 If I was in elementary school Rubik's cubes became very very popular They were introduced then and were all the craze and I have to admit I was not very good at completing Rubik's cubes since they were all mixed up I could never get them back into the right color. That's a wall all the colors on the same side So every once in a while I would get really frustrated and I would I would think well The point here is to solve the cube right to get all the colors on one one side So what's really the problem if I do that by taking off the stickers and putting them all back together You know and reattaching the stickers then sort of things on one color now that for me as a young person Post an ethical dilemma, of course, you know It's not really the way these things were supposed to be completed But if the purpose was to solve the puzzle then wasn't I doing that and doing so So I used to justify that to myself sometimes but you know as adults in Especially in our professional realms we face the larger ethical dilemmas than how to solve a Rubik's cube and certainly public relations is no different So in this video I want to talk a little bit about Ethics and public relations where those things intersect and how public relations is really impacted and affected by the nature of ethics So let's start off by defining what we mean by ethics and in general So ethics are moral principles that govern a person's behavior or the conducting of an activity So I can these these moral principles some large some small But they govern our behavior and the way that we conduct ourselves the way that we engage in a given activity They essentially gauge our our understanding of right or wrong in any given situation Now so that's ethics in general But how does that impact them public relations? Well public relations and ethics intersect in the idea that the The act in in service of the public good public relations should act in service of the public good in addressing issues Ideally before they become a problem or a crisis. This is where Ethics comes in the idea that public relations at its heart should be acting in the In the good of the public in the good of the the public as a whole in addressing these issues again Ideally before they come up but but even you know after that at times when there is a crisis or a problem Public relations steps and then just to serve in the the benefit of the public good as well there So so you can get complicated though What does that mean to act in them in the service of public good and addressing these issues? So we need to take a little deeper look at the different types of what we call normative ethics normative ethics so We're going to take a look at a few different types here. The first are what we call teleological ethics Teleological ethics teleological ethics basically present ethics in the form of a utilitarianism Right, so that we're looking at ethics in the sense that what is going to do the greatest good For the most people the greatest good for the most people So it says that that we as people and as public relation or public relations practitioners have an obligation to Make choices and to behave in a way that's going to bring the greatest amount of good for the most people Even when sometimes that could contradict what we feel is our own good You know our own good personally may not be what's best for the greatest number of people But that in general Teleological ethics says what we have a responsibility to act in the benefit of the most people at any given time The one criticism of that though is that you know how accurately can we really predict? Outcomes you know we may be saying to ourselves well This is what is going to be best for the most amount of people the greatest number of people in this situation But what if we're wrong? How do we really know that? So we have to be cautious of And unaware of that when we're thinking about teleological ethics to do how how actually can we really predict these outcomes? We you know is what we think is Greatest good for the most people Is that really the case and if not then then where does that leave us? But that's one type of norm normative ethics teleological ethics and something to consider there the the other Type of ethics that we can look at is deontological ethics That's one we're gonna examine here deontological ethics and deontological ethics says okay regardless of what may be the best for the Most people at the most time Deontological ethics says there's an absolutism here rather than a utilitarianism in terms of what's going to be best for the most amount of people at the Right time or at that particular time. There's an absolutism here that says that mortal absolutes apply to all Right and that that that regardless of whether or not it's right for the most people if it's right then it's right Even if it's only right You know only gonna positively affect a small number of people and and alienates mothers if that's what's right Then that's what's right, and that's deontological ethics says that there's an absolutism that moral absolutes apply to everyone in every situation regardless The the critics of the major criticism here the question here though the counter acts this is our ethics universal Are there things that are absolutes? Are there things that are that are there absolutely apply should be absolutely applied to everyone in every situation? And so our ethics universal what what if my ethics what the ethics that I think are absolute and Universal are different for other people does that negate them and and do I have an obligation then to consider? The fact that that's not the same for everybody else So so we do run into these issues too with the ontological ethics as well But but between these two teleological and the ontological ethics They primarily guide our decision-making in a professional sense in public relations and most other fields now There is one other type of normative ethics. It's it's we call Virtue ethics right virtue ethics and virtue ethics basically are what we would call agent-based They're basically based on that person agent-based the agent being the person in question the person Viewing this the person perceiving the person making this decision and they depend on individual virtual and practical wisdom so but but then the the the issue is that We depend on individual virtue obviously you're depending on that individual to to make a decision and to say what is right based on On an individual basis and so we have to ask ourselves then is virtue the same for all individuals You don't get this is very from person to person and if so do the door ethics then very from person to person are we all held to a different level of responsibility ethically and and is there no absolute in terms of How ethics should be applied are we all on a different playing field in other words we all playing by different rules So for our purposes in the in the professional setting for public relations, we're really not gonna focus too much on virtue ethics We're gonna say okay There are virtue there are ethics that apply to all people whether those are teleological or deontological ethics But they do really apply to all people in all situations and and we're not gonna just base this on an individual's perception It's not everybody making up their own rules. We're gonna have some standard here So when we look at professional ethics, it's specifically within the field of public relations There are some guidelines for us that have been laid out For example, we can look at at the at the PRSA code of ethics The public relations Society of America has laid out what they call a code of ethics and it really has these two Different branches so to speak that come out of here one is professional values and the other's provisions of conduct Okay, so professional values the PRSA code of ethics in terms of professional values lays out these six elements that include advocacy honesty expertise independence loyalty and fairness these are things that should be viewed For should be present for all public relations practitioners. We should all be effective advocates We should all be honest. We should demonstrate our expertise Our independence our loyalty and our fairness to our clients and things and to also to the society at large, right? So these are professional values things that should be demonstrated by inherently by all public relations practitioners and they also have these what we call these provisions of conduct ways that we should behave then Around things including things like the free flow of information. We should be supportive of a free flow of information we should be supportive of competition and and and fair competition We should encourage that and we should want that competition We should be in favor of when and practice good disclosure of information of safeguarding Confidences of our clients and you know, we may not have the same legal protections as like Lawyer client confidentiality, but we still have an obligation to safeguard the confidence of our of our clients Even former clients and not just go sharing trade secrets with people with their competitors or people like that So we have to guard against conflicts of interest when we have to recognize those and and admit those when they're present and And work against that and then we have to do we came to enhance the profession in general. That's a that's a Conduct expectation for any practitioner of public relations that we do what we came to enhance The profession and put public relations in the best possible light So we do have these guides for professional ethics as well the PR Sorry PR SA code of conduct and code of ethics that they lay out here with these different Stipulations as to how we should behave there are a couple of additional Ethical considerations that we need to keep in mind as well as these this professional code of conduct laid out by the PR SA so let's look at what those are as well So we do have personal ethics that enter into this if we're considering whether or not We should take on a client whether or not we should follow the instructions of a client We can do so in good conscience and good faith and so we need to our personal ethics Then enter into that if we're asked to do something that would be outside of our own personal comfort zone or as far as ethics Then then that should factor into things as well So so that does play a role in addition to these these professional ethics that we've discussed our personal ethics do enter into this Of course, we also as practitioners of public relations have a responsibility for social responsibility The ethics of social responsibility Are we doing something that's going to be harmful to our society or harmful to you know Maybe the environment are harmful in some ways that would would violate a a larger larger social contract then we need to be aware of that and Take it into consideration as well as part of our own ethical considerations And finally, we need to think about the the ethics surrounding visual communication The images that we're we're presenting and we're using in campaigns and putting out there for the public Are they visually responsible first of all today that they conform with social norms? Are they are they accurate? Are they fair? Are they have they've been doctored in some way? We want to be cautious about those types of things. So we have a responsibility especially as these things become more Possible it's incredibly easy now for us to manipulate Visual Presentation of information we need to be sure we're doing so in an ethical way, even if it's not specifically doctored Maybe we're not changing the actual picture, but maybe we're just framing it and cropping different things out And you know in a way that that may not be fair may be manipulating the emotions or the Interpretation there. So in general, we need to just consider ethics. We need to be ethical. We have these professional standards We have our personal standards We have our our social responsibility ethics and all those things we need to factor all this in to our role and our Efforts as public relations practitioners If you have questions about to have on ethics related to public relations anything along those lines, please feel free to email me I'd love to hear from you there in the meantime I hope that you will see public relations in a new light and see how we as Practitioners of public relations can engage in these things in an ethical way Following these professional and personal standards