CHAPTER 13

Constructing a Personal Framework for Ethical Reasoning

Philosophers have been thinking and writing about ethics for thousands of years. Yet their theories boil down to three general approaches that focus primarily on consequences, duty, or virtue. Even feminist ethics, while correcting the patriarchal excesses of the past, principally focuses on duties of justice and care.

Each theory has strengths and weaknesses. The best approach probably borrows from all three. The key, however, is to design an approach particularly suited to the kinds of situations in which you will most likely find yourself in the practice of public relations.

We constructed such a framework based on the principles and theories we have discussed. We are not suggesting ...

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