Deck 11: Your Practice of Communication Ethics

Question 1

There is little significance of a person's communication beyond her personal network of friends and family.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

The construction of each of our social worlds begins with communication acts of acknowledge of our caregivers.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

Ethical practice develops from the moral emotions of empathy, a bias towards equality, and disgust, which create an intuitive capacity for ethics that we experience as a gut feeling that something is right or wrong.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

Self-reflection is the primary mechanism of individual moral development.

Question 5

Conversations with parents, friends, and important adults influence individual moral development.

Question 6

One of the reasons ethics begins to disappear in person's life, work or social groups, and even communities is that communicators do not talk about how their decisions and actions are or are not good, right, or virtuous.

Question 7

Moral emotions are the key to ethical practice.

Question 8

Moral emotions are important for recognizing the existence of ethical issues.

Question 9

Both moral emotions and ethical reasoning are important in making decisions about how to communicate.

Question 10

Imagination has little role to play in ethical discernment and decision making.

Question 11

Moral imagination is important in understanding the viewpoints of others.

Question 12

Rhetorical listening is a form of listening to understand.

Question 13

When we are ethically nearsighted, our thinking is limited to people we know or recognize.

Question 14

Rhetorical listening stimulates our moral imaginations, so our thinking relies less on habits and routines.

Question 15

Binary thinking about ethics as good/bad or right/wrong limits the moral imagination and creative ethical problem solving.

Question 16

When we are ethically nearsighted we are less likely to rationalize our decisions.

Question 17

As a practice of communication ethics, ethical reasoning helps us explain or justify our actions to others.

Question 18

Specialized skill or knowledge that others do not possess can create special ethical temptations.

Question 19

One reasons for developing a professional code of ethics is to lessen special ethical temptations of professional knowledge and skills.

Question 20

Special ethical temptations are limited to people in professional careers, such as teaching and accounting.

Question 21

Knowledge and skills for communicating competently can create special ethical temptations, such as managing the intimacy of a conversation or the process of a discussion for personal advantage.

Question 22

Mindfulness of your personal ethical standard and skill in ethical reasoning helps make you aware of special ethical temptations.

Question 23

Explaining to others why you made a decision, particularly persons who are impacted by your decision or who may disagree with you, is an important method for recognizing special ethical temptations.

Question 24

The desire to achieve perfection is our lives is a motivation for action.

Question 25

In ethics, the desire for perfection motivates us to act in ways that do no harm.

Question 26

Rigidly imposing rules to achieve the purity of perfection eventually guarantees the failure of imperfection.

Question 27

With rigid perfection, any amount of impurity signals failure or imperfection.

Question 28

Rigid perfection promotes a logic of imperfection/impurity/empathy.

Question 29

Rigid perfection combined with disgust makes it easier to ignore the legitimate interests of people labeled disgusting.

Question 30

The desire for perfection is always rotten.

Question 31

When perfection is characterization by aspiration to what promotes stability, security or completeness is our lives, perfection can be ethically good.

Question 32

Balance, harmony, and proportion are qualities of the excellence of perfection.

Question 33

Examples of perfection as proportion can be found in nature, such as the nautilus shell, flower petals, spiral galaxies in space, and the human face.

Question 34

The practice of ethics is a search for harmony or proportion in balancing personal self-interests to survive and thrive with the self-interests of others to survive and thrive.

Question 35

The harmony is ethical practice is fixed, so it can be taught through the process of moral development.

Question 36

Because people and situations change, the harmony of ethical practice may also change.

Question 37

Perfection as aspiration is a search for harmony in our relationships with others, a proportion that is good, right, and virtuous.

Question 38

Aspiration to perfection is harmonious because it is a demand.

Question 39

Because points of ethical proportion change as people and circumstances change, ethical sensitivity and discernment are important skills of ethical practice.

Question 40

In practice, there is little difference between perfection as aspiration and rigid perfection, because perfection as aspiration always requires rules.

Question 41

Without difference, harmony and proportion cannot exist.

Question 42

Interruption of the routines and habits in our lives promotes ethical sensitivity and the moral imagination.

Question 43

Acknowledgment is a communication act that is ethically responsive to differences and interruptions in our lives.

Question 44

The emotions of certainty and self-righteousness create a belief that we know everything we need to know, so we conclude that listening to those who disagree or are different does not matter.

Question 45

Practices of humility are important to reducing the arrogance of pride and self-righteousness of rigid perfection.

Question 46

Humility is social, because its practice encourages turning attention away from ourselves to understand others.

Question 47

Humility reinforces tendencies of rigid perfection.

Question 48

Pride helps us learn from our failures.

Question 49

Practicing your personal ethical standard of communication is an act of hope.

Question 50

Practicing hope promotes human resilience.

Question 51

Personal relationships contribute little to whether a person has hope.

Question 52

A personal ethical standard outlines the ethical goals a person has in living her life, clarifying what type of person she wants to be.

Question 53

The practices of communication are ethics are entwined in which of the following ways?

A) From the moment of birth, when an infant is acknowledged by adults present.
B) Development of the moral emotion of empathy throughout a person's life.
C) Conversations with family and friends about what is the right thing to do.
D) All of the above.
E) None of the above.

Question 54

Ethical reasoning promotes the practice of communication ethics because ethical reasoning

A) challenges rationalization of self-interest and poorly examined social convention.
B) examines facts and circumstances of situations.
C) provides resources communicators may use in presenting ethical justifications of a decision to others.
D) critiques moral intuition.

Question 55

What happens when communicators do not understand their personal ethical commitments or are unable to explain them to others?

A) The presence of ethics in their social worlds becomes thin and spotty.
B) Ethical sensitivity increases because of greater reliance on moral emotions.
C) Ethical reasoning becomes more important than moral intuition.
D) Experiences of empathic understanding increase.

Question 56

Which of the following are situations in which practicing ethical reasoning is more important than relying on moral intuition? Situations in which

A) it is unclear which people have the most ethically significant interests in a situation.
B) there are conflicting ethical values or principles a decision maker could apply.
C) common sense and habits hide rationalization of poorly examined social convention.
D) All of the above.
E) None of the above.

Question 57

Moral emotions are important for ethical reasoning because they

A) identify ethically correction decisions.
B) sensitize us to ethical issues and motivate us to act ethically.
C) are the foundation of moral intuition.
D) play a critical role in moral development and ethical action.

Question 58

Sound ethical reasoning involves which of the following?

A) Moral intuition and logic.
B) Ethical nearsightedness, mindfulness, and tests of publicity.
C) Moral emotions, rhetorical listening, and tests of publicity.
D) Moral emotions, rationalization of self-interest, and tests of publicity.

Question 59

Careful consideration of what you do and do not know about the facts of a situation is important in ethical reasoning because it

A) helps identify who are the most ethically important stakeholders in a situation, including unnamed stakeholders.
B) helps clarify, even reconsider what are the ethical issues in a situation.
C) promotes use of tests of publicity.
D) Both a & b
E) Both b & c

Question 60

Which of the following is not a weakness of binary thinking about ethics as good or bad?

A) Doing nothing, because of the fear that action will cause further harm.
B) Limiting consideration of alternative ethical viewpoints or creative problem solving.
C) Rationalizing harmful consequences as ethically good or necessary.
D) Imagining potential good or harmful consequences of a possible action.

Question 61

Considering ethical principles and theories in your ethical reasoning that differ from your personal ethical standard promotes your ______.

A) moral imagination and ability to identify rationalizations in her reasoning.
B) use of different moral emotions in considering the facts of a situation.
C) application of rhetorical listening to identify ethically relevant stakeholders.
D) mindful ethical reasoning, rather than moral intuition.

Question 62

Which of the following is not a benefit of mindful ethical reasoning that incorporates moral emotions?

A) Helps identify rationalizations of self-interest and poorly examined social convention.
B) Promotes challenging ethical nearsightedness of decision makers.
C) Creates resources to use when explaining a decision to others.
D) Reinforces understanding ethics as either good or bad, right or wrong.

Question 63

Special ethical temptations and rigid perfection are _____.

A) challenges of practicing communication ethics.
B) examples of mindless communication.
C) do not occur in practices of ethical intuition.
D) applications of moral emotions.

Question 64

Specialized knowledge or skills that you acquire as you learn your profession or gain from holding certain types of jobs _____.

A) can create ethical tragedies.
B) promote engagement of moral emotions.
C) can create special ethical temptations.
D) can discourage ethical reasoning.

Question 65

Which of the following is not a special ethical temptation of persons with specialized knowledge or skill in communication?

A) Using nonverbal cues to manipulate the direction of a conversation to learn confidential information from a listener.
B) Using language strategies to manipulate emotions of listeners, encouraging
Listeners to make a decision that promotes the interests of the speaker, but not the listeners.
C) Using language strategies to present a compelling story that promotes understanding of people who are strangers.
D) Using nonverbal cues and language strategies to encourage trust and discourage a skeptical attitude that can identify deceptive communication.

Question 66

Which of the following is a strategy for discouraging special ethical temptations?

A) Professional codes of ethics
B) Using Bok's second test of publicity in reasoning.
C) Using Bok's third test of publicity in reasoning.
D) Both a & b
E) Both a & c

Question 67

The rottenness of perfection involves

A) aspiring to perfection as a goal.
B) rigid application of rules to achieve what is perfection.
C) rejecting what creates failure as disgusting.
D) Both a & b
E) Both b & c

Question 68

Following rigid rules for perfection is ethically good in which of the following?

A) Athletics
B) Musical performance
C) Teaching
D) Food production

Question 69

In the logic of perfection as the rigid application of rules, people who fail can be seen as _____.

A) disgusting
B) natural
C) normal
D) neophytes

Question 70

Rigid perfection promotes _____ thinking.

A) binary
B) creative
C) imaginative
D) intuitive

Question 71

Two ways to think about perfection are 1) perfection achieved by rigidly following rules and 2) perfection as

A) an innate quality of character.
B) a persuasive language strategy.
C) an aspirational goal.
D) a community standard.

Question 72

Defining and performing excellence in ways that promote stability, security and completely in life characterizes which of the following concepts?

A) Humility
B) Perfection as an aspirational goal
C) Perfection as the rigid application of rules
D) Resilience

Question 73

Understanding perfection as an aspiration goal involves which of the following ideas/

A) Excellence
B) Harmony
C) Proportion
D) All of the above
E) None of the above

Question 74

Understanding the harmony of perfection involves recognizing that

A) musical ability is important for achieving perfection.
B) harmony is the source of purity.
C) harmony exists only where there is difference.
D) moral emotions are the basis of harmony.

Question 75

The importance of harmony for the practice of ethics becomes apparent when we understand ethical practice as

A) a process of reasoning used to decide what is good, right, or virtuous for others in a situation.
B) the engagement of moral emotions to identify ethically relevant stakeholders.
C) discerning how to balance our legitimate self-interests with the legitimate self-interests of others in a way that is good, right, or virtuous.
D) the integration of emotion and philosophical reasoning in our lives.

Question 76

Michael Hyde claims that each person has the potential to be a hero when they

A) use ethical reasoning to guide their decision making.
B) act as mindful communicators guided by their personal ethical standards.
C) courageously communicate even when others do not want to listen.
D) are open and listen to calls that challenge them us to seek, know and speak about what is good, just, and true.

Question 77

The emotion of pride can threaten the aspirational practice of perfection in communication ethics

A) with scapegoating those who fail to achieve the excellence of perfection.
B) with certainty that because we know what is excellent, so we no longer need to listen to people who disagree with us or think differently.
C) the companion emotion of disgust for those who are unable to achieve the excellence of harmony.
D) with mindless practice of humility.

Question 78

The practice of humility is important to the practice of perfection as an aspiration goal, because humility

A) discourages self-righteousness.
B) is integral to practice of perfection.
C) encourages disgust with personal failure.
D) is a biologically innate emotion.

Question 79

Which of the following is not a characteristic of the practice of humility?

A) Distinguishing between our aspirations for perfection, from pride when perfection is achieved perfection or disgust when perfection is not achieved.
B) Learning from failures.
C) Recommitment to the methods and rules of achieving perfection.
D) Turning attention away from ourselves to understand others.

Question 80

Practice of humility helps us learn how

A) to become more perfect.
B) imperfection can be ethically good.
C) frailty is the human condition.
D) to practice virtue.