The TARES Test: Five Principles for Ethical Persuasion

Whereas professional persuasion is a means to an immediate and instrumental end (such as increased sales or enhanced corporate image), ethical persuasion must rest on or serve a deeper, morally based final (or relative last) end. Among the moral final ends of journalism, for example, are truth and freedom. There is a very real danger that ad-vertisers and public relations practitioners will play an increasingly dysfunctional role in the communications process if means continue to be confused with ends in pro-fessional persuasive communications. Means and ends will continue to be confused unless advertisers and public relations practitioners reach some level of agreement as to the moral end toward which their efforts should be directed. In this article we advance a five-part test (the TARES test) that defines this moral end, establishes ethical boundaries that should guide persuasive practices, and serves as a set of action-guiding principles directed toward a moral consequence in profes-sional persuasion. The TARES Test consists of five principles: Truthfulness (of the message), Authenticity (of the persuader), Respect (for the persuadee), Equity (of the persuasive appeal) and Social Responsibility (for the common good). We provide checklists to guide the practitioner in moral reflection and application of TARES Test principles. Individuals active in some area of professional persuasive mass com-munication—that is, advertising, public relations, and so forth—fre-quently have a difficult time defending what it is they do from a societal, common good, and ethical perspective, in their own minds as well as in their conversations with others. Defenders—apologists—for advertising and public relations, although not denying that ethical considerations have been a problem, also contend that critics often overstate the case. Speaking specifically to the question of societal value, advertisers frequently contend that without advertising the American free enterprise system simply would not exist. In this they echo the rhetoric of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun in his opinion