50 4.1 Speaking Freely and ethically
Learning Objectives
4.1 Explain the relationships among ethics, free speech, and credibility.
4.2 Explain how free speech has been both challenged and defended
throughout U.S. history.
4.3 List and explain five criteria for ethical public speaking.In early 2013, Twitter complied with a French court order to block a flood of
anti-Semitic tweets from being seen in France. A few months later, in response to
a boycott against pages containing graphic images of violence against women,
Facebook took down the offending pages and revised its content policies.
Once played out primarily in public gatherings or on radio or television,
the balancing act between ethical speech and free speech has in the twenty-first
century become most visible in social media. Jason Pontin, editor of the MIT
Technology Review, explains the dilemma:... as the technologies created by [social media] have come to touch
nearly everyone who lives, their peculiar understanding of free speech
has collided with different notions of what forms of expression are legal
or proper.^1
In our discussion of speaking freely and ethically, we first describe the rela-
tionships among ethics, free speech, and speaker credibility. Then, we will turn
to free speech—both its protection and its restriction by law and public policy.
Finally, we will discuss the ethical practice of free speech by speakers and listen-
ers, providing guidelines to help you balance your right to free speech with your
responsibilities as an audience-centered speaker and as a critical listener.
Speaking Credibly
4.1 Explain the relationships among ethics, free speech, and credibility.
In the United States and other countries in which free speech is protected by law,
the right to speak freely must be balanced by the responsibility to speak ethically.
Ethics—the beliefs, values, and moral principles by which we determine what
is right or wrong—serve as criteria for many of the decisions we make in our
personal and professional lives and for our judgments of others’ behavior. The
student who refuses to cheat on a test, the employee who will not call in sick to
gain an extra day of vacation, and the property owner who does not claim more
storm damage than she actually suffered have all made choices based on ethics.
We read and hear about ethical issues every day in the media. Cloning,
stem-cell research, and drug testing have engendered heated ethical debates4.1