Journalistic Ethics, Legal
Ethics, and Public Ethics: A Dialogue
"Courts and the Mass Media: The Ethical Issues," a conference
sponsored by the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics and the
Santa Clara University School of Law, drew 300 people to the
SCU campus January 24Æ25, 1997, to hear speakers including O.J.
Simpson defense team members Johnnie Cochran, Robert Shapiro,
and Gerald Uelmen; law professors Laurie Levenson, Erwin Chemerinsky,
and Peter Arenella; and journalists Geraldo Rivera and Rikki
Klieman.
Uelmen and fellow conference organizer Thomas Shanks, S.J.,
executive director of the Markkula Center, talked further about
these issues with Christopher Kulp, associate professor of philosophy
at SCU, and Miriam Schulman, editor of the Markkula Center's
Issues in Ethics for an article that appears in the publication's
Spring 1997 edition. The full transcript of their discussion
follows:
Issues in Ethics:
At the January conference, what panelists tended to talk about
their professional ethics and how they were motivated by those,
but they didn't talk as much about how we might resolve issues
when the professional ethics of journalists and the professional
ethics of lawyers come into conflict. When that happens, how
would society's best interests be served and who would represent
those interests?
Are there values to which both professions can appeal? Are
professional ethics different from personal or public ethics?
Gerald Uelmen:
I think one of the problems is the extent to which there is
public participation in formulating rules of professional conduct.
I know the legal profession has moved in this direction, at
least to the point of having public representatives on the governing
board of the bar, and there has been some legislative input
into formulating rules of professional conduct; for example,
the gag rule that I talked about in my paper was mandated by
the legislature. The legislature said to the state bar, "You
will propose a rule that governs the pretrial comments of lawyers."
I think that's helped, and that's one way to go at it. Then
the rules of professional conduct are not put together just
from the narrow perspective of lawyers but from a broader public
interest.
Thomas Shanks, S.J.:
How are they enforced for lawyers? You have the codes of conduct;
what kind of bite do they have?
Gerald Uelmen:
Well, the bite is a disciplinary proceeding initiated by the
bar in which the consequences may be suspension or reprimand
or disbarment. One problem, of course, is that the bar feels
so overwhelmed with really egregious misconduct-you know, lawyers
stealing their clients money or abandoning their clients-that
they put a very low priority on issues like lawyers shooting
off their mouths on the courthouse steps. That's just not a
very high priority in terms of their hierarchy of values. From
a public perspective, the hierarchy might be different. The
public may say we're really concerned about the problems of
publicity in high-profile cases and that should get a little
higher priority from the bar.
Thomas Shanks, S.J.:
I asked Robert Drinan [S.J., professor, Georgetown Law School],
"If a lawyer follows every one of those codes that are in the
bible you held up [The American Bar Association Code of Conduct],
would that make an ethical lawyer?" What do you think?
Gerald Uelmen:
No, I don't think it would. For example, there's no ethical
mandate that a lawyer do pro bono volunteer work. You can avoid
discipline by the bar, as 95 percent of lawyers do, without
even thinking about what you're doing that serves the public
good.
Christopher Kulp:
Journalists and lawyers are going to have profession-specific
obligations, and surely it's appropriate to draw up codes of
ethics that are applicable to professionals in a given profession.
But by the same token, they retain a relationship to the broader
community as well.
Quite understandably, when lawyers or journalists are in the
professional mode, they tend to see things through that lens;
but ultimately, this can lead to a narrowness of view. Of course,
any professional is liable to lapse into this sort of disregard
for the broader responsibilities they have to something larger
than just their profession; that's very hard to avoid. But it
behooves us to try to avoid falling into that trap.
I just want to add one other thing here. It seems to me that
any professional ethic is properly going to preserve certain
central moral tenets that are applicable to everybody-whether
a physician or a lawyer or an anchor person at a TV station.
It's my impression that qua professionals, people sometimes
lose sight of that.
Thomas Shanks, S.J.:
Let me just throw in the media perspective. In law, although
it may not be used very much, you have a disciplinary structure
to enforce the code. There are a lot-seven or eight, maybe-major
codes for reporters that are all self-regulating, and there's
no disciplinary structure at all.
Gerald Uelmen:
I think the big difference between the press and the bar is
that we are publicly licensed, and in order to keep our license
we may have to meet certain standards imposed and enforced by
the licensing authority. But there's no such thing as a license
to be a reporter, so journalists are only answerable to their
employers in terms of their conduct, and the ethical codes that
have been crafted for the media are just hortatory. They really
have no teeth.
Thomas Shanks, S.J.:
The Federal Communications Act of 1934? did license the television
stations, and they were supposed to operate in the public interest,
convenience and necessity; that was the reason under which those
stations were licensed. At the time, there were a whole lot
of regulations to support that, most of which went away during
the Reagan administration. With newspapers, there's no public
licensing, but for the television, you could actually go back
to the original agreements under which these people were licensed.
For awhile, when there was a concern for local stations losing
their licenses, it was usually on grounds that they didn't serve
the public interest or necessity. But by and large, now, there's
nothing. The press claims constitutional protections because
journalists are serving the common good; society needs to have
unfettered information, so we need to have the press able to
pry into our personal lives and all that sort of stuff.
Gerald Uelmen:
That's our defense as lawyers too. We serve the common good.
You know, after the Simpson trial, George Will wrote a column
saying that Johnnie Cochran was a good lawyer but a bad citizen.
The implication was that by making an argument that created
racial divisiveness in the country, he was ill-serving the common
good although he may have been serving the narrow interests
of his client.
I just don't see it that way. I think it's an oxymoron to
say that if you're a good lawyer, you're a bad citizen. By definition,
being a good lawyer means you are serving the goals of our adversary
system, which require that the lawyer serve the interests of
the client. Good lawyers make decisions about what arguments
they are going to make based on the best interest of the client
not on the public interest. You are not a lawyer serving the
public; you are serving the client. We have ascertained that
the public interest is best served by an adversary system in
which there are lawyers on two sides, both of whom are representing
a client and presenting that client's case in the best possible
way.
Thomas Shanks, S.J.:
What do you say to the ethicist, the person, who says, "Okay,
that's where the dilemma is: You've got a profession that's
set up to protect the interests of clients, and most ethical
systems are set up not just for the interests of clients, but
for a greater good"? What it leads to ultimately, some people
argue, is the moral neutering of lawyers because they're constantly
coming up against a clash between the individual and the community.
Gerald Uelmen:
Yes, well, this is where I fault lawyers. Within an adversary
setting, we are serving the interests of the client. But too
many lawyers I know never stop serving the interests of the
client, even when it comes to a debate about the ethical standards
that should govern lawyers. You have the plaintiffs' lawyers
on one side and the insurer's lawyers on the other side, and
they will really be promoting the interest of the insurance
agency or the interest of plaintiffs rather than what rule or
what prescription will best serve the common good.
Christopher Kulp:
To pick up on the comment of George Will, and not to talk about
Johnnie Cochran per se-just lawyer X-one might urge that it's
actually not oxymoronic to argue that a person could be a good
lawyer and a poor citizen. On the one hand, you could hold that
if you are taking part in a justifiable practice, you are being
a good citizen insofar as you act in accordance with this justifiable
practice to the best of your ability. That's the kind of defense
a lawyer might make-that you are defending a client very vigorously.
And if it should result in public unrest, well, that's an unfortunate
but undesired consequence; and it occurs in the pursuit of a
legitimate practice.
What do you say, then, to the person who argues, "Well, yes,
but a person doesn't check his or her moral agenthood at the
door when he or she becomes a lawyer? There is a legitimate
sphere for saying, 'Even though I could do this in accordance
with accepted standards of practice, I don't think I should.'"
Does that argument make sense or do you think thereÕs some flaw
in it?
Gerald Uelmen:
The flaw I see is that the moral resolution of the problem becomes
simply a withdrawal of the lawyer. Ultimately, I think respecting
the autonomy of the client requires the lawyer to say, "You
have a legal right to have this position asserted, but IÕm not
going to assert it for you. Therefore, I canÕt serve as your
attorney."
Thomas Shanks, S.J.:
The questions you're asking, Chris, are the right questions.
If we focus it on law and media, the media people have the same
obligations. I remember the first time I started looking into
journalistic ethics, I asked, "Is there something about the
profession of journalism that somehow sets the journalist apart
from the moral responsibilities that every human being has just
as a function of being a human being?" There's a similar question
for lawyers. I think the answer is no because what might be
justifiable practice might fly absolutely in the face of what
any rational human being would say is good for the community.
Gerald Uelmen:
There's not much public understanding of that, though. To me,
it's not a coincidence that lawyers and journalists are among
the professional groups in our society that are most derided,
despised, and hated because their role and their role-driven
ethics are largely misunderstood. I don't think people appreciate
that this is the role lawyers and journalists are assigned within
our society. We're not all given this mandate to go out and
do good for the public.
Thomas Shanks, S.J.:
I guess what we need to question now is, What role are they
assigned by the public? That's why I like what you said about
who formulates the rules of professional conduct. I think, at
least for journalists, the public has said very little about
what professional conduct should be. I keep coming back to the
First Amendment. As far as I can tell from looking at it, the
First Amendment certainly protects most of what the Inquirer
[ck sp] or the Star do, but I can't imagine that the framers
of the Constitution had in mind that it would lead to the absence
of any sort of personal moral code for reporters.
Gerald Uelmen:
Let me take a position that is actually antithetical to what
I was preaching in the paper I presented at the conference,
which was that shield laws are too broad, that they're part
of the problem, that the reason we have all of this leakage
problem is that there's no responsibility. Shield laws are a
good example of a profession going to the public and saying,
"We need this protection" and getting a responsive legislative
process that endorses their position. In that respect they are
speaking from a very strong position: This is the public good
as defined by the public, not as defined by the press.
Thomas Shanks, S.J.:
Some philosophers suggest there's an unwritten social contract
between professions and society that goes something like this:
You can do your work. We will protect what you need in order
to do your work on the understanding that you won't do positive
harm to society at large. I think shield laws are a good example
of this contract. Under these laws, journalists cannot be forced
to reveal confidential sources. Society says, "We're going to
protect you so that you can do what you need to do as a media
person or else our system will come grinding to a halt."
But it still seems to me that when we grant that, we're still
assuming there's a moral agent on the other side-a reporter,
who's going to make responsible judgments, who will not ultimately
do positive harm.
Christopher Kulp:
Some years ago, there was an ethics and media discussion on
PBS with a number of well-known, distinguished journalists.
A question was put to them, roughly to the effect: Look, if
you were covering a battle in which the United States was fighting
some other outfit and you had information that could tip off
the U.S. troops that they were going to be attacked, would you
let the U.S. troops know? Some of the journalists, after wrestling
with this, finally said no.
Now, from a nonjournalist's point of view, it looks to me
as if these people are taking their work too seriously. They
have obligations not just to the profession-which are, among
other things, to present information and to be an uninvolved
chronicler-but they also have obligations to their society,
a society that does much to make their profession possible.
Freedom of the press and the importance of the press being
unbeholden to any group seem to me fairly skimpy grounds for
saying that you shouldn't let a platoon of U.S. soldiers know
they're going to get blown up. We likely have a case here where
people are operating excessively within the parameters of their
profession and not thinking seriously enough about the common
good.
Thomas Shanks, S.J.:
That's right.
Gerald Uelmen:
Well, every profession can be regulated by the state to promote
those interests that the state regards as paramount. For example,
the lawyers duty of confidentiality-of keeping the secrets of
a client-has been tempered in recent years to impose obligations
in many states to warn third persons who are endangered by a
client, even though you know that because of a client confidence.
So, I think the potential is there to temper the parameters
within which a professional works with some sort of broader
societal objectives imposed through legislation.
Christopher Kulp:
Could I just add that in this PBS program, many of the military
people who were party to this discussion were just contemptuous
of the perspective being advocated by the journalists and were
saying, in effect, "When you're pinned down in some difficult
situation, don't expect me to come there and risk my life and
my men's lives to pull your fanny out of the fire."
Also, I want to ask Jerry a question. I thought that the response
you gave to my question [about acceptable practices] was quite
good. But in practical terms, how workable is it? Let's say
you're in your case for a month and something like this develops.
That could really be a major setback for the client. What's
to be done there?
Gerald Uelmen:
When students say to me, "Once I concluded that the client I
was representing was guilty, I would have real difficulty being
a vigorous advocate on their behalf and attacking the prosecution's
case, making the prosecution witnesses look like liars," I have
to say to them, "You probably shouldn't do defense work because
once you take on the responsibility of defending someone, you
owe it to the client to deliver the vigorous advocacy that he's
entitled to." In effect you're holding yourself out as able
to numb whatever restraints you might feel or uncomfortableness
you might feel and overcome that and still be a vigorous advocate.
To some extent, your ability to change your mind and say,
"I'm going to get out of this" may be constrained by a court
saying, "We're not going to let you out because it would delay
these proceedings and be unjust to the other side if they have
to wait around now for another lawyer to come in and get up
to speed on this case. So you're just going to have to bite
the bullet and see it through despite whatever compunctions
you might have."
Thomas Shanks, S.J.:
But how do you answer the question, "Aren't you forcing lawyers
to be unethical, to do something that they think is wrong?"
Gerald Uelmen:
No, because we define the lawyerÕs role as not just serving
the client but serving the system. When I say, "I'm going to
give you the vigorous representation you are entitled to even
though I find you morally reprehensible,Ó IÕm not just serving
my client, IÕm serving a system that values that kind of representation.
This is the kind of adversary system we want.
Thomas Shanks, S.J.:
What makes this so complicated is that's the same thing the
media person is doing. They're both serving a system. As you
said earlier, society has decided that this is the role that
these institutions should be playing in our society.
Issues in Ethics:
Maybe you could talk a little bit about the classic ways that
journalists and lawyers come into conflict. It seems to me we
should distinguish between lawyers and journalists behaving
unethically in their own terms and lawyers and journalists behaving
ethically but having values that are in conflict. A classic
one is defending the right to due process of a client vs. the
public's right to know about a case.
Gerald Uelmen:
There's a strong parallel between journalists and lawyers in
terms of the obligation to protect confidences. Journalists
will go to jail before they will breach a promise to a source
that they will keep the sourceÕs identity confidential because
they believe, once it's perceived their promise won't be kept,
the source of news that ultimately serves the public good will
just dry up.
Lawyers see it from the same perspective. The promise of confidentiality
serves the need for the lawyer to have a relationship of candor
with the client. You can tell me anything, and it won't get
beyond me. And you can have confidence that when you tell me
something, IÕm not going to use it against you. Once we breach
that promise, clients will be reluctant to repose their secrets
in their lawyers, and we believe the public good is best served
if clients do have confidence that their secrets are safe.
Christopher Kulp:
This may operate more straightforwardly in the case of the legal
profession than it does in journalism, but it seems that when
you enter into a contract to take part in legal proceedings,
you operate under the auspices of the state. There are, then,
a lot of constraints imposed on you. There may be room to move
and wiggle and object here and there; but the constraints are
fairly substantial nevertheless. Perhaps the way that the common
good may best be served is when people-lawyers, in this case,
but we may say the same for others, e.g. journalists-actually
move to change certain facets of the system.
Gerald Uelmen:
That's the nub. When lawyers address questions of how we should
govern ourselves as a society, they've got to get beyond representing
the narrow interests of the client. That's where I have difficulty
with a lot of lawyers: When they step beyond the representation
of a client into the domain of what the standard should be,
they continue to represent the client. That is, lawyers take
on their client's identity across the board, not just in the
role of being an advocate for the client but even in the role
of participating in public debate and resolving public controversy.
Thomas Shanks, S.J.:
The problem for the journalist is probably the opposite, in
a sense. What we have in the traditional formulation is the
journalist as the protector of the common good, which is understood
as the maximum amount of information for the maximum number
of people. If journalists are going to err, they err on the
side of trampling individual rights.
The courts, over and over again, have basically said that's
fine. So, for example, it becomes very hard to show that someone
has been defamed if they're a public person; individual privacy
rights often are trumped by the public's right to know. If the
lawyer is focusing on the client, the journalist, at least theoretically,
focuses on the public to the exclusion of the individual.
Gerald Uelmen:
That's an interesting contrast between the legal profession
and journalism. My advocacy is always tempered by an advocate
on the other side. The public, in the context of a criminal
prosecution, is represented by a prosecutor who's operating
under the same ethical constraints that I'm operating under.
They are presenting their case in the best posture possible,
and they're going to attack my case and expose the weaknesses
in my case. So we're going to go at it.
Christopher Kulp:
With a referee right on the spot there to make calls.
Gerald Uelmen:
But the journalist isn't operating in an adversary system. The
journalist doesn't have that external restraint of somebody
on the other side saying, "You're going too far," or "You're
looking in places you shouldn't look."
Thomas Shanks, S.J.:
That's right. The other piece of the context that I think comes
into this conversation now, especially for the journalist, is
the increasing role of large business organizations. Many reporters
now answer to multinational communication businesses whose main
concern is often the bottom line, to the exclusion, in some
cases, of real concern for the public good.
Then, because of technology, we have a huge increase in media
outlets-with the Internet, cable stations, and all the rest.
When there is a national story now, we have an unbelievable
amount of competition for what's new, what's fast.
Gerald Uelmen:
To me, that pressure is the biggest problem in terms of relying
on voluntary restraints. Those who do accept voluntary restraints
find themselves at a competitive disadvantage because another
news group out there will take advantage of their restraint.
Christopher Kulp:
[Former FCC Chairman Newton] Minow raised the point at the conference
that we should not only be concerned with whether we have the
right to do X; we should be concerned with whether X is right.
There are a number of writers who have recently made the following
point: Within a highly complex, pluralistic society like ours,
with so many people holding different views, there are well-known
problems in having people come to agreement in moral matters.
Really, they go on to say, the legal structure is in the best
position to reach determinations about what we should and shouldn't
do.
So here's my question: Within a pluralistic society like ours,
can we expect journalists-coming from these different perspectives-to
be constrained by anything other than what the law prohibits
them from doing? In that case, morality, if it doesn't just
drop out, is certainly not front and center.
Gerald Uelmen:
But the law isn't emanating from the legal profession. The law
is emanating from your legislature, from the elected representatives,
most of whom are not lawyers, and who are hopefully representing
the common good.
Thomas Shanks, S.J.:
So you have the legal profession, the journalistic profession,
and you have the law as an institution that deals with both
of those. But I think your point is: There's something broader
than the law, which is public morality or civic virtue or common
good. I don't think that the law can encompass or deal with
all of the situations that are causing us problems. Maybe eventually
the law will do that, but when you look at what we have legislated
and what we consider to be all of the way that we should be
with one another in a society, they're not the same.
Gerald Uelmen:
They can't be by definition. But the law should keep striving
to catch up, and it should always be informed by this ideal
of the common good.
Thomas Shanks, S.J.:
That's where the problem is, I think. The problem is, we don't
engage in public discourse at the broadest level. The discourse
that we have at that level generally is the discourse of law,
so we're not very good at that.
Christopher Kulp:
We talk more these days in terms of constitutionality or in
terms of what the courts have had to say: weÕre continually
throwing social problems to the courts. There are obviously
a variety of reasons for this phenomenon, but central among
them, I think, is that we have a very pluralistic society that
finds agreement increasingly difficult. Immigrant groups are
more outspoken; there's gender recognition, etc. Well, says
society, at least we can go to the courts; they're going to
give us a determination. Then we don't have to debate what this
religious text has to say or chose carefully between competing
cultural traditions-we'll just go to the courts. I'm sorry to
see that.
Gerald Uelmen:
I share your reaction to that process because the courts are
the least democratic institution we have. Deferring all these
questions to the courts is not a healthy process of reaching
a consensus on the common good and what we need to govern ourselves.
Thomas Shanks, S.J.:
I keep wondering how low we're going to go before we finally
begin to figure out ways to do public discourse in addition
to the law.
Gerald Uelmen:
If we have created a system [of discourse] that feeds into a
downward spiral where the public is more interested in entertainment
and titillation than substance, then something is basically
wrong. Our system should be elevating the process. One problem
with public discourse is that the public values all discourse
whether it's informed or not. You don't have to look any further
than the talk shows to see that.
Christopher Kulp:
The journalists have an obligation here. The public good may
be served by entertainment, but some things should not be seen
that way. Trials don't qualify as entertainment.
Gerald Uelmen:
But a lot of criticism of journalists and lawyers should be
directed at the public. Basically, you get the media you deserve.
Thomas Shanks, S.J.:
Look at the conflict in the broadcast media over whether to
break away from the coverage of the O.J. Simpson civil trial
verdict to air the presidentÕs State of the Union message. Eventually,
the public has to say, "Who are we, and would we really rather
choose O.J. over the State of the Union? What does that say
about us?Ó
Christopher Kulp:
You saw, I take it, the headlines in the San Jose Mercury News
the next day. The headlines for the Simpson civil trial verdict
were far more prominent than those for President ClintonÕs State
of the Union address. I thought that was deplorable.
Thomas Shanks, S.J.:
That's an example of something that will probably never be covered
by the law-what to do in a situation like that.
Gerald Uelmen:
It's just the classic example of the bottom line. The media
sees it not from the standpoint from what should be the public
interest in these two events, but what is. And they say, "We're
serving what is," without recognizing any obligation, perhaps,
to elevate it.
Christopher Kulp:
Is there a deep tension between the profit motive and people
behaving in morally exemplary ways or showing a strong, lively
regard for the common good?
Thomas Shanks, S.J.:
Yes, there is clearly a deep tension. But the tension, I think,
is lessened because of something that has always been there
for journalists: this thing about getting the news first and
getting it out first. I don't know that it's directly connected
with the bottom line; it's become a value by itself apart from
what it causes, which is that people will buy your newspaper
or whatever. It is so ingrained into the mind of the journalist
to be out there first that it's not necessarily the result of
the profit motive.
Christopher Kulp:
When you consider the attention to the O.J. Simpson case, it
seems we are engaged in a celebration of people's baser instincts.
When you have reporters being rewarded for things that really
don't serve the common good, there's need for reevaluation by
society, falling especially on the offending profession.
Thomas Shanks, S.J.:
The editor is really supposed to be the gatekeeper who pays
attention to the public good. Rob Elder [editor of the San Jose
Mercury News] says journalists and editors have to develop an
ethical reflex so that without even thinking consciously about
it, the editor or journalist makes a judgment that does try
to balance individual interests with the common good and, at
the same time, doesn't remove the journalist from the ethical
obligations of every human being. The codes are supposed to
be a way to get at teaching people that reflex, but the whole
culture operates a different way, and the public doesn't seem
to care.
Christopher Kulp:
Can we at least agree that the ethical codes of the legal profession
and the media ought to preserve the minimal generic requirements
of any justifiable practice?
We expect this even from military people who have a "license
to kill," so to speak; in fact, they can be court-martialed
if they refuse to fight under certain circumstances. But they
can't do just anything. Maybe they could win the battle by going
in and mowing down a couple of elementary schools or firebombing
a few hospitals, but they're going to get in big trouble, and
quite rightly, if they do that.
Any legitimate practice is going to have to preserve certain
minimal requirements that are prescribed by quite a broad range
of normative ethical views. If you fall outside of that, then
something is inherently the matter with that practice; the practice
itself needs to be modified.
Issues in Ethics:
But if lawyers followed their code and journalists followed
their code, they would still come into conflict because in many
instances you have rights in conflict. It really has to do with
how, as a professional, you're educated to see an order of these
rights. In other words, is the First Amendment going to take
precedence for you over the Fourth Amendment.
It's a little bit easy to jump on the egregious coverage of
the Simpson case or egregious misbehavior on the part of lawyers.
But at some more fundamental level, it seems to me that even
the most ethical lawyers and journalists can be in opposition.
Perhaps they even operate as a kind of checks-and-balances system
where they check each others excesses. If media had not, for
instance, given as much attention to the O.J. Simpson case,
then our understanding-and I think Johnnie Cochran made this
argument-of how African Americans perceive the police in this
country would be different. So at the same time as the coverage
was excessive, it protected another valuable social good, which
was that we now know something that we didn't know before.
I mean you have to protect Larry Flynt [cksp], as reprehensible
as you find him, so that when somebody else needs to use these
rights in a way that does serve the public good, they're there.
I really think we can't leave it by saying we could have a code
where everybody agreed on the basic values.
Christopher Kulp:
In fact you may not be able to arrive at codes like that-codes
where everyone agrees. But I think that the kind of fundamental
tenets propounded by most broadly accepted, competing, major
ethical views tend to be fairly similar. For example, if in
either of these two professions, you treat people with disregard,
if truth telling is of no consequence in your code, if your
code has no concern for the manipulation and exploitation of
people, if your code sanctions cruelty-I submit that these are
the kind of basic things prohibited by Kantian ethics; by utilitarian
ethics, at least under most circumstances; and by natural law
ethics.
If we can't get agreement at that level, we're really in trouble.
A lot of people think that morality is relative. People often
focus on minor disagreements between ethical systems; but autonomy,
constraints on the treatment of others, prohibitions against
cruelty-these are moral absolutes or, at least, virtual absolutes.
Thomas Shanks, S.J.:
We might look at professional codes as a minimum standard, but
when the code bumps up against human moral absolutes, it's time
to reconsider.
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