those who trust and those who distrust President Trump and the audience’s perceptions contribute to his credibility  (or lack of it). However, these groups express their values in different ways. When trying to develop your own credibility as a speaker with an audience, you have to keep in mind all four of the factors listed above. To portray oneself as “similar” to the audience but to do so deceptively will not contribute to credibility in the long run. To only pretend to have good will and want the best for the audience will also have a short-term effect. And to intentionally misrepresent your background, such as experience and credentials, is clearly unethical.

Not only does a speaker’s level of credibility change or vary from audience to audience, it is also likely to change even during the presentation. These changes in credibility have been labeled as  initial, derived,  and  terminal credibility .

Initial credibility  is, as you would imagine, the speaker’s credibility at the beginning of or even before the speech.   T here are a number of factors that would contribute to the initial credibility, even such matters as the “recommendation” of the person who introduces the speaker to the audience. Any knowledge the audience has of the speaker prior to the speech adds to the initial credibility.  The initial credibility is important, of course, because it will influence the receptivity of the audience or how well they will listen and be open to the speaker’s ideas.   Initial credibility can be influenced also by the perception  that the speaker is not well dressed, prepared, or confident at the very beginning.  Initial credibility is why how you walk to the lectern and give your introduction matter.

Initial Credibility

A speaker’s credibility at the beginning of or even before the speech

Derived credibility  is how the audience members judge the speaker’s credibility and  trustworthiness throughout the process of the speech, which also can range from point to point in the speech.  P erhaps you have seen those videos on a news program that show a political speaker on one pane of the video and a graph of the audience’s response in real time to the speaker’s message, usually noted as “approval rating” as the politician speaks .  This could be based on the perception of the speaker’s presentation style (delivery), language, specific opinions or viewpoints on subjects, open-mindedness, honesty, and other factors.  T he point of the  derived credibility is that credibility is an active concept that is always changing.

Derived Credibility

a speaker’s credibility and trustworthiness (as judged by the audience members) throughout the process of the speech, which also can range from point to point in the speech

Finally,   terminal credibility  is, as you would think, credibility at the end of the speech.   The obvious  importance of   terminal credibility is that it would factor into the audience’s final decision about what to do with the information, arguments, or appeals of the speaker   –  in other words, his or her persuasiveness . It would also determine whether the audience would listen to the speaker again in the future.   The terminal credibility can be seen as a result of the initial and derived credibility.

Terminal Credibility

a speaker’s credibility at the end of the speech

Terminal credibility may end up being lower than the initial credibility, but the goal of any speaker  should be to have higher terminal credibility .  From an ethics standpoint, of course, credibility should not be enhanced by being untruthful with an audience, by misrepresenting one’s viewpoint to please an audience, or by “pandering” to an audience (flattering them).   One of the primary attributes of credibility at any stage should be transparency and honesty with the audience .

In conclusion,   speaker credibility does not exist alone. It is supported by a number of factors, including Aristotle’s other two traditional forms of persuasion,  logos  (logic, evidence, good reasoning, lack of fallacious arguments) and  pathos  (personal and emotional appeals) .

Although there are many ways that you could undermine your ethical stance before an audience, the one that stands out and is committed most commonly in academic contexts is  plagiarism . A dictionary definition of plagiarism would be “the act of using another person’s words or ideas without giving credit to that person”   (Merriam-Webster, 2015). According to the student help website Plagiarism.org, sponsored by WriteCheck, plagiarism is often thought of as “copying another’s work or borrowing someone else’s original ideas” (“What is Plagiarism?”, 2014). However, this source goes on to say that the common definition may mislead some people.  Plagiarism also includes:

the act of using another person’s words or ideas without giving credit to that person

• Turning in someone else’s work as your own;
• Copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit;
• Failing to put quotation marks around an exact quotation correctly;
• Giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation;
• Changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit;
• Copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not.

Plagiarism exists outside of the classroom and is a temptation in business, creative endeavors, and politics.  However, in the classroom, your instructor will probably take the most immediate action if he or she discovers your plagiarism either from personal experience or through using plagiarism detection (or what is also called “originality checking”) software . Many learning management systems, perhaps such as the one used at your institution, now have a plagiarism detection program embedded in the function where you submit assignments.

In the business or professional world, plagiarism is never tolerated because using original work without permission (which usually includes paying fees to the author or artist) can end in serious legal action.  The Internet has made plagiarism easier and thus increased the student’s responsibility to know how to cite and use source material correctly.

Types of Plagiarism

In our long experience of teaching, we have encountered many instances of students presenting work they claim to be original and their own when it is not.  We have also seen that students often do not intend to plagiarize but, due to poor training in high school, still are committing an act that could result in a failing grade or worse.  Generally,  t here are  three levels of  plagiarism: stealing, sneaking, and borrowing .   Sometimes these types of plagiarism are intentional, and sometimes they occur unintentionally (you may not know you are plagiarizing).  However, as everyone knows,  “Ignorance of the law is not an excuse for breaking it.”  So let’s familiarize you with how plagiarism occurs in order to prevent it from happening.

There is a saying in academia:  “ If you steal from one source, that is plagiarism; if you steal from twelve, that is scholarship.”   Whoever originated this saying may have intended for it to be humorous, but it is a misrepresentation of both plagiarism and scholarship.

No one wants to be the victim of theft; if it has ever happened to you, you know how awful it feels. When a   student takes an essay, research paper, speech, or outline completely from another source, whether it is a classmate who submitted it for another instructor, from some sort of online essay mill,  or from elsewhere, t his is an act of theft no better or worse than going into a store and shoplifting .  The wrongness of the act is compounded by the fact that then the student lies about it being his or her own. If you are tempted to do this, run the other way. Your instructor will probably have no mercy on you, and probably neither will the student conduct council.

Most colleges and universities have a policy that penalizes or forbids  “self-plagiarism.” This means that you can’t use a paper or outline that you presented in another class a second time. You may think, “How can this be plagiarism or wrong if I wrote both and in my work I cited sources correctly?”   The main reason is that by submitting it to your instructor, you are still claiming it is original, first-time work for the assignment in that particular class. Your instructor may not mind if you use some of the same sources from the first time it was submitted, but he or she expects you to follow the instructions for the assignment and prepare an original assignment.  In a sense, this situation is also a case of unfairness, since the other students do not have the advantage of having written the paper or outline already.

Another issue that often comes up with students happens when two or more students, perhaps in the same section or different sections of the same course and same instructor, submit the same assignment. When confronted, the student say, “We worked on it together.” If your instructor wants you to work collaboratively, he or she will make that clear. Otherwise, do not do this–the situation usually ends quite badly for students.

In   “sneaking plagiarism,” instead of taking work as a whole from another source, the student will copy two out of every three sentences and mix them up  so they don’t appear in the same order as in the original work.   Perhaps the student will add a fresh introduction, a personal example or two, and an original conclusion. This “sneaky” plagiarism is easy today due to the Internet and the word processing functions of cutting and pasting.

In fact, many students do not see this as the same thing as stealing because they think “I did some research, I looked some stuff up, and I added some of my own work.” Unfortunately, this approach is only marginally better than stealing and will probably end up in the same penalties as the first type of plagiarism. Why? Because no source has been credited, and the student has “misappropriated” the expression of the ideas as well as the ideas themselves.  Interestingly, this type of plagiarism can lead to copyright violation if the work with the plagiarism is published.

Most of the time students do not have to worry about copyright violation when they correctly use and cite material from a source. This is because in academic environments,  “fair use” is the rule .  In short, you are not making any money from using the copyrighted material, such as from a published book. You are only using it for learning purposes and not to make money, so “quoting” (using verbatim) with proper citation a small amount of the material is acceptable for a college class.

If, however, you were going to try to publish and sell an article or book and “borrowed” a large section of material without specifically obtaining permission from the original author, you would be guilty of copyright violation and by extension make your organization or company also guilty.  When you enter your career field, the “fair use” principle no longer applies and you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holder and pay fees to use all or portions of a work.  For more information on this very important and often misunderstood subject, visit the Creative Commons website and the Library of Congress.

One area in speeches where students are not careful about citing is on their presentational slides. If a graphic or photo is borrowed from a website (that is, you did not design it), there should be a citation in small letters on the slide.  The same would be true of borrowed quotations, data, and ideas. Students also like to put their “works cited” or “references” on the last slide, but this really does not help the audience or get around the possibility of plagiarism .

The third type of plagiarism is   “borrowing.”  In this case, the student is not stealing wholesale. He or she may actually even give credit for the material, either correctly or incorrectly.  He might say, “According to the official website of . . .” or “As found in an article in the  Journal of Psychology , Dr. John Smith wrote . . .”  Sounds good, right? Well, yes and no. It depends on whether the student has borrowed in a “sneaky way” ( cutting and pasting passages together but this time indicating where the sections came from )  or  if the student is using the ideas but not the exact wording.  In other words,  h as t he student adequately, correctly, and honestly paraphrased or summarized the borrowed material, or just “strung the sources together” with some “according to’s”?

Students often are puzzled about what and when to cite borrowed material from sources. At this point, your instructor may have specific instructions, and you should always follow those first. However,  in most cases you can go by  the “repeated information” rule.   If you are doing research and access ten sources, and over half of them have the same piece of information (usually a historical or scientific fact or statistic), you can assume this is “common knowledge.” That is, it is common to anyone who knows anything about the subject, and then you do not have to have a citation.  If you find a piece of information in one source only, it probably represents the original research or viewpoint of that writer, and should be cited clearly. On the other hand, there are exceptions. An often-cited or used piece of information has an original source, such as a government agency, and you would be better off to find the original source and cite that. Secondly, citing sources adds to your credibility as a prepared speaker. Again, your instructor’s directions on what and how much your cite bear upon this advice. Generally, it is better to err on the side of citing more than less.

Ethically Crediting Sources

In using source material correctly, a speaker does three things:

A speech is quite different. Saying “According to Jones, p. 78,” really does very little for the audience. They can’t turn to the back of the paper. They don’t have a way, other than oral communication, to understand the type of information being cited, how recent it is, the credibility of the author you are citing and why you think he or she is a valid source, or the title of the work .  It is necessary in a speech to give more complete information that would help the audience understand its value.  The page number, the publishing company, and city it was published in are probably not important, but what is important is whether it is a website, a scholarly article, or a book; whether it was written in 1950 or 2010; and what is the position, background, or credentials of the source.

So, instead of “According to Jones, p. 78,” a better approach would be,

“ According to Dr. Samuel Jones, Head of Cardiology at Vanderbilt University, in a 2010 article in a prestigious medical journal…”

“In her 2012 book,  The Iraq War in Context , historian Mary Smith of the University of Georgia states that…”

“In consulting the website for the American Humane Society, I found these statistics about animal abuse compiled by the Society in 2012…”

• The speaker should take special care to use information that is in context and relevant .  This step takes more critical thinking skills.  For example, it is often easy to misinterpret statistical information (more on that in Chapter 7),  or to take a quotation from an expert in one field and apply it to another field. It is also important to label facts as facts and opinions as opinions, especially when dealing with controversial subjects .  In addition, be sure you understand the material you are citing before using it. If you are unsure of any words, look their definitions up so you are sure to be using the material as it is intended.  Finally, it is important that you understand the type of publication or source you are using, for example, a scholarly publication in contrast to a journalistic one.
• The speaker should phrase or summarize the ideas of the source into his or her own words.  Paraphrasing, which is putting the words and ideas of others into one’s own authentic or personal language, is often misunderstood by students .  Your instructor may walk you through an exercise to help your class understand that paraphrasing is not changing 10% of the words in a long quotation (such as two or three out of twenty) but still keeping most of the  vocabulary and word order (called syntax ) of the source.  You should compose the information in your own “voice” or way of expressing yourself. In fact, you would be better off to think in terms of summarizing your source material rather than paraphrasing. For one thing, you will be less likely to use too much of the original and therefore be skirting the edge of plagiarism.  Secondly, you will usually want to put the main arguments of a source in your own words and make it shorter.

Here is an example of an original source and three possible ways to deal with it.

Original information, posted on CNN.com website, October 31, 2015:

“The biggest federal inmate release on record will take place this weekend. About 6,600 inmates will be released, with 16,500 expected to get out the first year. More than 40,000 federal felons could be released early over the next several years, the U.S. Sentencing Commission said. The sentencing commission decided a year ago to lower maximum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and to make the change retro-active, with the inmate releases effective November 1, 2015. Sentences were reduced an average of 18%, the commission said. Early release will be a challenge for the inmates as well as the judicial bureaucracy” (Casarez, 2015).

With that as our original source, which of the following is truly paraphrasing?

The CNN News website says the federal government is releasing 40,000 felons from prison in the next few years.

According to a report posted on CNN’s website on October 31 of 2015, the federal government’s Sentencing Commission is beginning to release prisoners in November based on a decision made in 2014. That decision was to make maximum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders shorter by an average of 18%. Over the next several years over 40,000 federal felons could be let go. However, this policy change to early release will not be easy for the justice system or those released.

The largest release ever of federal inmates will take place in early November. At first 6,600 inmates will be released, and then over 16,000 over the first year. The U.S. Sentencing Commission says it could release over 40,000 federal felons over the upcoming years because the sentencing commission decided a year ago to lessen maximum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and to make this happen for those already in jail. When the Sentencing Commission says that when it made that decision, the sentences were reduced an average of 18%. Early release will be a challenge for the felons as well as the judicial system. This came from a story on CNN News website in later October 2015.

If you chose the second citation, you would be correct. The first version does not really interpret the original statement correctly, and the third choice imitates the original almost entirely. Choice 2, on the other hand, is in completely different language and identifies the source of the information clearly and at the beginning.

This exercises may raise the question, “Should I always paraphrase or summarize rather than directly quote a source?”  There are times when it is appropriate to use a source’s exact wording, but quoting a source exactly should be done sparingly—sort of like using hot sauce! You should have a good reason for it, such as that the source is highly respected, has said the idea in a compelling way, or the material is well known and others would recognize it. If you do, you should make it clear you are quoting them exactly by the way you introduce and end the borrowed material.

As mentioned before, students often have not been trained to use source material correctly and plagiarize unintentionally. But like the old saying goes,  “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.”  You will still be held accountable whether you understand or not, so now, in your early college career, is the time you should learn to cite source material correctly in oral and written communication.

Something to Think About

In Appendix B you will find more information about plagiarism.

After reading about ethics in communication, what do you think the most important consideration in ethical speaking? What is the second? The third? Could the first, second, and third ever come into conflict?

Why do you think it is so hard for students to learn to cite sources appropriately?

The following exercise might be helpful for you to develop an understanding of orally citing your sources.

Choose one of your sources for an upcoming speech for this exercise. On a sheet of paper, answer these 9 questions.

• Is this information you found in a unique source, or information that was repeated in all or most of your sources? (This may bear upon whether you need to cite the information or not.)
• Who is the original author or “speaker” of this quotation or material?
• What is the title of source?
• Is it a primary or secondary source? Is the writer quoting someone else (secondary) or is the author the one who discovered the knowledge/information? If the source is secondary, who is being quoted or cited originally?
• What do you know about the source of the citation? Is she/he an expert, such as a scientist, doctor, government official, college professor, etc?
• Where did you find the article? In what journal or magazine, on what website, in what book?
• If a website, who sponsors the website (what organization, government, company)?
• When was this information published? What is the date on it?
• Are you repeating the source’s words exactly or just abstracting (summarizing) what was said? Which would be better, in this case?

If you had to pick 5 of the 7 above to put in your speech, which would you use, based on the three criteria of 1. Audience can find it 2. It makes you look more credible, and 3. It is ethical? Put a star by them.

If you had to pick 4 of the 7, which one would you take out from the previous question? (Cross it out)

It is not necessary to say all of this information, but most of it should be included in the citation. This is how a speech citation is different from a paper. The audience does not have access to this information unless you say it.

Now, write how you would cite this source in the speech. Some stem phrases would be “According to . . .” “In the article. . .” “On a webpage entitled . . .” “On the website for the . . . . organization. . .” “In my interview with Dr. Sam Smith, who is . . . .”

Compare with classmates.

Jennifer has an informative speech due for Dr. MacKenzie’s class. It is about why the gold standard is no longer used in American currency. She chose the subject because she had to write a paper about it in American history class. What should Jennifer consider in how she uses sources?

Jennifer’s friend Beth approaches her about having to give an informative speech for Professor Daniels’ class. Beth confesses she has been having personal problems and needs help, and she asks Jennifer to let her use some of her outline for Dr. MacKenzie’s class. What would be the best course of action for Jennifer?

CHAPTER Three ATTRIBUTION:

Manley, J. A., & Rhodes, K. (2020). Exploring Public Speaking: The Free Dalton State College Public Speaking Textbook, 4th Edition. Manifold. Retrieved from  https://alg.manifoldapp.org/read/exploring-public-speaking-the-free-dalton-state-college-public-speaking-textbook-4th-edition/

Creative Commons License

AUTHORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Barbara G. Tucker (Editor and Primary Author)

As chair of the Department of Communication at Dalton State College, Dr. Tucker oversees programs in communication, general studies, music, theatre, and interdisciplinary studies. She is a Professor of Communication and has worked in higher education for over 40 years. She lives in Ringgold, Georgia, with her husband; they have one son. She is a novelist and playwright. Her research areas are the basic course, open educational resources, historical perspectives on rhetoric, and gratitude.

Matthew LeHew (Editor)

As Assistant Professor at Dalton State College, Matthew LeHew teaches courses in public relations, integrated marketing communication, film studies, and video production. His research interests include various areas of media studies, especially examination of virtual communities for online games. He is currently writing his dissertation for the Ph.D. in Communication (Media and Society track) at Georgia State University. He lives in Marietta, Georgia with his wife, son, and two dogs.

The Public Speaking Resource Project Copyright © 2018 by Lori Halverson-Wente and Mark Halverson-Wente is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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2 Ethics and Public Speaking

Anthony Naaeke, Ph.D. and Eva Kolbusz-Kijne, Ph.D.

Learning Objectives

• Explore the meaning of ethics.
• Distinguish between absolute and relativist perspectives on ethics.
• Identify and apply the code of ethics for ethical public speaking established by the National Communication Association
• Distinguish between ethical and unethical speech.

“I regret it now because the information was wrong.”

— Colin Powell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d93_u1HHgM4

The above quotation from former United States Secretary of State Colin Powell directly applies to the discussion we are about to have in this chapter, namely, ethics in public speaking. In this television interview on the Larry King Live CNN program first aired in 2011, former Secretary of State, Colin Powell, expressed regret for a speech he delivered before Congress in which he provided what he believed was justifiable reasons for the United States to go to war against Iraq following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States. Although Powell believed at the time of his speech to the United Nations that the information and evidence he provided in the speech were accurate, ostensibly because he trusted the officials who vetted the accuracy of the information, he later realized that the speech was based on misinformation and inaccurate evidence. By expressing regret for delivering a speech filled with inaccuracies, Colin Powell basically acknowledged that his speech was unethical. However, by publicly expressing regret for an unethical speech that he delivered, he fulfilled the ninth ethical principle of the National Communication Association’s code for ethical speaking that states, “We accept responsibility for the short- and long-term consequences for our own communication and expect the same of others.” This principle calls for ethical speakers to take responsibility for mistakes and errors made in communication whether in the short or long term when they become aware of the errors and inaccuracies they expressed.

In this chapter we will explore the meaning of ethics, ethical perspectives, the Code of Ethics of the National Communication Association and distinguish between ethical and unethical speeches.

Ethics has to do with social norms regarding right and wrong. It is a branch of philosophy that deals with right and wrong. Because different cultures have different norms about right and wrong, ethics is a very contested zone in all aspects of human encounters. One culture may consider something to be right while another may consider the same thing to be wrong. Hence, the contested nature of ethics. However, for effective communication, especially communication that is intended to move an audience to make choices or decisions, some basic agreement on what is right and wrong is necessary.

In De Oratore (Institutes of Oratory), the Roman rhetorician Quintilian wrote that the perfect orator is first “a good man speaking well.” This simple statement establishes a fundamental expectation for ethical public speaking, namely, that great oratory should entail both an ethical character of the speaker as well as delivery that embodies confidence, competence, dynamism, and good will (addresses the needs of an audience).

For Quintilian and other rhetoricians such as Cicero and St. Augustine, rhetoric or oratory should be grounded in truth and not deception. According to these rhetoricians, the communication of truth distinguishes ethical rhetoric from sophistic rhetoric which uses any means, including deceptive ways, untruths, and outright lies, to persuade an audience.

Ethical Perspectives

There are different perspectives on ethics, but this section will concentrate on two of them, namely, the absolute values perspective and the relativist perspective.

The absolute values perspective on ethics holds that irrespective of person, place, or time, right is right and wrong is wrong. In other words, there are universal ethical values that apply to all people and cultures. For example, it is wrong to kill or to tell a lie or to steal or to defraud. This means that irrespective of person or culture or situation, a person who tells a lie or kills or defrauds others has done an unethical act.

https://www.giffordlectures.org/books/moral-values-and-idea-god/6-relative-and-absolute-value

Ethical relativism on the other hand is the philosophical position that the sense of right and wrong is always relative to the individual and not universal to all people and situations.    The Encyclopedia Britannica defines ethical relativism as “the doctrine that there are no absolute truths in ethics and that what is morally right or wrong varies from person to person or from society to society.” The arguments for ethical relativism are mainly two-fold. The Encyclopedia observes that an argument, based on the Greek Philosopher Herodotus (5t Century BC), claims that every culture has its customs and norms and no culture’s values, norms and customs are better than another. A second argument in favor of ethical relativism, according to the Encyclopedia, is based on the 18th century philosopher David Hume who expressed the idea that moral values are grounded in emotion and not reason and can, therefore, not be universalized.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/ethical-relativism

Implications of Ethical Perspectives for Public Speaking

When applied to public speaking, the absolute values perspective on ethics implies that there are or should be rigorous principles that guide how to teach public speaking, how to write a speech, how to deliver a speech, how to reference sources, what is considered appropriate vocal projection, eye contact, posture, vocabulary, etc. This approach to public speaking can be regarded by minority groups based on race, culture, or nationality, as oppressive in the context of culturally sustaining pedagogies and the ongoing efforts to engage pedagogies that are inclusive, diverse, and equity minded.

On the other hand, a fundamental implication of ethical relativism for public speaking is that there are no universal norms or ethical codes that govern what and how to make public presentations. This means that depending on the speaker, context, audience or purpose, a public speaker decides what and how to make the presentation without following a predetermined style. This also means that the principle of ethical relativism is more respectful of diverse cultural values, culturally relevant speech patterns, thought processes, and language use. In the context of culturally sustaining pedagogies, the relativist ethical perspective would allow more flexibility in how public speaking is taught and how students, depending on their various backgrounds, prepare and deliver speeches.

Despite the implications of the two ethical perspectives on ethics discussed above, the National Communication Association (NCA) has established a Credo for Ethical Communication to guide the practice of the discipline.

NCA Credo for Ethical Communication

The NCA believes ethical communication is “fundamental to responsible thinking, decision making, and the development of relationships and communities within and across contexts, cultures, channels, and media.” Conversely, the NCA believes that unethical communication threatens the well-being of individuals and society. Consequently, the NCA has established a Credo for Ethical Communication referenced in the link below.

https://edge.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/ethics_section_03_module01_0.pdf

The NCA Credo for Ethical Communication is extensive, but for the purpose of this chapter which addresses ethics in public speaking, it is important to outline and focus on the following nine principles of the code:

• We advocate truthfulness, accuracy, honesty, and reason as essential to the integrity of communication.
• We endorse freedom of expression, diversity of perspective, and tolerance of dissent to achieve the informed and responsible decision making fundamental to a civil society.
• We strive to understand and respect other communicators before evaluating and responding to their messages.
• We promote access to communication resources and opportunities as necessary to fulfill human potential and contribute to the well-being of individuals, families, communities, and society.
• We promote communication climates of caring and mutual understanding that respect the unique needs and characteristics of individual communicators.
• We condemn communication that degrades individuals and humanity through distortion, intimidation, coercion, and violence, and through the expression of intolerance and hatred.
• We are committed to the courageous expression of personal convictions in pursuit of fairness and justice.
• We advocate sharing information, opinions, and feelings when facing significant choices while also respecting privacy and confidentiality.
• We accept responsibility for the short- and long-term consequences for our own communication and expect the same of others.

In essence, the principles outlined in the code emphasize the importance of communication that is grounded in truth, honesty, accuracy, and respect for the audience as an ethical responsibility of a speaker.

Distinguishing Between Ethical and Unethical Speeches

Based on the exploration of ethics, perspectives on ethics, and the NCA Credo for ethical communication, it is appropriate to observe that irrespective of cultural background or values, some general principles should guide what is ethical or unethical in public speaking.

Purpose of the Speech

Effective communication must be purpose-driven. The purpose of a speech is important because it lets the speaker and audience know the ultimate outcome of the speech. The purpose of the speech should seek to accomplish something good. If the purpose of a speech is unethical it means that it seeks to accomplish something bad. Let us explore some examples to illustrate. In the speech by former Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations that we referenced in the introduction of this chapter, his purpose was to persuade the International Community that Saddam Hussien, then President of Iraq, had weapons of mass destruction which posed serious security problems to the world and that the United States would have to go to war against Iraq in order to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction against the International Community. The purpose of the speech was ethical in as far as it sought to protect the common good of the International Community by preventing a nation and its leader from doing harm to people. On the other hand, a speech whose purpose is to arouse anger and resentment against specific groups of people, such as immigrants, would be unethical because such a speech aims to do harm to a group of people by appealing to the emotion of anger in its audience who would then act violently or discriminate against immigrants as evidenced by a speech by former President Donald Trump in which he called Mexicans murderers and rapists. See reference to the speech in the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jaz1J0s-cL4

Credibility of evidence

Another element of an ethical speech is that the information given should be based on facts and not opinion,, information that is accurate and reliable. Facts can be demonstrated or proven, while opinions are the personal views of a person that may or may not be factual. The evidence should also be accurate in the sense that it should fully and properly represent the ideas or statements of others within the context in which such ideas or statements are made. Evidence that is not accurate distorts the original message of the source of information and misleads an audience. The credibility of evidence is not only about what is stated but also about who says it. To be ethical, a public speaker must verify that the source of information they use as evidence to support claims is reliable or can be trustedtrustworthy. For example, the statements of a racist bigot in defense of racism cannot be considered reliable because of the personal disposition of the source.

Another important consideration about the credibility of evidence is crediting the sources of the information used. An ethical speaker must let the audience know the source of the information or data or statistics or images such as paintings, pictures, and drawings if the information was taken from another person’s work. Failing to credit the sources of information constitutes plagiarism.

Plagiarism is using another person’s ideas or work without crediting the source. There are three types of plagiarism: global, patchwork and incremental.

Global plagiarism is taking the entire work of another person and not crediting the source. For example, if you take a speech that was written by someone else and deliver it to an audience without letting the audience know who the original writer of the speech is, that would constitute global plagiarism.

Patchwork plagiarism on the other hand takes substantive parts, such as a paragraph, from different sources and puts them together without crediting the sources. Patchwork plagiarism is easy to commit when you highlight, copy, and paste information from different sources without crediting the sources.

The third type of plagiarism, incremental plagiarism, happens when you take a phrase or sentence from various sources and fail to credit the sources. Ethical speakers always credit their sources.

Arrangement of Ideas

One other way to be an ethical speaker is to arrange your ideas in a way that makes it easy for the audience to follow the logical flow of the message. An ethical speaker should facilitate the understanding of the message and not confuse the audience with disorderly placement of ideas. In an orderly arrangement of ideas, the audience can easily follow how one idea moves to another or relates to another, whereas in a confusing arrangement of ideas, the audience struggles to see how one point relates to another or flows into another.

An ethical speaker should always be mindful that the language used is familiar to the audience and inclusive, . Language should not toonot be too technical or abstract,; not racist, sexist, or abusive and is inclusive. Using familiar language makes it easy for the audience to understand a message being communicated, while technical or abstract language may be appropriate for a specific audience especially based on profession and level of education. Racist, sexist, and abusive language looks down on a group of people while extolling the perceived superiority of the speaker over the audience.

Respect for the audience

In addition to the above guidelines for ethical speaking, a speaker should show respect to an audience by being on time to the event and respect the time allotted for the speech. The speaker also shows respect to an audience by dressing appropriately and listening to the feedback from the audience and responding to questions from the audience honestly.

Finally, an ethical speaker should know what they are talking about, be well prepared, dress appropriately, speak clearly, engage the audience through direct eye contact and body movements that show physical/mindful presence and attention to the audience.

Other guiding principles for ethical public speaking

Many scholars of ethical communication agree that an ethical speaker should have integrity, competence, responsibility, respect, and concern (Plante, 2004). Integrity means being an honest, fair and a just person. Competence is a quality of someone who is knowledgeable and skilled in some job or task whilst r. Responsibility has to do with keeping promises and being attentive to one’s obligations. An ethical speaker should be respectful of others in terms of paying attention to their rights, needs, dignity and be concerned about the needs of others.

In this chapter, we explored the meaning of ethics, different perspectives on ethics, and distinguished between ethical and unethical speeches. We also outlined the Credo for Ethical Communication by the National Communication Association and provided practical guidelines for ethical public speaking. In the context of higher education that emphasizes the need for culturally sustaining pedagogies, an ethical speaker must be respectful of diverse audiences they address. Ethical speakers should use evidence that is based on reliable facts while considering the lived experiences and needs of the audience.

Review Questions

• What is your understanding of ethics and why is it important for speaking speakers?
• Identify nine principles of ethical communication outlined by the National Communication Association.

Class Exercises

• Show a speech to the class and put students in small groups to discuss and explain why the speech is ethical or unethical.
• Put students in small groups and ask them to make a list of things they consider ethical or unethical in a speech.

Works Cited

Encyclopedia Britannica. Ethical Relativism. https://www.britannica.com/topic/ethical-relativism . Accessed 6/5/21.

Plante, Thomas. Do the Right Thing: Living Ethically in an Unethical World . Oakland, CA. New Harbinger Publications, 2004, p. 49-145.

Powell, Colin. Interview on Larry King Live. CNN . 2011. YouTube Video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d93_u1HHgM4 . Accessed 6/5/21.

The Gifford Lectures. Relative and Absolute Value. https://www.giffordlectures.org/books/moral-values-and-idea-god/6-relative-and-absolute-value . Accessed 6/5/21.

Trump, Donald. Interview on MSNBC. YouTube Video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jaz1J0s-cL4 . Accessed 6/5/21.

Ethics and Public Speaking Copyright © by Anthony Naaeke, Ph.D. and Eva Kolbusz-Kijne, Ph.D. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Speechwriting

11 Ethics in Public Speaking

Being a Speaker the Audience Can Trust

In this chapter . . .

In this chapter, you will learn about the importance of ethics in both writing and delivering public speeches. The two major aspects of ethics in terms of public speaking are credibility and plagiarism. We define these issues and present strategies for increasing your credibility and preventing plagiarism, thus allowing you to deliver ethical and effective speeches.

In the fourth century BCE, the classic philosopher Aristotle took up the study of the public speaking practices of the ruling class in Athenian society. For two years he observed the men (it was only men) who spoke publicly in the assembly and the courts. In the end, he developed a theory about persuasiveness that has come down to us in history as a written treatise called Rhetoric. Among his many ideas was the identification of three elements essential to effective public speaking:  ethos ,  logos , and pathos . In short, these mean credibility, reasonability, and emotion.

In this chapter, we will focus on what Aristotle called ethos and what we today would call ethical public speaking . Ethics refers to the branch of philosophy that involves a determination of what is right and moral. On a personal level, it’s a standard of what you should and should not do in various situations. Although ethics are based on personal decisions and values, they are also influenced by factors outside of you.

Ethical Public Speaking 

Ethical Public Speaking refers to those aspects of public speaking that pertain to the personal character of a public speaker and the quality of the content they present in a speech. It involves honest research and truthful presentation, good intentions towards the audience, and the integrity of ideas. We are ethical speakers when we write and present speeches that respect these values.

Honesty & Truthfulness

Ethical public speaking requires adherence to factual truth and respect for your audience. This means that you’ll do your best to present factual, well-documented information designed to improve their lives and help them make informed, intelligent decisions with it. Honesty and truthfulness mean not telling lies and being thorough in representing the truth. When quotes are intentionally taken out of context to misrepresent the original author’s intent or to deceive the audience this isn’t honest research. You may have heard of the phrase “cherry-picking facts.” That’s when essential information is ignored in order to promote one version of the facts. When this happens, honesty fails because the truth is skewed.

A speaker is ethical when the intention of their communication is in the best interest of the audience. It means approaching the speech with honest purpose and wanting the best experience for the audience. If a speaker aims at manipulation, falsifies information, insults the audience, or simply has no intention of fulfilling the purpose of a speech, then they are not acting with good will.

When public speakers research and write speeches, they are expected to do so in a way that respects the sources from which they gain their knowledge and ideas. Furthermore, it’s the responsibility of the speaker to utilize factually accurate sources. When using sources known to be biased it’s important to acknowledge this. This is no different from the way that any writers (students, journalists, researchers, and teachers) are expected to acknowledge the sources of ideas. When we fail to do that, it’s called plagiarism. Plagiarism is unethical and will be discussed in depth below.

When a public speaker successfully conveys to their audience that they possess the qualities of integrity, good will, honesty, and truthfulness, then they have established speaker credibility . “Credibility” means the “quality that someone or something has that makes people believe or trust them” (Oxford Learner’s Dictionary). The success of any speech depends on the speaker’s establishing credibility with their audience. Simple forms of credibility statements form a part of the introduction of a speech, as described in the chapter Introductions and Conclusions .  What follows in this chapter is a more in-depth discussion of this important quality.

Being a Credible Speaker

Speaker credibility  is the positive attitude that the audience acquires toward a speaker. It’s based on both reality and perception and leads the audience to believe that the speaker is honest and competent. An audience wants to be “in good hands” and they use their intelligence and powers of observation to judge whether they should put their trust in a speaker.

Credibility is a product of both the content of a speech and its delivery. It’s related to what the audience hears in a speech as well as their perceptions, or even gut feelings, about the intangible characteristics of the speaker such as appearance, friendliness, sense of humor, likability, poise, and communication ability. It’s hard to overestimate the importance of establishing speaker credibility.

Let’s assume you’re giving an informative speech and you have worked diligently on all the elements of ethical public speaking. The content of your speech is honest (based on fact) and truthful (not “cherry-picked”). You’ve been careful to cite your research sources properly. You have the good intention to educate your audience about the topic and you will avoid manipulating, talking down to, or insulting your audience. You’re a credible speaker, certainly. However, your challenge is this: how do you convey to the audience that you are credible? What are the signs of credibility that they will hear and see? What do you say or do as a speaker so that the audience knows they are “in good hands”—that they can trust in you and in what you have to say?

Because credibility is made up of many factors, both verbal and non-verbal, this isn’t a simple question to answer. Establishing credibility is achieved in both speechwriting and delivery.

Establishing Credibility through Speechwriting

Some of the traits of credibility that a speaker conveys through speechwriting include:

A speaker is credible when they establish their competence on a topic. Competence means the speaker possesses the right level of expertise and sound knowledge about the speech topic, which they have acquired through research or firsthand experience. The speaker explains what the topic means to them and how they learned about it, with statements like: “I started studying the history of Ukraine last year and became fascinated by the people I met” or “I’ve always loved animals and have been volunteering at my local humane society for the past three years.”

Organization

A speaker establishes credibility with a speech that is organized and allows the audience to follow. Good, structured speeches allow the audience to relax and trust the speaker. Organized speeches state and restate their thesis and main ideas, using redundancy to beneficial effect. They allow the audience to follow along by providing connections, summaries, and previews.

Relationship

A speaker becomes credible by establishing a relationship with the audience. The speaker shows that they have thought about who the audience is, both demographically and psychographically and may say something like “I’m happy to be speaking to a group of new voters.”  The speaker introduces themselves (if they haven’t already been introduced by a host); and finds common ground with the audience and communicates these similarities. “Like you, I understand the challenges of being a student athlete . . . ” or “I know it must be strange to hear a 21-year-old talk to you today about retirement, but I helped my grandparents for several years and . . .”

A speaker is credible to an audience when they make use of, and cite, credible sources. Quotations without acknowledgments or mentioning sources by saying “I read on a website that . . . ” will not gain the trust of audience. In speeches that involve research, that present information beyond your own experience, be sure to properly acknowledge your sources. Not doing so will sow the seeds of doubt in an audience and undermine their trust. In speechwriting, this is called “spoken citation” and will be discussed further on in this chapter.

The Importance of the Introduction

While credibility through speechwriting is established throughout the entire speech, pay close attention to the introduction. The introduction is crucial to establishing your credibility. The introduction is the part of the speech where you state your topic and tell the audience why you chose it, what expertise you bring to it, and what it means to you. It’s also the part of the speech when you state your name and affiliation and establish the common interests you share with your audience.

Establishing Credibility through Delivery

Preparation.

Speakers are credible to an audience when they show they are prepared. Unless it’s an entirely impromptu speech occasion, the audience expects a speaker to be ready to speak. Unprepared, unrehearsed, messy, or incomplete notes, losing their place, going off on a tangent, going over allotted time—these are things that will diminish credibility.

A Proper Start

Pay attention to how you enter the speaking area and take stage. Body language speaks volumes. This is where “good will” shows itself. If you drag your feet to the stage and look as if giving a speech is the   last   thing you want to do, why would the audience trust you to care about them?

Pace and Volume

An audience feels that they can trust a speaker who takes the time to speak to them at a comfortable pace and with a volume they can hear.

Eye Contact

A speaker enhances their credibility with an audience through eye contact, establishing a relationship with the audience. An audience wants to be seen. Engaging with them physically helps them stay engaged with your content.

Body Language

Maintaining good posture throughout the speech gives the audience more confidence in you. This will also ensure better volume and eye contact. Using clear and intentional gestures emphasizes particular points and makes the speech visual more interesting.

A Proper Ending

As with a proper start, how you leave the stage is an element in the impression the audience will take away.

On Speaker Credibility—Other Considerations

Before you can encourage the audience’s trust in you, you need to do some self-examination about the elements of credibility that you possess in general and in relation to the specific speech occasion. This is a necessary step. An honest assessment of your credibility will help you in two ways: First, it helps you strategize how you will convey your strengths to the audience, and second, it helps you avoid dishonest or exaggerated claims of credibility. Ask yourself: Is your speech content honest and truthful? Have you done your best to make your speech easy to follow and understand? What do you want for your audience? Who is your audience and what do you have in common with them?

If credibility is a matter of audience perception, does that mean that credibility is only what a speaker manages to get the audience to believe about them, rather than what is  actually  true about the speaker? Of course not. The factors of credibility and ethical public speaking  must be real  before a speaker can successfully convey these qualities to an audience.

That said, it’s an unfortunate fact of public discourse that speakers misrepresent their credibility all the time, either intentionally or unintentionally. Can you think of situations where speakers pretended to be experts when they were not? When they say that they really care about a subject when there is evidence to the contrary? Or, they boast of having similarities with an audience—for example, boasting of a religious affiliation with the audience—but they don’t really possess these similarities? To intentionally misrepresent your background, such as experience and credentials, is clearly unethical. No doubt you can think of many such instances.

Unethical speakers do this because they know how important it’s to establish credibility with an audience. But managing to pass off lies about your credibility doesn’t mean you’re  actually   credible ! Perceptive audience members will know the difference.

Defining Plagiarism

An ethical public speaker has integrity. Although there are many ways that you could undermine your ethical stance before an audience, the one that stands out and is committed most in academic contexts is plagiarism . A dictionary definition of plagiarism would be “the act of using another person’s words or ideas without giving credit to that person” (Merriam-Webster, 2015). According to the student help website Plagiarism.org, sponsored by WriteCheck, plagiarism is often thought of as “copying another’s work or borrowing someone else’s original ideas” (“What is Plagiarism?” 2014). However, this source goes on to say that the common definition may mislead some people. Plagiarism also includes:

• Turning in someone else’s work as your own
• Copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
• Failing to put quotation marks around an exact quotation correctly
• Giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
• Changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit
• Copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up most of your work, whether you give credit or not

Plagiarism exists outside of the classroom and is a temptation in business, creative endeavors, and politics.

Types of Plagiarism

Generally, there are three types of plagiarism: direct, incorrect paraphrasing, and self-plagiarism. Sometimes these types of plagiarism are intentional, and sometimes they occur unintentionally (you may not know you’re plagiarizing). However, as everyone knows, “Ignorance of the law isn’t an excuse for breaking it.” Unintentional or accidental plagiarism is still plagiarism. Furthermore, the penalties for plagiarism are steep and it’s considered a serious act of misconduct. So, let’s familiarize you with how plagiarism occurs in order to prevent it from happening.

No one wants to be the victim of theft; if it has ever happened to you, you know how awful it feels. When a student takes an essay, research paper, speech, or outline completely from another source, whether it’s a classmate who submitted it for another instructor, from some sort of online essay mill, or from elsewhere, this is an act of theft. If you take a whole text and claim it’s yours, you are committing plagiarism; you are deliberately and directly lying about the authorship of a work. Even just lifting a short passage directly from a source without quoting it and using proper citation, is a form of stealing, thus plagiarism. You are committing plagiarism even if you delete or change a couple of words. If the structure and most of the words are the same as in the original, and you imply it’s your own work, this counts as direct plagiarism. If properly acknowledged and justified, it’s permissible to use verbatim  short parts of another work, as discussed below.

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing means taking someone else’s ideas and rephrasing them in your own words. There’s nothing wrong with rephrasing, in fact, it’s the basis of how we write and think. However, ethical writing (including speechwriting) means acknowledging the source of your ideas by citing or mentioning it. When you restate or summarize information from a source and don’t include a citation you are implying that those ideas came from you. Paraphrasing without citation is the most common form of plagiarism because it often happens unintentionally.

Another unethical, and more deliberate, form of incorrect paraphrasing is when you take two out of every three sentences and mix them up, so they don’t appear in the same order as in the original work. Perhaps the student will add a fresh introduction, a personal example or two, and an original conclusion.

Many students don’t see this as the same thing as stealing because they think “I did some research, I looked some stuff up, and I added some of my own work.” Yet this is only marginally better than direct plagiarism. Why? Because no source has been credited, and the student has “misappropriated” the expression of the ideas as well as the ideas themselves.

A similar sort of paraphrasing plagiarism involves copying passages from various sources and editing them together, mixed with some of your own words. If you do this and don’t correctly cite each source, it’s plagiarism. Furthermore, if your entire paper consists of predominantly the work of other authors that you have stitched together, whether you cite it or not, it’s plagiarism.

Self-Plagiarism

Some colleges and universities have a policy that penalizes or forbids “ self-plagiarism .” This means that you can’t use a paper or outline that you presented in another class a second time. You may think, “How can this be plagiarism or wrong if I wrote both and, in my work, I cited sources correctly?” The issue with re-using your own work is that you are not putting in the amount of effort expected for an assignment. One way to avoid self-plagiarism, particularly if your previous work is published, is to cite yourself. When in doubt, ask first.

Other Considerations

One area in speeches where students are not careful about citing is on their presentation slides. If a graphic or photo is borrowed from a website (that is, you did not design it), there should be a citation in small letters on the slide. The same would be true of borrowed quotations, data, and ideas. Students also like to put their “works cited” or “references” on the last slide, but this really does not help the audience to match particular images or material to the original source.

An issue that often comes up with students happens when two or more students submit the same assignment. When confronted, the student says, “We worked on it together.” If your instructor wants you to work collaboratively, they will make that clear. Otherwise, don’t do this.  Always assume you are expected o turn in your own work. Any use of unauthorized assistance is considered cheating.

Finally, using AI technologies such as chat bots to produce the text of a speech is equivalent to turning in something written by someone else. While it may be permissible to use technology for editing grammar and spelling, you are the author and the idea you present should be the result of your own thinking. Unless stated otherwise in your instructor’s policy, using AI to write a speech constitutes plagiarism.

Avoiding Plagiarism

Avoiding plagiarism involves, first, the intention to create your own work. If you begin by assuming you can take other work and present it as your own, you will surely be in the realm of plagiarism. The second part of avoiding plagiarism is to learn the proper way to cite the sources you use. To “cite” means to provide the sources for your research, creating what is called a “citation.” Citations appear in written work, including essays and speeches, and on many websites, images, and more. Explaining exactly how to create citations for a written essay or research paper is outside the scope of this textbook. There are also free online tools that will generate proper citations for you. In this section and the one following it, we will focus on spoken citations  as they appear in a speech—in other words, how to create a citation for listeners, not readers.

Avoiding Plagiarism with Direct Sources

As explained above, copying whole works from another source is plagiarism. But there are times when it’s appropriate to use a small amount of a source’s exact wording. You should have a good reason for inserting a direct quote. Typically, we quote when the source or author is highly respected, or they have stated the idea in a compelling way, or the material is well known, and others would recognize it. We also quote when we are discussing or analyzing a specific part of a text.

Whether you are using a phrase, a sentence, or even several sentences from another’s work, if you use exact words from a source, it requires quotation. Quoting tells the reader and listener that you are using the exact words from a source. The proper way to manage direct quotes in a speech text is to provide quotation marks at the beginning and end of the quote followed by a source citation. The most common citation is a parenthetical reference such as (Smith 12) where the author’s last name and the page number are written in parentheses following the quote. This parenthetical reference should correspond to a full citation in the bibliography. Alternatively, you can use a superscript number at the end of the quotation that corresponds to a full citation listed in footnotes/endnotes.

When using direct quotations, you should make it clear you’re quoting by the way in which you introduce and end the borrowed material, as in examples further below. A common practice in public speaking is to say quote and/or make air quotes to specify you are about to give a direct quote. It can also be beneficial to change your vocal tone and use appropriate gestures to help differentiate the quote from your own words.

Avoiding Plagiarism when Paraphrasing

As stated earlier, paraphrasing is common form of plagiarism because it often happens unintentionally. It’s important to understand what good paraphrasing is. Look at this example of an original source and three possible ways to paraphrase it.

Original information, posted on CNN.com website, October 31, 2015:

“The biggest federal inmate release on record will take place this weekend. About 6,600 inmates will be released, with 16,500 expected to get out the first year. More than 40,000 federal felons could be released early over the next several years, the U.S. Sentencing Commission said. The sentencing commission decided a year ago to lower maximum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and to make the change retro-active, with the inmate releases effective November 1, 2015. Sentences were reduced an average of 18%, the commission said. Early release will be a challenge for the inmates as well as the judicial bureaucracy” (Casarez, 2015).

With that as the original source, which of the following three is truly paraphrasing?

• The CNN News website says the federal government is releasing 40,000 felons from prison in the next few years.
• According to a report posted on CNN’s website on October 31 of 2015, the federal government’s Sentencing Commission is beginning to release prisoners in November based on a decision made in 2014. That decision was to make maximum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders shorter by an average of 18%. Over the next several years over 40,000 federal felons could be let go. However, this policy change to early release will not be easy for the justice system or those released.
• The largest release ever of federal inmates will take place in early November. At first 6,600 inmates will be released, and then over 16,000 over the first year. The U.S. Sentencing Commission says it could release over 40,000 federal felons over the upcoming years because the sentencing commission decided a year ago to lessen maximum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and to make this happen for those already in jail. When the Sentencing Commission says that when it made that decision, the sentences were reduced by an average of 18%. Early release will be a challenge for the felons as well as the judicial system. This came from a story on CNN News website in later October 2015.

If you chose the second paraphrase, you would be correct. It uses different language and identifies the source of the information clearly at the beginning. The first version does not really interpret the original statement correctly, and the third choice imitates the original almost entirely. Neither of these two would be good paraphrasing.

Notice that each paraphrase example includes a citation that provides the source of the material, but only the second paraphrase does so completely: “According to a report posted on CNN’s website on October 31 of 2015 . . . “

There is a general rule of research that says that if the information you are using is “common knowledge”—dates and facts for example or other information a general reader should know—then it doesn’t need to be cited. A good rule of thumb is if the same information can be found in 4-5 sources where it was not cited, it’s common knowledge. But if it’s an original idea, research results, or the author’s interpretation of common facts then it needs to be cited. If you are in doubt whether you should cite something or not, always err on the side of caution. Over-citing is much better than the alternative: plagiarism.

Keep in mind good research takes time. Procrastinating leads to being unduly pressured to finish. This sort of pressure can lead to sloppy research habits and bad decisions. Make sure you give yourself plenty of time to complete your speech so it’s both ethical and well executed.

One way to avoid accidental plagiarism is to keep track of your citations as you are researching and writing. This prevents forgetting where a quotation came from or misattributing the source. Citation managers such as Zotero and Mendeley (which are free to download) not only keep track of all your sources while you research and write they can create instant bibliographies.

Creating Spoken Citations

Now that you understand using two forms of source material—direct quotation, and paraphrase—and you understand the importance of citing your sources to your audience, exactly how should you include a citation in a speech?

In a paper, you would only need to include a written citation such as “(Jones 78)” for a source that the reader can find in the bibliography. But it doesn’t work like for a speech. In a speech, saying “Jones, 78” doesn’t mean anything. Even saying “According to Jones, p. 78,” does little for the audience. Why? Because they can’t turn to a bibliography. They don’t have another way to understand the type of information being conveyed. In speeches it’s necessary, therefore, to give more complete information that would help the audience understand its value. This is why these are called  spoken citations .

What information needs to be included in a spoken citation? The page number, the publishing company, and city it was published in are not very important. What is important is the  type of source : for example, a website, scholarly article, newspaper article, or a book. Then, you should include when it was written, if possible, and the  position, background, or credentials  of the source. There are no fixed rules, however. In determining what should go into the verbal citation, think about the information that is necessary to clarify the relevance and credibility of your source for your audience and let that be your guide.

For example, instead of saying “According to Jones, p. 78,” a better approach would be,

According to Dr. Samuel Jones, Head of Cardiology at Vanderbilt University, in a 2010 article . . .

Whether you are introducing a direct quote or a paraphrase, you can see that it’s best to begin with the citation . Take these examples:

In her 2012 book,  The Iraq War in Context,  historian Mary Smith of the University of Georgia states that . . .

In consulting the website for the American Humane Society, I found these statistics about animal abuse compiled by the Society in 2023:

In the first example, you would insert a quote from Smith’s book after your spoken citation. In the second example, a paraphrase would be appropriate. For example:

In his 2014 book,  Talk Like Ted,  public speaking guru Carmine Gallo states that “Ideas are the currency of the twenty-first century.”

In consulting the website TED.org, I learned that the TED organization does much more than sponsoring TED talks. There are also podcasts, a video series, and television programs.

Sometimes when using direct quotes, speakers find it helpful to clarify where the quote begins and ends by saying the word “quote.”  In that case, this is an example of exactly what a speaker would say:

In her 2023 memoir entitled  Finding Me , the actor Viola Davis writes, quote, “I felt my call was to become an actress. It wasn’t. It was bigger than that. I was bigger than my successes.” End quote.

As mentioned above, a speaker can achieve the same effect by making a gesture of air quotes or changing the tone of the voice.

To conclude, citing your sources is immensely important. It shows that you have done proper research to support your ideas and arguments and it allows your audience to find the material if they want more information. Using clear citations makes your speech more credible to the audience.

This chapter introduced you to the ethics of public speaking and how being an ethical public speaker makes you a credible public speaker that audiences will trust. Using sources ethically means not only proper citation, but taking care that the information you use is relevant and presented in context. Avoid manipulating statistical information or taking a quotation from an expert in one field and present as if they are an expert in another field. Differentiate facts from opinions, especially when dealing with controversial subjects. In addition, be sure you understand the material you’re citing before using it. If you’re unsure of any words, look their definitions up so you’re sure to be using the material as it’s intended. Finally, it’s important that you understand the type of publication or source you’re using and any potential biases. It’s your responsibility to help the audience understand the reliability of a particular source, the purpose of including any cited information, and how it relates to your overarching argument.

Something to Think About

The following exercise might be helpful for you to develop an understanding of orally citing your sources.

Choose one of your sources for an upcoming speech for this exercise. On a sheet of paper, answer these questions.

• Is this information you found in a unique source, or information that was repeated in all or most of your sources? (This may bear upon whether you need to cite the information or not.)
• Who is the original author or “speaker” of this quotation or material? Are they an expert, such as a scientist, doctor, government official, college professor, etc.?
• What is the title of source?
• What do you know about the source of the citation? What is the medium (book, article, website)?
• If a website, who sponsors the website (what organization, government, company)?
• When was this information published? What is the date on it?

It’s not necessary to give all this information, but most of it should be included in the citation.

Public Speaking as Performance Copyright © 2023 by Mechele Leon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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In this chapter, we discuss ethical issues surrounding the practice of speechwriting. We outline the code of ethics for speechwriters developed in 2015. We recognize that the very act of writing speeches for others can bring a host of ethical questions and that at the heart of the issue stands the speaker whose words have supposedly been written by another. Yet, upon careful assessment, we argue, this is not the case. Instead, we offer the perspective that most individuals in leadership positions have aides and consultants for various tasks and speaking in public is one of them. We take the work of the speechwriters as an advisor who assists those entrusted with speaking to negotiating effectively a text and context and opting for maximizing a speech’s effect.

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AU - Lund, Marie

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N2 - In this chapter, we discuss ethical issues surrounding the practice of speechwriting. We outline the code of ethics for speechwriters developed in 2015. We recognize that the very act of writing speeches for others can bring a host of ethical questions and that at the heart of the issue stands the speaker whose words have supposedly been written by another. Yet, upon careful assessment, we argue, this is not the case. Instead, we offer the perspective that most individuals in leadership positions have aides and consultants for various tasks and speaking in public is one of them. We take the work of the speechwriters as an advisor who assists those entrusted with speaking to negotiating effectively a text and context and opting for maximizing a speech’s effect.

AB - In this chapter, we discuss ethical issues surrounding the practice of speechwriting. We outline the code of ethics for speechwriters developed in 2015. We recognize that the very act of writing speeches for others can bring a host of ethical questions and that at the heart of the issue stands the speaker whose words have supposedly been written by another. Yet, upon careful assessment, we argue, this is not the case. Instead, we offer the perspective that most individuals in leadership positions have aides and consultants for various tasks and speaking in public is one of them. We take the work of the speechwriters as an advisor who assists those entrusted with speaking to negotiating effectively a text and context and opting for maximizing a speech’s effect.

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T3 - Rhetoric, Politics and Society

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The Ethics of Speechwriting

• First Online: 15 March 2019

Cite this chapter

• Jens E. Kjeldsen 7 ,
• Amos Kiewe 8 ,
• Marie Lund 9 &
• Jette Barnholdt Hansen  

Part of the book series: Rhetoric, Politics and Society ((RPS))

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In this chapter, we discuss ethical issues surrounding the practice of speechwriting. We outline the code of ethics for speechwriters developed in 2015. We recognize that the very act of writing speeches for others can bring a host of ethical questions and that at the heart of the issue stands the speaker whose words have supposedly been written by another. Yet, upon careful assessment, we argue, this is not the case. Instead, we offer the perspective that most individuals in leadership positions have aides and consultants for various tasks and speaking in public is one of them. We take the work of the speechwriters as an advisor who assists those entrusted with speaking to negotiating effectively a text and context and opting for maximizing a speech’s effect.

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Organized by The Professional Speechwriters Association (see https://www.vsotd.com/speech-writers-association ) at the Georgetown University (McDonough School of Business) on October 7–8, 2015.

The code can be found online at https://www.vsotd.com/PSA/CodeOfEthics . Accessed January 6, 2019.

Richard L. Johannesen , Ethics in Human Communication , 3rd ed. (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1990), 17.

Sharon Crowley and Debra Hawhee, Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students , 2nd ed. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1999), 7.

Ritter and Medhurst, 6–7.

Ibid., 8–9.

Ibid., 9–10.

Ernest G. Bormann, “Ghostwriting and the Rhetorical Critic,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 46 (1960), 284–288.

Ernest G. Bormann, “Ethics of Ghostwritten Speeches,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 47 (1961), 262–267.

Ernest G. Bormann, “Response (to Franklyn S. Haiman’s “Ghostwriting and the Cult of Leadership”),” Communication Education 33 (1984), 304.

Franklyn S. Haiman , “Ghostwriting and the Cult of Leadership,” Communication Education 33 (1984), 301–304.

Matthew W. Seeger , “Ghostbusting: Exorcising the Great Man Spirit from the Speechwriting Debate,” Communication Education 36, no. 4 (1985), 353–358, 357.

Ibid., 357. Cf. Matthew W. Seeger , “Ethical Issues in Corporate Speechwriting ,” Journal of Business Ethics 11, no. 7 (1992), 501–504.

George Kennedy, “Prooemion,” in Aristotle on Rhetoric : A Theory of Civic Discourse (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), viii.

Cited in Karlyn K. Campbell and Thomas R. Burkholder, Critiques of Contemporary Rhetoric , 2nd ed. (Wadsworth Publishing, 1997), 118.

Ibid., 119.

Jamieson , Eloquence , the following quotes are from pages 204, 217, 218.

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School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

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Kjeldsen, J.E., Kiewe, A., Lund, M., Barnholdt Hansen, J. (2019). The Ethics of Speechwriting. In: Speechwriting in Theory and Practice. Rhetoric, Politics and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03685-0_11

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Politics latest: 'Stop Kemi' campaign 'definitely going on' in Tory leadership race after first rival knocked out

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