Publication Type: Scholar to Scholar
Abstract: Assessing students’ ability to uncover ethical dilemmas and apply appropriate behavior has become a renewed source of interest for faculty, curriculum development, courses and associations. Preliminary presentations and publications tested Communication and Business students on three scenarios that assessed variables affecting and reinforcing ethical decisions (Hornett & Fredricks, 2005). This poster session expands upon the original assessment tool by incorporating additional student developed scenarios as a means to further assess their ethical decision making processes.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This study seeks to address the dearth of efforts in mass communications research to assess the efficacy of curriculum by examining the value systems and ethical ideologies of media ethics students. A pre-post-test survey of 106 students enrolled in a media ethics course in 2001, 2003 and 2004 found significant changes in how students ranked values such as “Fair,” “Independent,” “Aboveboard” and “Avoiding harm” at the beginning of the course compared with at the end. The study also found significant decreases in students’ degrees of idealism and relativism after taking the course, though degrees of both remained high overall.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Should religious ideas be equally included among secular ideas in the study of political science? The author argues that the answer is “yes,” especially regarding government ethics. As one example, this paper examines the thinking of Oxford scholar C.S. Lewis regarding the unintentional co-mingling of two secular ideas and their impact on government policy and planning. Focusing on his work, The Abolition of Man, the author argues that Lewis implied that opposing ideas do combine in the world of practice in ways unintended by its proponents. Specifically, Lewis argued that scientific thought and moral relativism can be put into practice by government planners with devastating effects on citizens. In this paper, the author updates this approach by arguing that positivist methods combined with post-modernist ideas in practice can result in what Lewis calls the “omni-competent” state. In such a state, social planning results in a progression of weaker and weaker citizens until the “abolition” of human kind is achieved. In contrast, Lewis proposes a foundational approach, which he calls the “Tao,” acknowledging common foundational absolutes that prevent such an omni-competent state from forming. The author argues that while Lewis’ idea of the Tao lacks specificity, it is close to John Rawls’ idea of an overlapping consensus required among adherents of different comprehensive doctrines in a just society. Thus, since religious and secular comprehensive doctrines are part of the Tao, this illustrates the need to include religious ideas as equals among secular doctrines when studying political science.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This study evaluates the ethical criteria lobbyists consider in their professional activities using Ruth Edgett’s (2002) model for ethically-desirable public relations advocacy. Data were collected from self-administered surveys of 222 registered lobbyists in Oregon. A factor analysis reduced 18 ethical criteria to seven underlying factors describing lobbyists’ ethical approaches to their work. Results indicate that lobbyists consider the following factors in their day-to-day professional activities: situation, strategy, argument, procedure, nature of lobbying, priority, and accuracy. This framework, derived from Edgett’s 10 criteria, illustrates the importance of context while incorporating ideas from recognized ethical theories.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper compares Thai and American physicians’ writings on medical ethics, as published in major medical journals in the period 2004-2006. Substantial overlap in vocabulary, points of reference (e.g., the Belmont Report), styles of reasoning, and topics of interest (e.g., informed consent, stem cell research; human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay) is evident.
Only Thai doctors, however, discuss the importance of distributive justice and of maintaining national identity. Furthermore, there is a clear schism between, on the one hand, “old school” Thai doctors, who wish to preserve a traditional, Buddhist, character-based ethics, and, on the other hand, American doctors and “new school” Thai doctors, who restrict themselves to a secular, legalistic, deontological ethics. For members of this latter group, ethical problems can be reduced to flawed or underdetermined rules, and can be solved by clarification or addition of rules; discussion of religion, national identity, and personal character is eschewed. “Old school” Thai doctors, in contrast, perceive several limitations inherent in rules as a basis for behavior, and so emphasize the key role of personal decision-making and good character in medical ethics. These two approaches reflect fundamentally different models of the relationship between social structure and individual agency.