This essay analyzes the ethical discussions of four textbooks. Two of them are mentioned in the above literature review, namely those by Lay et al and Lannon. The remaining two are Technical Communication: Situations and Strategies, by Mike Markel and Technical Writing: A Reader-Centered Approach, by Paul Anderson. These textbooks are set aside for analysis because of their popularity and recent publication, but more so because they represent a diverse collection of approaches.
          In comparison to other similar studies, this essay is unique in the following respects. First, the range and depth of discussion is more extensive by going beyond a brief commentary of a textbook's section on ethics. The analysis reveals the strengths, weaknesses, and implications of each author’s approach. It also explains the essential components of each approach and identifies the authors’ reasons for accepting them. This makes it possible to judge whether the different approaches are convincing and adequate representations of the ethics of technical communication.
          The essay’s second unique characteristic is its strategy of evaluating the textbooks from a philosophical perspective. Do the authors either explain concepts that are consistent with traditional ethical theories or avoid the problematic ideas that have been identified by previous ethical inquiry? Philosophy has provided us with many ethical theories. Those of Kant, Mill, and Aristotle seem to have won the ethical popularity contest, but they constitute only a fraction of the diversity that is evident in the history of the discipline. The Macmillan and Free Press Encyclopedia of Philosophy [4], categorizes an impressive variety of theories, beginning with ethical cognitivism and non-cognitivism and splintering into naturalism, non-naturalism, and the multiple instantiations of each approach. We can construe most moral perspectives within the framework of one of these approaches, but not all of these approaches are equally compelling. According to many philosophical critics, some of them have implications that borderline unethicality, face serious counter-examples, or are incapable of adequately solving dilemmas. Communicators and, more importantly, the authors of textbooks can avoid problems like these by establishing consistency between their ethical approaches and the philosophical tradition of ethics.
          This essay also raises the more provocative question of whether the ethics of technical communication is congruent with the philosophical definition of ethics. What basis is there for applying the term ethics to technical communicators' discussions of moral conduct? If these discussions do not count as ethical inquiry, then what exactly are they? This is not simply a quibbling semantic point. These questions require that we gain a clear perspective of how the four textbooks’ approaches pertain to the study of ethics.

On the face of it, Anderson’s ethical approach exhibits some positive features. One such feature is recognizing that ethics may directly involve both subjectivity and human emotion. Previous studies suggest that these contribute to how people think about ethics and how they act ethically. For example, in An Honest Profit: What Businessmen Say About Ethics in Business, Raymond Baumhart compiles the responses of interviewees who were asked to define what they thought ethical meant [6]. Half of them offered answers that were rooted in subjectivism. Sam Dragga has published results after interviewing 48 technical communicators and reports that 28 of the interviewees thought that intuition, feelings, or conscience were significant in acquiring moral knowledge or ascribing moral properties [2]. Anderson attempts to portray the role of subjectivity in ethical judgement with an appeal to individual values and feelings. This is a relevant concern, since morality tends to be an emotional subject for people, and ethical decision making ultimately comes down to the thoughts and responsibilities of the individual.
          Anderson does not assert that his ethical approach is a form of ethical subjectivism. However, his emphasis on people bringing their personal values to work and considering the feelings of an audience does imply a subjective basis for his ethical perspective. If he were really suggesting the use of a rational and objective basis for moral judgement, then he would have mentioned this methodology in order to avoid any serious misinterpretations. As it stands, his approach is consistent with the general class of theories that stress the priority of an individual’s feelings, intuition, or conscience over a more democratic and objective approach toward moral judgement. The connection of his approach with subjective components of ethics is one issue, but the claim that his approach is consistent with ethical subjectivism is another altogether. The latter requires further discussion.
          The dangers and logical problems of normative ethical theories that are based on the precedence of subjectivity or peoples’ feelings are made clear in the philosophical tradition of ethics. One of the most prolific and influential thinkers of twentieth century philosophy is Bertrand Russell. In Human Society in Ethics and Politics, he summarizes a formidable objection against an intuition-based ethical approach.

             It has, however, a grave drawback, namely, that there is no general agreement

             as to what sorts of acts ought to be performed, and that the theory affords no

             means of deciding who is in the right where there is disagreement.  It thus

             becomes, in practice, though not in theory, an egocentric doctrine.  If A says

             you ought to do this" and B says No, you ought to do that, you only know

             that these are their opinions, and you have no means of knowing which, if

             either, is right…These considerations lead us to abandon as the

             fundamental ethical term [7. p. 111]

Technical Writing, by John M. Lannon [8], presents the ethics of technical communication from the perspective of the problem solver. Writers face three problems: giving readers what they need, communicating persuasively, and doing the right thing. How are we to do the right thing? Writers must first attempt to prevent the unethical consequences of groupthink (i.e., pressure on the job.) The Challenger disaster depicts what groupthink can cause: people are forced to engage in unethical behavior that they would not ordinarily exhibit as individuals representing themselves. This sort of group pressure prevents people from questioning, criticizing, or making waves, all of which are activities that preclude unethical consequences [p. 73].
          The second component of Lannon’s argument is that communicators should rely on critical thinking to solve ethical problems. He argues that ethical decision making requires and challenges our critical thinking skills. Thinking critically requires avoiding two fallacies: "Doing One’s Thing" (ethical relativism) and "One Rule Fits All" (ethical absolutism) [p. 75]. Lannon contends that these fallacies are obstructions to good judgement.
          Ethical relativism is considered a fallacy because any decision or ethical principle, regardless of how morally repugnant it seems to most people, is acceptable by its logic. Lannon’s own characterization of the fallacy reads, "One way to oversimplify a complex ethical issue is through a misguided notion known as ethical relativism: ‘Since we have no way to agree on right or wrong, it all depends on personal preference. Right, then, is what I think is right!’" [p.75].
          Ethical objectivism, as Lannon defines it, is fallacious because it is inflexible. "If, for example, you abide absolutely by the rule ‘Thou shall not lie,’ you would violate this rule under no circumstances (even to save your family from harm)" [p. 75]. Here we have an indirect objection to ethical approaches that stress the importance of duty and ethical imperatives.
          The last component of Lannon’s ethical approach is what he calls "Criteria for Ethical Judgement," which are obligations, ideals, and consequences. This part of his argument presents a way to avoid the two fallacies. His reasoning is, quite simply, that the criteria are optimally situated somewhere between the extremes of ethical relativism and ethical objectivism, and they appeal to most people.

Lannon’s account of critical thinking is unsatisfactory in two main respects. For one, he provides only brief explanations of the criteria for ethical judgement, with very few examples describing how the criteria apply to actual cases. Nearly half of a page in the text shows a drawing with bi-directional arrows between questions that pertain to obligations, ideals, and consequences [p. 76, Fig. 5.5]. Lannon suggests that the figure "depicts the relationship between these three criteria." However, by itself the figure is very uninformative and the relationship that it is supposed to represent is unclear.
          Second, he admits that no real solutions exist to settle ethical dilemmas, and then forewarns that we should "anticipate some hard choices." This section of the text leaves the student hanging in that it gives very little attention to the topic of critical thinking as a tool for ethical decision making. For something that is evidently so crucial in determining what technical communicators ought and ought not to do, this is a major drawback. The textbook does not offer a satisfactory account of how students can use critical thinking in a way that would help them through ethical dilemmas.
          A more useful account of ethical decision making would present Lannon’s ethical criteria – obligations, ideals, and consequences – in a hierarchical fashion, such that when there are conflicts between them, one criterion can take precedence over the others based upon the unique characteristics of the conflict. Another viable option is to consider the examples of moral reasoning presented by other authors contributing to the ethics of technical communication. For instance, Thomas Sawyer suggests that students should argue by using categorical syllogisms, as exemplified by appellate court justices. By using this pattern, "…students can learn to present an effective and persuasive written argument about an ethical issue" [9, p. 374]. Kevin Possin, though he disagrees with Sawyer, holds that students should argue by analogy and that this method "…is better suited to the task of discovering and presenting well-defended ethical positions" [10. p. 65]. Additionally, Markel discusses the benefits of foundational approaches [11] and discusses ways of using Kant’s categorical imperative, Mill’s principle of utility, and Rawls’ theory of justice [12]. These approaches are forms of positive reasoning that students can learn and use to deduce moral judgements. Markel’s foundational approach, especially, gives meaning to concepts like rights, duty, and consequences, so that students are not forced to arbitrarily choose between them when making ethical decisions.

A more technical problem has to do with Lannon’s claim that ethical relativism and ethical objectivism are fallacies. This claim is not entirely clear in that he does not show that the logical form of each perspective is invalid or that either involves a logical error in reasoning. In college courses that teach introductory logic, philosophy, and rhetoric, undergraduate students are likely being exposed to the traditional concept of a fallacy. A fallacy is a form of argumentation or faulty reasoning in which it is possible for all the premises to be true and the conclusion false [13]. Why should we accept Lannon’s appeal to critical thinking and his criteria for ethical judgement when he does not provide convincing reasons for avoiding the two alleged fallacies?
          Lannon’s description of ethical relativism is that the claim, "Right and wrong all depends on personal preference," follows from the premise, "We have no way to agree on right and wrong." This is a straw man version of the theory and there is obviously more to the argument than what he reveals. In fact, this short one premise argument is so overtly incomplete and invalid that it couldn’t possibly be the argument of the serious ethical relativist. Any student who has sufficiently researched ethical relativism would likely object to Lannon’s own interpretation of the theory.
          Ethical relativism is not a fallacy in itself, but a complex concept that can be explained from a variety of perspectives. These perspectives, as explained and argued in the philosophical tradition, are immune to Lannon’s oversimplified criticism of relativism. For instance, descriptive relativism is not self-evidently fallacious because it does not present any moral argument. It is formulated from the observations of anthropologists or sociologists, describing the moral systems of various cultures and societies [14]. They study the is, rather than the ought of morality.
          Metaethical relativism scrutinizes the underlying assumptions of moral argumentation and holds that there is no truly rational and objective way to prove them [14]. It does not clearly coincide with Lannon's objection to relativism, but points out the limitations of human reason and the implications of this condition.
          Normative ethical relativism actually states that "What is right or good for one individual or society is not right or good for another…what is really right or good in one case is not so in another" [14, p. 109]. The reasoning behind normative ethical relativism tends to be complex and may even follow the descriptive and metaethical approaches as partial justification. It is difficult to argue against a theory that rests on the limitations of human knowledge and the fact that morality is controversial and varies from culture to culture. If we don’t really know what is right or wrong, then how can we say with certainty that the validity of moral judgements are not dependent on the thoughts of individuals? The burden of prove is placed upon the person who actually claims to have moral knowledge.
          Undoubtedly, the normative version of relativism can lead to some very undesirable results when put in the wrong hands. The undesirable implications of a theory do not make it fallacious, however; the proven falsehood of a conclusion derived from premises that are posited as true does. The character of being fallacious is an issue of logic, and if there is any such logic that is applicable to the three forms of ethical relativism, then Lannon does not reveal it. His claim that ethical relativism and ethical objectivism are fallacies is a convenient way to write off the theories and make way for his criteria for ethical judgement.
          Lannon’s claim that ethical objectivism is a fallacy is also not clear. Ethical objectivism is the view that the truth of a moral judgment is independent of individuals who make those judgements [4]. In other words, the truth of a moral statement is not dependent upon what people think or feel, but upon mind-independent facts. Although the theory does not openly suggest that only one set of criteria governs ethical decisions, its logic implies this. If there are moral facts, independent of the human mind, then there is a one-to-one correspondence between these facts and their respected moral judgements. That leaves only one possible set of moral criteria. Shouldn’t Lannon be required to accept this implication in face of the option of adopting a subjective perspective of ethics? He speaks of one set of ethical criteria in a negative manner, but only one set of criteria must exist in order for everyone to be obligated by the same ethical rules, or to simply be obligated at all. What weakens Lannon’s argument against an objectivist approach to ethics is that a set of criteria for ethical judgement need not be rigid and inflexible, as he suggests. A set of criteria may in fact be comprised by different ethical approaches that are designed to deal with different types of ethical problems.
          Lannon seems very much inclined to find a common ground or reconciliation between ethical objectivism and ethical relativism. He suggests himself that "Somewhere between the extremes of relativism and objectivism are reasonable criteria…" [p. 75], but this is an exceedingly difficult, if not impossible task to accomplish. It is hard to construe what the phrase "somewhere between" should mean in this case. Does it mean that ethical judgements that are neither subjective nor objective? This seems impossible. Perhaps it means that there is not a set of objective and factually grounded ethical principles, yet there is still something more obligatory than the whims of an individual or culturally relative standards. This seems more reasonable, though Lannon does not offer any such clarification.
          Despite the indefensibility of Lannon’s classification of ethical relativism and ethical objectivism it would be unfortunate, and indeed unfair, to contemporary proponents of these theories if students were compelled to reject them in their unqualified format. Lannon would have been better off not mentioning ethical relativism and objectivism and allotting more space for the justification or explanation of critical thinking as a way of making ethical decisions. Providing more examples of how to apply obligations, ideals, and consequences would have been beneficial..

In Technical Communication, Mary Lay and seven other authors focus strongly on the persuasive element of technical communication [15]. They begin with the premise that since the 1970s, "truths" are supported by informal argumentation and are immersed within a context of competition, unpredictability, and emotion. Technical communication is therefore not an entirely rational, impersonal, and descriptive enterprise, but one that is persuasive in nature.
          To further establish the case for persuasive technical communication, the text appeals to the work of Aristotle and urges that "…people to take a broadly argumentative perspective on all communication" [p. 118]. One brief quote from the philosopher serves to give him credit for his efforts: Rhetoric is "…the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion." This definition validates the text’s introduction to the Aristotelian concepts of ethos, pathos, and logos. By employing these three components, the authors believe that we can successfully communicate in a way that is "overtly argumentative" and more productive. Such is the justification for the rhetorical approach toward technical communication. The rest of the textbook defines and shows how to persuasively utilize ethos, pathos, and logos.
          The function of ethos is to create a persona that is perceived as trustworthy, reliable, credible, and fair. A persona like this is persuasive because, as Lay suggests, people react not only to the content of communication, but also to how communicators present themselves. Pathos appeals to "the audiences’ most basic, most deeply held values and beliefs." Whereas ethos centers on ethical appeal, pathos centers on emotive appeal. Lay’s argument for the use of pathos rests first upon the assumption that "there is nothing irrational in acknowledging human emotions in our arguments." Second, using pathos can yield a more powerful mode of argumentation, since it is often the case that audiences are not receptive to logical arguments. Finally, logos is the rational component of communication and involves one or more "because-clauses" or good reasons as support for a communicator’s conclusions. Lay’s account of persuasive communication might seem harmless and error-free, if it were not for one obvious omission.

Strictly in reference to the utility of using Aristotle’s three-fold system of rhetoric, Lay et al. provide an adequate explanation of their approach. Despite mentioning the phrase "ethical appeal," they make no attempt to establish formal guidelines for ethical communication. Instead they emphasize creating a persuasive persona that seems knowledgeable and trustworthy, getting the audience to think or feel a certain way, or forcing the audience to agree with conclusions. At first glance this seems devious due to the intense focus on persuasion and fabricated character. One can assume, since Lay et al. place so much emphasis upon the veneer of ethical characteristics such as good will and trustworthiness, that they deem it unnecessary for the technical communicator to actually possess these same characteristics.
          Certainly a rhetorical approach with no ethical component allows a veil of dishonesty and superficiality to arise between the writer and audience. Such an approach taken to the extreme is likely to foster an "anything goes" strategy, so long as the audience is convinced. A number of writers have argued that certain forms of persuasive communication are ethically suspect. For instance, most are probably familiar with Katz’ account of the ethic of expediency as a component of Aristotelian rhetoric. He attempts to demonstrate the dangers of a strictly persuasive form of communication by analyzing a technical Nazi document. The writer of the document persuasively argues that improvements be made to vans that are used to exterminate Jews [16]. This can be seen as an extreme case of abusing persuasive communication. It does not suggest that persuasive communication is unethical in itself, but that it can lead to unethical behavior when communicators omit ethical concerns. This is why students should be exposed to at least some ethical guidelines when being taught persuasive technical communication.
          In their article, "Integrating Professional Ethics Into the Technical Writing Course," Hall and Nelson suggest, "If we teach our students to write like professionals in their chosen fields, we have imbued them with professional ethos but not necessarily with the ethical implications of what is written" [17, p. 47]. According to the authors, writing like an expert necessitates ethical considerations, and part of their rationale for this consideration rests upon the claim that many professionals think ethics should be taught in schools. Given Hall and Nelson’s argument, the approach presented by Lay et al. is incomplete. Despite its mention of "ethical appeal" there is no discussion that provides students with an understanding of the ethical obligations that are perceived as important to many technical communicators.

Even amidst a literary attack upon strictly rhetorical approaches to technical communication, the omission of ethical obligations does not necessarily give free reign to unethical conduct. This is made clear by a closer examination of the textbook’s section on logos. It makes two recommendations: "Think of your audience’s values, not your own" and "Think of the values sanctioned by your community" [p. 147]. These statements in themselves do not imply what we ought to do, or that we have any ethical obligations. They do, however, suggest that in order to maintain persuasive communication we must remain consistent with the ethical values of our audience, community, and even our culture. In essence, this is tantamount to a rhetorical prescription of ethical descriptivism and is an indirect way to compel people to engage in ethical conduct. In other words, if you want to be effectively persuasive, you must also be ethical. This principle seems simple enough, and a person doesn’t have to be an ethical objectivist to use it. By prescribing the adherence to commonly held ethical values as a persuasive strategy, Lay et al. (whether they intend this or not) preclude anyone from attacking their approach on the grounds that it fosters unethical behavior.

Technical Communication: Situations and Strategies, by Mike Markel [18], offers an ethical perspective from the vantage point of the business professional who is writing for clients, customers, and organizations. Markel borrows the combined set of moral standards used by business ethicist, Manuel G. Velasquez, namely: rights, justice, and utility [pp. 23-24]. The text does not contain a definite justification for why we should rely on these three moral standards. Rather it presents them from a descriptive standpoint, indicating that these are what people use to successfully solve ethical problems. Whether or not this is meant to be descriptive or prescriptive is uncertain, but Markel does introduce the topic of ethics within a practical context of using these moral standards. He reports that questions involving ethics are being debated across the country. The media frequently publishes articles about ethics; and popular opinion indicates that ethical standards take precedence over legal standards. These factors suggest that we need a formal outline of standards to guide people through moral decision making. This is a compelling argument for prescribing ethical principles. It responds to the urgency of real life problems in the business world and does so without complicated and abstract explanations.
          Another important element of Markel’s ethical perspective is his observation that rights, justice, and utility often conflict. When this occurs, people do not debate over the conflict, but instead rely on their default behavior of doing what they personally conceive as right. He then argues that "the depth of ethical thinking varies dramatically from one person to another, and the consequences of superficial thinking can be profound" [p. 24]. These observations serve as a basis for a set of principles that revolve around rights and obligations. Employees have a right to things such as fair wages and a safe and healthy work environment. Presumably, no justification is necessary because most people argue about the "extent" of employees’ rights, but not the legitimacy of the rights themselves. Employees also have obligations toward their employers, the public, and the environment.
          Markel ends his presentation of the ethics of technical communication with the following guidelines for solving ethical problems and dilemmas, namely: tell the truth and do not mislead. We should tell the truth simply because, as the text suggests, "Obviously, lying – knowingly providing inaccurate information – is unethical" [p. 42]. According to Markel, misleading more or less amounts to lying and so it receives the same justification. In general, both guidelines are justified from a practical basis since they prevent us from encountering a variety of ethical problems.

Markel’s presentation of technical communication ethics is clear. He provides a straightforward "Do This-Do That" approach. Additionally, he offers concise definitions for key moral concepts, including a comprehensive categorization of obligations and an outline of theories. It is very difficult to argue that his textbook contains any invalid reasoning or misconceptions, simply because there is no informal premise-conclusion structure to his discussion. In one sense, the absence of any strong justification for many of the ideas in the text is a drawback. This is especially the case since many students in their heyday of critical-mindedness and fact-finding (or what Hall and Nelson would consider fact worshipping [17]) expect some basis for the subject matter they are being taught. It is also a concern when moral principles are presented as if they were undeniably true, but without any reasons for why we should believe this.
          Alternatively, leaving out the process of justification is tempting because appealing to concepts such as rights, justice, and utility and prescribing such things as "Don’t lie" or "Don’t mislead," are not the sort behaviors that most technical communicators would reject from a practical standpoint. One viewpoint of the issue is that despite widespread agreement that these moral concepts and principles are useful, and the fact that many people feel strongly about them, doesn’t mean that they are obviously true. Another perspective is that we can provide prudent grounds for using moral principles as behavioral guidelines, even without extensive philosophical justification. A synthesis of the two perspectives consists of establishing moral principles on the basis of prudence, without presenting them as self-evident truths. Markel’s approach succeeds for the most part in this compromise by introducing moral standards as practical tools for making ethical decisions in a volatile business environment.

The analysis of these four textbooks suggests that there is a need for further research into the philosophical and practical foundations of ethics. Anderson’s ethics of the individual is subject to the same objections raised against ethical subjectivism. The problems with this theory have been thoroughly discussed in the traditional study of ethics. The drawback of his approach is resolved by either qualifying the way personal values, stakeholder feelings, and his ethical guidelines should be used for ethical decision making or by eliminating the appeal to personal values and stakeholder feelings altogether.
          Lannon argues for an ethical approach that misrepresents two traditional ethical theories, viz., ethical relativism and ethical objectivism. Herein lies an example of an ethical perspective that is inconsistent with the traditional study of ethics. He also provides an inadequate case for using critical thinking as a tool for ethical decision making and offers very little information on how to apply his criteria for judgement.
          Markel’s matter of fact presentation does little to justify the application of ethical principles and concepts. However, the lack of justification is balanced by the thoroughness of his explanations and the observation that his ethical guidelines are a prudent response to ethical debates occurring in the business world.
          Finally, the authors who attempt to make use of philosophers’ approaches do so in a cursory manner. Lay et al. provide one general quote from Aristotle, then go on to delineate an argument for persuasive communication that is meant to be derived from his Rhetoric. Mentioning Aristotle’s work does not validate their approach, nor does it add any great explanatory power to their case for persuasive communication. Additionally, Anderson offers a brief and indirect appeal to Kant’s second formulation of the categorical imperative as an effort to urge technical writers not to manipulate their readers. However, he neither mentions nor explains the imperative.
          The problem of resorting to cursory accounts of theories is not a new occurrence within the study of technical communication ethics. In "An Ethical Imperative for Technical Communicators," Markel suggests, "In our desire to be clear and concise, to avoid the length and abstruseness of the sophisticated writing about ethics, we risk oversimplification of the theories and condescension to our readers." He then adds, "In our desire to make ethics as palatable as we can, we leave out the philosophical justification, which tends to be complex and abstract, but which is really the essence of the argument" [12, p.81]. Markel makes an important point that applies to writing in other disciplines. Briefly mentioning traditional ethicists or citing a few of their principles will not be of much use for students, unless they are mentioned with an adequate account of the ethical theories. Truncating philosophical theories into a few sentences takes up valuable space that could be more efficiently used to justify or explain a textbook’s ethical approach. As is often the case with writing about philosophers, the meanings of their principles and conclusions are not always self-evident and simply quoting them and then moving on can do more damage than good.

Any technical communication textbook suggesting that some behavior is ethical or unethical, or that we have an obligation to uphold certain rights or ideals is prescribing value-statements. These value-statements are neither absolutely certain nor rooted securely in facts. In other words, it is not clear that we can collectively confirm moral principles by means of empirical data or that terms like right and wrong have any relevance to what is factual. This means that when textbooks provide examples of moral reasoning, the moral judgments that they derive have the same character. The deduction of moral reasoning carries the non-factual character of a moral principle to a moral judgement. This implication is easily overlooked when moral judgements do not follow any apparent line of reasoning to substantiate them or when they are presented in a misleading way that omits their uncertainty. When college professors of technical communication say that the individuals who make up a communicator’s audience have certain rights or that we are obligated to treat them in a certain way, they are not simply pointing out facts for students to admire and accept unconditionally. Rather they are providing them with evaluative assumptions whose truth-values and meanings are tentative, hypothetical, and lacking universal agreement. Assertions of human rights and moral judgements are not self-evidently true. Just as technical communicators tend to be cautious when making claims that are not supported by documented research, moral judgments require the same caution.
          A cursory survey of the literature discussing the ethics of technical communication indicates that this non-factual and hypothetical conception of ethical judgement is not openly disclosed. Why should the authors of textbooks be reluctant to stress this conception of morality? Perhaps they share the fear that if students fully comprehend the philosophical implications of a non-objective ethic, then they will either take an amoral perspective of technical communication or resort to an inconsistent subjectivism that may amount to the same. The fear is only warranted if students fail to conceive prudence as a non-moral basis for engaging in behavior that is consistent with moral principles. At least a few sources seem to have defied the taboo of revealing the non-factual and hypothetical facets of morality.
          A guide for ethical decision making, available on the World Wide Web and provided by Velasquez and three others, begins to reveal the non-objective nature of ethical judgements: "Facts by themselves only tell us what is; they do not tell us what ought to be" [20]. In other words, no amount of factual data will directly support the truth of a value claim like "lying is wrong." Valasquez’ claim suggests that moral judgements are not statements of fact or even derivable from statements of fact. Perhaps his claim also throws doubt on the idea that moral judgements are the sort of sentences that are capable of possessing the properties of truth and falsehood.
          In his article, "Reinventing the Wheel?: Ethics for Technical Communicators", Philip Rubens presents a very interesting discussion of objectivity and the relation between values and sense-data. He suggests that "In working with language – both ethics and communication strategies – we are dealing with nonrational, subjective elements…" [21, p. 336]. Both of the foregoing sources really imply that students cannot be instilled with moral principles as if these principles were immutable, objective, and universal truths.

How might the authors of textbooks write about the ethics of their discipline given the results of the foregoing analysis? One recommendation is that if authors decide to make use of the ethical theories of philosophers, then they should either provide more than just a cursory account of those theories or not mention them at all. The first option does justice to the philosophers themselves and gives students a more complete context for understanding and practicing the morality of their discipline. The second option provides more space for justifications, examples, and explanations of the authors’ presentations.
          If authors decided to make use of traditional ethical approaches, like ethical relativism, objectivism, and subjectivism, or deontological and teleological approaches, then they should ensure that their representations of these theories are consistent with the actual theories themselves. They should also make a point of avoiding approaches that have serious drawbacks, as made apparent by traditional ethical inquiry.
          The nature of moral principles and judgments leads to the issue of how morality should be presented to students. Should they be presented in the imperative voice as if they were indisputable? Or should care be taken to suggest that moral judgements are tentative and hypothetical? Another seemingly harmless approach is to gloss over moral judgements, which also has a way of conveying a sense of indisputability. There are good reasons for adopting the more hypothetical approach and revealing prudence-based motivations for following moral guidelines. For one, students are likely to discount a strictly dogmatic prescription of moral principles as objective and unquestionable facts with no need for justification. Prudence would appeal to the pragmatic sense of a student, but does not imply that moral judgements are statements of fact. Rather it suggest that it is in one’s best interests to engage in what is culturally identified as moral behavior. Second, ethical inquiry has not objectively and rationally proved the truth of our most fundamental moral principles. Morality is, by nature, controversial and debatable, as is anything that is essentially evaluative rather than factual. Treating moral judgements with caution in textbooks accurately reflects the nature of moral discourse rather than distorting it with presumptuous language.
          A final recommendation has to do with the strict emphasis of rhetoric or lack of ethical discussion, as presented by Lay et al. McKenna and Thomas argue that this approach is "a disappointing oversight" and "It is arguable that these considerations will become an essential aspect of technical writing textbooks in the future, and those authors who do not at least outline the field will see the popularity of their texts reduced" [3, p. 450]. Perhaps writers of textbooks already agree with this recommendation and their forthcoming textbooks will contain a blend of rhetorical and ethical approaches. Sanders offers concluding remarks on this early-staged conflict between ethics and ethos. He writes, "Perhaps the new quality movement in industry, with its emphasis on continuous improvement through continuous dialogue, debate, and action, may offer a venue for bringing together the very different analytical approaches to ethics…in a way that will promote vigorous ethical deliberation and decisive ethical action" [1, p. 114]. In simple terms, Sanders is likely suggesting that something better will result from the combination of our mutual desire to solve ethical problems and the continuous thesis-antithesis interaction of opposing ethical views like postmodernism and foundationalism. Whether this synthesis is actually possible or just idealistic thinking is debatable, since morality is such a controversial subject matter.
          In view of the implications of this analysis, one might envision a textbook that combines the valuable contributions of Anderson, Lannon, Lay et al, and Markel, but leaves out the difficulties conveyed by their ethical approaches. Such a textbook would provide, 1) a brief but effective account of persuasive communication, accompanied by an informative and clear-cut section that explains a set of ethical guidelines on prudent grounds, rather than cursory accounts of philosopher’s theories, 2) the recognition that personal values and feelings are worth considering when thinking about morality, but not at the cost of consistency, 3) a section that explains the importance of critical thinking, but does more to demonstrate the utility of positive forms of moral reasoning like analogies and hypothetical syllogisms, and 4) the treatment of moral principles, not as categorical and objective statements of fact, but as value claims that are immersed within a context of philosophical uncertainty.