Vernacular Ethics 6
scholar concludes that “there is no acceptable conceptual framework from which to study
public relations ethics” (Bivins, 1989, p. 39), meaning that the field does not have a step-
by-step philosophy to which practitioners can refer when faced with an ethical situation.
The focus of research in public relations ethics has been on practitioner behaviors vis-à-
vis specific ethical dilemmas even though several organizational factors affect the ethics
management and the practice of public relations (Pratt, 1994). Fitzpatrick and Gauthier
(2001) believe “practitioners need some basis on which to judge the rightness of the
decisions they make everyday” (p. 201). It is here that scholars and practitioners have
turned to traditional philosophies of ethics to help resolve the challenges facing
practitioners in today’s workplace. Grunig and Grunig (1996) argue that studying ethical
theory can help the profession develop rules or principles to solve problems of morals
and values. In other words, we should study ethics to determine how to make moral
judgments.
Scholars disagree on the current ethical competence of practitioners because the
ethics of these individuals must be negotiated with the ethics of employers, colleagues
and clients. In a doctoral dissertation on public relations ethics, Pearson (1989)
concludes, “Obviously, many practitioners and scholars of public relations are capable of
philosophical thought, but few seem to develop basic philosophical theory to undergrid
their discussion of public relations” (p. 97). Kruckeberg (1993a) concurs that
practitioners are usually not educated enough in the philosophy of ethics to resolve
ethical problems at a “sufficiently abstract and universally applicable level” (p. 2).
Pearson seems to believe that public relations people would behave ethically if they were
philosophers, but there is no research to confirm this premise.
Convention