Ethics in Technical Communication

by Paul M. Dombrowski, Sam Dragga, Paul M. Donbrowski

This book deals with ethics and value systems as they relate to technical and scientific discourse. While it covers several traditional ethical theories from classical to contemporary times, it also emphasizes that ethics is a personal matter of judgment. The book shows how to become involved with thinking about and applying these theories to one's own discourse. The fact that there are no easy answers to ethical questions is emphasized. Issues include how and why information is obtained and how it will be used; how the meaning of technical terms shift with the value perspectives behind them; and how science and technology can be used to put forth questionable values or to serve values not apparent in the discourse. For anyone interested in the history of ethics.

272 pages, Paperback

First published November 21, 1999

Reviews

[Su]

Rated with three stars partly because of my reluctance to give textbooks a higher rating that that, but also because it could use an update. A few times I was reading through and thought, "Wait, what?" and had to re-check the publication date to remember why some of the info was outdated. Still very useful as an ethics textbook even with being somewhat old, and I suppose that also adds a dimension of "Knowing what we know now..." to in-class discussion that was also helpful for understanding and working through ethical issues.