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Ethical issues

broad social questions

defunding police departments and channeling savings to social service programs

ethical issue

passing legislation designed to remove qualified immunity from police officers

ethical issues

decriminalizing recreational weed

ethical issues

Reversing mandatory minimum laws for drug crimes

ethical issues

abolishing the death penalty

ethical issues

ethical dilemma

situations in which one person must decide what to do.

a police officer's decision whether to ticket a traffic violator

ethical dilemma

a defense attorney's decision to take a case

ethical dilemma

a prosecutor's decision on whether and what to charge

ethical dilemma

Why do we not respect legislators in this country?

We perceive that their discretion is unethically influenced by lobbyists and personal interests rather than the public good

Importance of Ethics for CJ professionals

almost all criminal justice professionals are public servants and thus owe special ditoes to the public they serve

police officers discretion

deprive people of their liberty

prosecutors discretion

face the least amount of scrutiny

ethical principles that govern Public servants

Public service

duties

required behaviors or actions

imperfect duties

moral duties that are not fully explicated or detailed

values

judgments of desirability

supererogatories

actions that are commendable but not required for a person to be considered moral

Value judgment v. Moral judgment v Factual judgment

She is a good person v honestly

making moral judgments

acts (rather than beliefs) that are human and of free will that affect others

ACTS

must be performed

ONLY HUMAN ACTS

Judgments of moral or ethical behavior are directed specifically to human behavior

FREE WILL

Moral culpability is not assigned to persons who are not sufficiently aware of the world around them to be able to distinguish good from bad

AFFECTS OTHERS

We discuss moral or immoral behavior in which the behavior significantly affects others

When does an ethical dilemma exist?

When an individual is faced with at least two courses of action

5 Steps to analyze ethical dilemmas

Identify the facts

Meta ethics

The discipline that investigates the meaning of ethical systems and whether they are relative or universal

ethics

the study and analysis of what constitutes good or bad conduct

normative ethics

determines what people ought to do and defines moral duties based on ethical systems or other means of analysis

Applied Ethics

application of ethical principles to specific issues

Professional Ethics

It is an even more specific type of applied ethics relating to the behavior of certain professions or groups

Eudaimonia

The idea that one's happiness involved the pursuit of excellence and virtue

Ethics of virtue

Systems that base ethics largely upon character and possession of virtues

ethical systems

A set of principles that defines what is right

Ethical Pyramid

Moral Judgment

moral judgement

A woman who goes out drinking

moral rules

People should not drink to excess

principle of the golden mean

aristotle's concept of moderation

What does the principle of the golden mean state

Virtue is always the median between two extremes of character

natural law

A universal set of rights and wrongs says that the essence of morality is that it conforms to the natural world

religious ethics

Based on religious beliefs of good and evil

ethical formalism

Kant

What type of system is ethical formalism

deontological

deontological ethical system

Focuses on the inherent nature of the act being judged

absolutist system

If something is wrong once

Categorical Imperative

the concept that some things just must be

Criticism of ethical formalism

Ethical formalism seems to be unresponsive to extreme circumstances; morality is limited to duty

teleological ethical system

considers the consequences or ends of an action in order to determine its goodness

Utilitarianism

Bentham and Mill

Act Utilitarianism

Measures the goodness of an act by measuring the good for all

Rule Utilitarianism

Judges' action on the long-term effects

ethics of care

Based on human relationships and needs rather than rights

egoism

The ethical system that defines the pursuit of self-interest as a moral good

principle of forfeiture

People who violate the rights of others forfeit their own rights

An example of the principle of forfeiture

self defense

fairness

the condition of being impartial

equality

the same value

impartiality

not favoring one party or interest more than another

justice

the quality of being impartial

Distributive Justice

Measurements should be used to allocate society's resources

utilitarian justice

the type of justice that looks to the greatest good for all as the end

hedonistic calculus

Jeremy Benthams rationale for calculating the potential rewards of a crime so that the amount of threatened pain could be set to deter people

restorative justice

An approach to punishment that focuses on meeting the needs of all concerned

Civil Disobedience

voluntarily breaking established laws based on one's moral beliefs

substantive justice

Concerns just deserts or what is fair and equitable-for instance

Retributive Justice

The component of justice that concerns the determination and methods of punishments

procedural justice

concerns the steps taken to reach a determination of guilt

Proportionality

Serious crimes = serious punishments

Parisomy

Offenders receive less severe punishment and are not subject to undeserved sanctions

Egalitarian Theory

Distribution should ensure equality or equal shares for all

Marxist Theory

Distribution should be based on need

Libertarian Theory

Distribution should take place without government involvement

Utilitarian Theory

Distribution should maximize benefit for individual and societal needs

John Rawls' Theory of Justice

Equal distribution unless a different one would benefit the disadvantaged

Corrective Justice

Concerned when unfair advantage or undeserved harm occurs

Deterrence

Punishing the offender more seriously

incapitation

Holding offenders to prevent them from committing a crime

Ethical Formalism

The overlap between ethics and justice can be traced to

Quality of Procedure

fair decision-making and fair treatment by authorities who regulate the allocative process

Lventhal's Six Criteria to evaluate procedural justice in decision-making

consistency

consistency

The allocation process should be consistent across persons and over time

bias suppression

Personal self-interest in the allocation process should be prevented

accuracy

Decisions should be based on accurate information

correctability

Opportunity must exist to enable decisions to be modified

Representativeness

The allocation process must represent the concerns of all recipients

ethicality

The allocation process must be based on prevailing moral and ethical standards

infromational justice

the fair and equitable distribution of information

interpersonal justice

the degree to which people are treated with dignity

duty

perform - to ensure rights

If there were enough -

issues of distributive justice would not arise

Why do people commit unethical acts

shift of focus from what is ethical to why do people act in ethical or unethical ways

influences on ethical decision making

workgroup

biological structure

chemical makeup

genetics and socialization

seems to influence personality traits such as fairness and self-control

women

less likely to cheat and more likely to recognize ethical issues

frontal lobe

empathy

inferior parietal lobe

rational but impersonal thinking

pre-frontal cortex

emotions impeded moral judgments

learning crime involves motives

drives