Ethics. Do you have it?

Ethics is useless. You do not need to be ethical to do a good job. Or do you?

Wrong. Ethics is an important part of everything that you do, be it as a PR practitioner or in your day to day life. Take a look at philosophy, in particular what the German philosopher Immanuel Kant said. He put forward a three-step ethical
process which I personally fund to be rather interesting. Kant three-step process:

1. When in doubt about the morality of an act, ask the question:”What if everyone did this deed?”
2. Always treat all people as ends in themselves and never exploit humans.
3. Always respect the dignity of humans.

Compare this to philosopher Jeremy Bentham, who talked about utilitarianism in ethics. Bentham believes that judgment should be made on the basis of the greatest good for the greatest number.

Looking at these two views, we can see that they are very different. Where Kant focus is on the individual, Bentham view is that people should choose actions that produce the greatest good for the greatest numbers. Not that I got anything against Bentham, but does it means that it is alright for the minority to suffer as long as
the majority benefits? Now, that is something to think about.

As this is a blog about Public Relations, let take a look at ethics in PR.
Sein and Fitzpatrick identifies the five duties of PR professionals as being-
1. To oneself
2. To the client
3. To the employer
4. To the profession
5. To the society

What this list means that, when faced with an ethical dilemma, the first thing you should do is look inside yourself, at your own values. Next is to think of the client and how it will affect them. You should also think about how the decision will affect your company and the profession. And lastly, you must also be aware that you have a duty to the society.

In our course text, we are introduced to the different roles of the PR professional. They can be a counselor, advocate and act as a corporate conscience.
Corporate conscience is where the PR professional serve as the moral keeper for both the company communications and actions. He needs to look at the decisions and policies of the company and see whether they are ethical. With this, the PR professional are in a unique position, as he can look at things from an external perspective.

So now, we can see the importance of ethics in PR, especially in the current climate where public trust of corporations is getting lower. Being transparent and honest can help to build the trust which is very much needed.