Religion and Philosophy

Randy Cohen Watch: “The Ethicist” vs. Integrity, Accountability, and the Law

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Randy Cohen, “The Ethicist” of the popular New York Times Magazine column, frequently gets in trouble when he opines on the law, legal ethics, and how lawyers interact with society. This week he was at it again, and he got in trouble, all right. Big time.

Bruce Pelligrino wrote to the column to get “The Ethicist’s” take on the actions of a friend, who told Bruce he wanted to hire a lawyer to challenge a speeding ticket even though he had admitted to the police officer, in the presence of his children who were passengers in the car, that he had been driving 51 m.p.h . where the limit was 35.

“I think he should accept the consequences, learn from the experience and give his children a lesson in ethics,” wrote Pelligrino. ”Shouldn’t he just pay the ticket?”

Cohen sided with the speeder, opining…

“Even those who think themselves guilty are entitled to their day in court, and there is civic virtue in their exercising this right. A trial is a way to hold officials accountable for their conduct. Was the radar gun accurate? Was the speed zone clearly marked? Did the police officer behave properly? And what, given all the circumstances, is an appropriate punishment? Little of this could be scrutinized if everyone simply paid the ticket. It would be a court-clogging nightmare if every self-confessed speeder demanded a trial, but it is a fine thing if, now and then, some people do.”

Randy appears to have misunderstood the question, believing that Pelligrino’s friend was being charged with an arcane S.E.C. violation, or some intricate form of criminal conspiracy. The guy was driving too fast, knew it, and got caught! What does Cohen mean “Even those who think themselves guilty”? The driver admitted he exceeded the speed limit on the basis of his own car’s speedometer; he didn’t “think” he was guilty; he knew with complete certainty he was guilty, and said so to the cop who stopped him.

“The Ethicist” thinks “it’s a fine thing” for that driver to renege on his admission and impugn the policeman’s behavior, challenge the speed limit posting and question the radar gun to get out of a wrongful fine for an act he admits he committed. How could this course of action possibly be called ethical?

Here is what really is “a fine thing,” Randy: integrity—sticking to one’s word and backing it up with action. The driver said the ticket was correct. It is dishonest and irresponsible for him to turn around and challenge it as Cohen suggests. Here’s something else that is “a fine thing,” Randy: accountability—admitting when you have done wrong when you know it and accepting the consequences. The purpose of the legal system is not to encourage citizens to try to avoid just consequences for admitted violations of the law. Yes, as Cohen correctly notes, everyone has a right to challenge charges in court, but as anyone who calls himself an ethicist is supposed to know, it is not always ethical to exercise a right. Banks have the right to kick elderly homeowner out onto the street as soon as they fall behind on their mortgage payments. I have the right to limit my circle of friends and business associates to straight, white, Protestant bigots. I have the right to be blatantly incompetent in my free ethics commentary, and, like Randy in this case, to give mistaken and even harmful advice. All of these things are still unethical, however.

The Ethicist’s answer to Mr. Pelligrino’s query is unethical too, dramatically so. Cohen is saying that it is reasonable and ethical to force a trial on a traffic offense when…

  • The driver admitted the offense to the police officer…
  • …in front of his children…
  • …in order to challenge the veracity of the officer, who took his admission in good faith…
  • ….requiring the officer to appear in court, taking him away from community law enforcement duties…
  • …taking up court time, using taxpayer-funded personnel, that should be devoted to cases where the facts are genuinely in dispute…
  • …with the objective of avoiding the payment of a just fine to the government, where it would be used for community purposes, in order to transfer money instead to the pocket of, not just a lawyer, but the unethical species of lawyer who is willing to take unconscionable cases…
  • …thus teaching the driver’s children, if the driver prevails, that the objective in life is use the system to avoid accountability, even when you deserve to be punished, and..
  • …that respect for the law is less important than avoiding a thoroughly earned fine, and
  • …that speeding is all right if you can get away with it, thus…
  • …increasing the likelihood that the children themselves will regard excessive speed this way when they become drivers, and also increasing the chances that their driving habits will cause harm to themselves or others.

I have  read “The Ethicist” for years, I have learned that Randy Cohen has unseemly problems with honesty, a reflex prejudice against law enforcement, and shocking and brazen cluelessness on matters of legal ethics and the exercise of legal rights. Bruce Pelligrino managed to ask a question that involved all of them, and the result was one of the most indefensible answers I’ve seen from Cohen yet.

Ethics Dunce: PZ Myers

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

PZ Myers, according to his blog, Pharyngula, is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota. Yesterday, however, he was just one more arrogant, mean-spirited bully (if this were not an ethics blog, I would have used the term “jackass”), ridiculing Catholics who chose to follow the traditions of their church by displaying a smudge of ash on their foreheads on Ash Wednesday.

Like all bullies, he chose the weakest and most defenseless targets for his attack: “little old ladies,” whose religious devotion made him want to “pull out a hankie, spit on it, and clean them up.” Continue reading →

Trust, Redemption, and Bank-robbing Lawyers

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

The story of Shon Hopwood is certainly an inspiring one…so far. While serving more than a decade in federal prison for a series of armed robberies, his time in the prison law library turned him into an expert in case law, and he pulled off a rare feat: a petition for certiori he prepared on behalf of a fellow prisoner successfully persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case. Now Hopwood is out of prison, and is turning his life around. He has been working as a paralegal, he now has a family, and at 34, he plans to apply to law school.

It is likely that a law school will admit him, but not at all certain that any state bar would give him a license. Can a former bank robber pass the profession’s character requirement? Should he, no matter how good he is at writing Supreme Court briefs? Continue reading →

Sunday Ethics Trio: CREW, Coercion and Condiments

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

The C Street Horror…Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington appears to have jumped the rails in its hysterical protest of President Obama appearance at the National Prayer Breakfast, a venerable if odd event that dates from the Eisenhower administration. Some of CREW’s objections are that the event’s organizers, a group with the admittedly sinister-sounding name “The Family,” preaches “an unconventional brand of Christianity,” (As does Rev. Wright. So what?) lacks transparency (Just like the Obama administration of late. This is a matter worth investigating, exposing and reforming, but if the President has to boycott organizations based on a lack of transparency, he’ll be living on the streets), has been “linked” to unsavory causes (Translation: CREW doesn’t like the group’s politics), and that the C Street Christian home the group maintains in Washington has housed a lot of politicians with ethical problems, like Gov. Mark Sanford and Sen John Ensign. That’s a bizarre complaint, don’t you think? Continue reading →

More Tebow Ad Ethics: Allred’s Complaint

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The much-anticipated Super Bowl ad telling the story of how quarterback Tim Tebow was born because his mother rejected a doctor’s advice to have him aborted for medical reasons is spinning off ethical issues at a dizzying rate.

Some are easily settled, as Ethics Alarms has already noted. There is nothing wrong with a Super Bowl ad raising substantive issues in the middle of beer commercials and tackles, as some have (incredibly) argued. There is nothing unethical about CBS changing its policy regarding issue-oriented commercials.  The fact that the network rejected such ads in the past does not make it hypocritical now. CBS, having ended a blanket prohibition, must now be fair and reasonable in deciding which issue ads to accept. Let’s see how it goes before we cry foul.

And there is nothing “anti-choice” about a woman’s story of how she chose not to abort her son, and is glad she did. It is not even an anti-abortion ad, unless the pro-abortion movement literally believes that it is wrong not to have an abortion. She had a choice, and she made it. The message of the ad does encourage thought about the consequences of having the procedure, which is unequivocally good.

Now, however, Hollywood lawyer and woman’s rights advocate Gloria Allred has suggested that Tebow and his mother are spinning a tale that is inspiring, powerful, and full of baloney, and she has sent CBS a letter of protest. Continue reading →

Ethics Trumps Morality: Ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Almost lost in the din of President Obama’s defiant State of the Union address was his promise to finally end “Don’t ask, don’t tell” as military policy. There is no ethical argument against this long overdue move. It has always been a policy based on the political expediency of politicians afraid to do the right thing.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell” is unethical. The law treats gay Americans in a biased and discriminatory manner, reinforcing negative stereotypes and the irrational fears. It also hurts the military and the nation by robbing it of able soldiers and military personnel. Continue reading →

PETA Flunks the Duty of Respectability

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have an important mission. It also is a very difficult mission, because most people try to think about cruelty to animals as little as possible. We like our veal and chicken dishes; we like our pets; we want to find cures for dread diseases, and that may require animal testing. The facts about what animals experience, feel and think are not comforting to these wants and needs, so an organization dedicated to changing our attitudes toward the non-human inhabitants of Earth has to be careful, nuanced, articulate, and most of all, respectable.The duty of respectability comes with accepting such an important mission. We do not trust those we do not respect. If PETA doesn’t command respect, its mission, and the innocent and vulnerable animals it seeks to protect, are at risk. Continue reading →

Our Culture’s Teen Pregnancy Ethical Conflict

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Unwed teenage pregnancies are on the rise again. There are many reasons, but one of them has to be this: it is hard to discourage self-destructive and societally damaging conduct while the culture celebrates it. Continue reading →

“The Ethicist” Strikes Out Again

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I’ll make a deal with Randy Cohen,”The Ethicist” of The New York Times Magazine: I’ll stop criticizing his column when he stops justifying dishonesty. Lately, Cohen has not only been advising his correspondents to avoid telling the truth but headlining the questions where he does so.

Lie proud, Randy!

This week’s endorsement of forked tongues surrounded the sensitive issue of designating a guardian for one’s child. Parents had asked their good friends, another married couple, if they would agree to care for their daughter in the event that the parents perished while she was a child. After the couple enthusiastically agreed, the parents learned that their friends were not sufficiently responsible with their finances, and liked to “live large.” They no longer trust the couple with their daughter’s welfare, and want to re-assign the responsibility of being emergency guardians to relatives. This will require the parents to change their wills.

Their question to “The Ethicist”: Do they have to tell their friends? Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: New York Times Sportswriter Ken Belson

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I fear that I am becoming a broken record on this (Note to those under the age of 40: the phrase “becoming a broken record” refers to the archaic devices called “records” which once were used to convey music via another archaic device know as a “phonograph.” If a record was broken, as in cracked, the phonograph’s needle, which…oh, never mind. We really need a new phrase for “saying the same thing over and over again.”), but the popular position that only the pure and blameless have the right to condemn misconduct by others threatens our culture’s ability to discuss and distinguish right and wrong. It has to be refuted, discredited, and buried. For subliminal support for this  unethical stance to be injected into a supposedly straight news item—in the sports pages, of all places—is alarming, for it shows how our cultural attitudes can be warped without our even being aware of it. Continue reading →