"Okay, there’s a part of me that sniggered at “ethicist” and “lawyer” being the same person." - lalaith
Well, the law most certain has everything to do with ethics, even if the law gets ethics wrong on occasion. Ethics governs human interactions with each other, and law is merely an extension of that when we, as a Community, decide certain conduct becomes so necessary to regulate or encourage it needs to be backed by the Government.
Lawyers then get stuck in a somewhat crummy position by virtue of their role in society to sometimes represent crummy individuals (which crummy individuals have a right to). It’s easy to tar and feather lawyers, when they are doing what they HAVE to do.
"It’s a summary of common rationalizations and misconceptions that people use to avoid being ethical." - TriPolar
To a degree. But I think that views it in reverse.
First comes the unethical conduct, then, usually when caught or when the guilt of the unethical conduct sets in, though sometimes the anticipatory guilt sets in, an individual will “make excuses” for themselves. These typically come in the form of the logical fallacy of Special Pleading, though the rationalizations come in other forms.
The unethical individual seeks to erase or reduce the unethical nature of their conduct so as to avoid their guilt.
"I skimmed about halfway through it, to where it started to sound like it was just restating previous entries." -eschereal
It is acknowledged that the list seems repetitive and there is actually an effort underway to organize and taxonomically categorize similar types of rationalizations.
"Which, as I see it, looks to be in partial conflict with #5: to be ethical, you must obey the law, even the bad law, but you cannot claim that complying with laws and rules makes you ethical. To me, that looks a bit like shoelaces tied to each other." -eschereal
That’s because a bad law may not be bad in an ethical sense. 5 mph speed limit on a freeway is a bad law, but following it doesn’t make one ethical…
Whereas, doing something unethical that strictly follows the letter of the law (though likely violating the spirit of the law) is still unethical whether or not it is legal. Using the 1st Amendment to voice your opinions IS legal, but your opinions, such as racist rants are not necessarily ethical.
**“Consequentialism isn’t a denial of ethics, it’s a valid source of ethical reasoning and can be worked out as a good way to reason through ethical dilemmas in a way which allows us to live with the results. Naïve consequentialism isn’t a good thing, but, hey, neither is naïve deontology.” **-derleth
Yes, consequentialism can be used to determine ethics, but a blatantly unethical act cannot be absolved if the consequences seem to be “good enough” to outweigh the bad act.
"In one sense, I feel kind of bad to be simply criticizing this “expert” by pointing out his mistakes and silliness while offering little of value." - eschereal
Come to the forum then, it can get lively.
"#3-Consequentialism conflicts with #16-Consistency. In #16, he criticizes Kant’s Categorical Imperative, which is essentially the opposite of consequentialism. I find it difficult to envision a viable ethical system that focuses solely on the action without giving consideration to effects, side-effects and outcomes." -eschereal
Well, it doesn’t matter if Rationalizations seem at odds with each other, the rationalizations are not a set of rules to determine the ethical nature of situations. Conduct comes first, ethical evaluation second…then if the conduct is deemed unethical, there is a very good likelihood that THEN you will see a rationalization come out.
Though, there are exceptions, where beforehand an individual may know their conduct is unethical and will try to rationalize it prior to doing it. Either way, the rationalization has everything to do with alleviating guilt, whether or not the method of alleviation comes in the form of skewing the ethical analysis beforehand.