ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the definition of ethics and how it is particularly problematic for technical communication. The connection between ethics and technical communication, though, has been problematic. From before the time of Aristotle, some have understood ethics to be separate from technology and science. There are many practical ramifications of viewing science and technology as ethical systems. The continuing revelation of the social constructedness and the rhetoricity of science and technology show them to be social enterprises moved by persuasion on the basis of certain values. The chapter explores the questions of the ethics of technology and science in themselves; the relation of ethics to rhetorical theory; the idea of the ethics of nature; conformance to good practice; and codes of conduct. Contemporary rhetorical theory holds that language, and all knowledge constituted and mediated by language, always inescapably embodies, represents, and propagates a world view and therefore a system of values.
