What comes to mind when you think of speaking to persuade? Perhaps the idea of persuasion may bring to mind propaganda and issues of manipulation, deception, intentional bias, bribery, and even coercion. Each element relates to persuasion but in distinct ways. In a democratic society, we hope that our Bill of Rights is intact and validated and that we will support the exercise of freedom to discuss, consider, and debate issues when considering change. We can recognize that each of these elements, in some ways, has a negative connotation associated with it. Why do you think that deceiving your audience, bribing a judge, or coercing people to do something against their wishes is wrong? These tactics violate our sense of fairness, freedom, and ethics.

Manipulation involves managing facts, ideas, or points of view to play upon inherent insecurities or emotional appeals to one’s own advantage. Your audience expects you to treat them with respect, and deliberately manipulating them by means of fear, guilt, duty, or a relationship is unethical. In the same way, deception involves the use of lies, partial truths, or the omission of relevant information to deceive your audience. No one likes to be lied to or made to believe something untrue. Deception can involve intentional bias or the selection of information to support your position while negatively framing any information that might challenge your belief.

Bribery involves giving something in return for an expected favor, consideration, or privilege. It circumvents the normal protocol for personal gain and, again, is a strategy that misleads your audience. Coercion is the use of power to compel action. You make someone do something they would not choose to do freely. You might threaten punishment, and people may go along with you while the “stick” is present, but once the threat is removed, they will revert to their previous position, often with new antagonism toward the person or agency that coerced them. While you may raise the issue that the ends justify the means and you are “doing it for the audience’s own good,” recognize the unethical nature of coercion.

As Martin Luther King Jr. stated in his advocacy of nonviolent resistance, two wrongs do not make a right. They are just two wrongs and violate the ethics that contribute to community and healthy relationships. Each issue certainly relates to persuasion, but you, as the speaker, should be aware of each in order to present an ethical, persuasive speech. Learn to recognize when others try to use these tactics on you and know that your audience will be watching to see if you try them.

Eleven Points for Speaking Ethically

In his book Ethics in Human Communication (Johannesen, R., 1996), Richard Johannesen offers eleven points to consider when speaking to persuade. His main points reiterate many of the points across this chapter and should be kept in mind as you prepare and present your persuasive message.

Do not:

• use false, fabricated, misrepresented, distorted, or irrelevant evidence to support arguments or claims.
• intentionally use unsupported, misleading, or illogical reasoning.
• represent yourself as informed or an “expert” on a subject when you are not.
• use irrelevant appeals to divert attention from the issue at hand.
• ask your audience to link your idea or proposal to emotion-laden values, motives, or goals to which it is actually not related.
• deceive your audience by concealing your real purpose, self-interest, the group you represent, or your position as an advocate of a viewpoint.
• distort, hide, or misrepresent the number, scope, intensity, or undesirable features of consequences or effects.
• use “emotional appeals” that lack a supporting basis of evidence or reasoning. oversimplify complex, gradation-laden situations into simplistic, two-valued, either-or, polar views or choices.
• pretend certainty where tentativeness and degrees of probability would be more accurate.
• advocate something that you do not believe in.

Aristotle said the mark of a good person, well-spoken, was a clear command of the faculty of observing, in any given case, the available means of persuasion. He discussed the idea of perceiving the many points of view related to a topic and their thoughtful consideration. While it’s important to perceive a case’s complexity, you are not asked to be a lawyer defending a client.

In your speech to persuade, consider honesty and integrity as you assemble your arguments. Your audience will appreciate your thoughtful consideration of more than one view and your understanding of the complexity, and you will build your ethos, or credibility, as you present your document. Be careful not to stretch the facts or assemble them only to prove yourself and instead prove the argument on its own merits. Deception, coercion, intentional bias, manipulation, and bribery should have no place in your speech to persuade.

Avoiding Fallacies

Fallacies are another way of saying false logic. These rhetorical tricks deceive your audience with their style, drama, or pattern but add little to your speech in terms of substance and can actually detract from your effectiveness. Several techniques or “tricks” allow the speaker to rely on style without offering substantive argument, to obscure the central message, or to twist the facts for their own gain. As we learned in Chapter 6, the eight classical fallacies relate to the ethical cautions listed earlier in Table 6.3.4 Fallacies. Learn to recognize these fallacies so they can’t be used against you and so that you can avoid using them with your audience.

Avoid false logic and make a strong case or argument for your proposition. Finally, here is a five-step motivational checklist to keep in mind as you bring it all together:

1. Get their attention
2. Identify the need
3. Satisfy the need
4. Present a vision or solution
5. Take action

This simple organizational pattern can help you focus on the basic elements of a persuasive message when time is short, and your performance is critical.

Key Takeaway

Speaking to persuade should not involve manipulation, coercion, false logic, or other unethical techniques.

Johannesen, R. (1996). Ethics in human communication (4th ed.). Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.

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