This book is the most systematic, comprehensive and philosophically sophisticated discussion of police ethics yet published. It offers an in-depth analysis of the ethical values that police, as servants of the community, should uphold as they go about their task. The book considers the foundations and purpose of police authority in broad terms but also tackles specific problems such as accountability, the use of force, deceptive stratagems used to gain information or trap the criminally intentioned, corruption, and the tension between (...) personal values and communal concerns. Offering the fullest, most rigorous and up-to-date treatment of police ethics currently available, this book will be a perfect textbook in courses on applied ethics in philosophy departments or police and criminal justice ethics in departments of criminology and law schools. (shrink)

Rather than treating them as discrete and incommensurable ideas, we sketch some connections between human flourishing and human dignity, and link them to human rights. We contend that the metaphor of flourishing provides an illuminating aspirational framework for thinking about human development and obligations, and that the idea of human dignity is a critical element within that discussion. We conclude with some suggestions as to how these conceptions of human dignity and human flourishing might underpin and inform appeals to human (...) rights. (shrink)

Criticisms of how police exercise their authority are neither new nor uncommon. Police officers have considerable power, and they often must draw on that power in complex and pressing circumstances. This collection of essays by fifteen leading specialists in ethics and criminal justice examines the nature of police discretion and its many varieties. The essays explore the kinds of judgment calls police officers frequently must make: When should they get involved? Whom should they watch? What constitutes a 'disturbance of the (...) peace'? What resources should be devoted to a situation? Does social welfare take precedence over law enforcement? Under what conditions, if any, may police officers engage in selective enforcement of the law? Each essay or pair of essays is followed by a response, making Handled with Discretion an excellent text for stimulating discussion in the classroom. (shrink)

This textbook looks at the main ethical questions that confront the criminal justice system - legislature, law enforcement, courts, and corrections - and those who work within that system, especially police officers, prosecutors, defence lawyers, judges, juries, and prison officers. John Kleinig sets the issues in the context of a liberal democratic society and its ethical and legislative underpinnings, and illustrates them with a wide and international range of real-life case studies. Topics covered include discretion, capital punishment, terrorism, restorative justice, (...) and re-entry. Kleinig's discussion is both philosophically acute and grounded in institutional realities, and will enable students to engage productively with the ethical questions which they encounter both now and in the future - whether as criminal justice professionals or as reflective citizens. (shrink)

The “blue wall of silence” -- the rule that police officers will not testify against each other -- has its roots in an important associational virtue, loyalty, which, in the context of friendship and familial relations, is of central importance. This article seeks to distinguish the worthy roots of the “blue wall” from its frequent corruption in the covering up of serious criminality, and attempts to offer criteria for determining when to testify and when to respond in other ways to (...) the flaws of fellow officers. (shrink)

At first blush, there would seem to be few ethical problems with knowledge acquisition in a law enforcement context. For that context is one of public safety and criminal justice, both worthy ends,...

Journal of Social Philosophy, Volume 52, Issue 3, Page 393-402, Fall 2021.

Earp, Lewis, and Hart argue the pursuit of racial justice requires a summary end to the war on drugs. In surveying the racially disparate harms of an enforcement-oriented, punitive, and ulti...

Abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, war, genetic engineering and fetal experimentation, environmental and animal rights--these topics inspire some of today's most heated public controversies. And it is fashionable to pursue these debates in terms of the negative query "Under what conditions may life be disregarded or terminated?" John Kleinig asks a different, more positive question: What may be said in behalf of life? Looking at the full range of appeals to life's value, he considers a variety of issues. Is livingness as (...) such to be affirmed and respected? Is there an ascending order of plant, animal, and human life? Does human life possess a distinctive claim, or must we discriminate between humans that do and humans that do not have claims on us? Kleinig shows that assertions about valuing life camouflage a complex normative vocabulary about worth, reverence, sanctity, dignity, respect, and rights. And "life," too, is subject to an assortment of understandings. Sensitive to the frameworks informing diverse appeals to life's value, this comprehensive work will interest readers concerned with the environment, animal rights, or bioethics. Originally published in 1991. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

In this paper, I critique one aspect of Simester and von Hirsch’s, Crimes, Harms, and Wrongs—their recognition of harm and offence principles, but failure to construct a paternalistic principle, despite their willingness to countenance some small measure of criminal paternalism. Construction of such a principle would have clarified the problems of as well as the limits to criminalising paternalism.

This volume explores at length the contours of an important and troubling virtue -- its cognates, contrasts, and perversions; its strengths and weaknesses; its awkward relations with universal morality; its oppositional form and limits; as well as the ways in which it functions invarious associative connections, such as friendship and familial relations, organizations and professions.

Policing is a highly pragmatic occupation. It is designed to achieve the important social ends of peacekeeping and public safety, and is empowered to do so using means that are ordinarily seen as problematic; that is, the use of force, deception, and invasions of privacy, along with considerable discretion. It is often suggested that the ends of policing justify the use of otherwise problematic means, but do they? This book explores this question from a philosophical perspective. The relationship between ends (...) and means has a long and contested history both in moral/practical reasoning and public policy. Looking at this history through the lens of policing, criminal justice philosopher John Kleinig explores the dialectic of ends and means and offers a new, sharpened perspective on police ethics. After tracing the various ways in which ends and means may be construed, the book surveys a series of increasingly concrete issues, focusing especially on those that arise in policing contexts. The competing moral demands made by ends and means culminate in considerations of noble cause corruption, dirty hands theory, lesser degradations, and finally, those means deemed impermissible by the majority in Western culture, such as torture. nstrued, the book surveys a series of increasingly concrete issues, focusing especially on those that arise in policing contexts. The competing moral demands made by ends and means culminate in considerations of noble cause corruption, dirty hands theory, lesser degradations, and finally, those means deemed impermissible by the majority in Western culture, such as torture. (shrink)

Utilizing a contractualist framework for understanding the basis and limits for the use of force by police, this article offers five limiting principles—respect for status as moral agents, proportionality, minimum force necessary, ends likely to be accomplished, and appropriate motivation—and then discusses uses of force that violate or risk violating those principles. These include, but are not limited to, unseemly invasions, strip searches, perp walks, handcuffing practices, post-chase apprehensions, contempt-of-cop arrests, overuse of intermediate force measures, coerced confessions, profiling, stop and (...) frisk practices, and the administration of street justice. (shrink)

This article discusses the tension between trust, as an expression of interpersonal commitment, and critical thinking, which includes a demand for reasons. It explores the importance of each for individual flourishing, and then seeks to establish some ways in which they intersect, drawing on ideas of authority and trustworthiness. It argues that despite the appearance of a deep tension between trust and critical thinking, they are importantly interdependent: if trust is to be warranted, critical thinking to determine trustworthiness is required; (...) and if critical thinking is to be developed, contingent trust in certain authorities is necessary. (shrink)

If forgiveness is to be seen as a virtuous act, it must satisfy certain conditions. For many, those conditions are construed narrowly and must involve some change of heart on the part of the wrongdoer who is to be forgiven: remorse, apology, a willingness to provide recompense, and so forth. Such an account is usually characterized as one of conditional forgiveness. Others construe the conditions differently—not eschewing remorse and apology, but neither always requiring it—and see those conditions as those relevant (...) to exercises of generosity, love, mercy, gifting and grace. Such an account is usually characterized as one of unconditional forgiveness. The present essay attempts to remove some of the resistance to unconditional forgiveness. (shrink)

Assuming a social world in which punishment for wrongdoing is considered legitimate, does or may forgiveness of the wrongdoing also cancel any punishment that may be due? Philosophers are divided on the issue. This chapter provides some explanations for the division, critiques views that consider punishment to be incompatible with forgiveness, and suggests circumstances in which punishment is compatible with forgiveness—particularly, those in which people with standing to punish differ from people with standing to forgive, or, because the forswearing of (...) resentment is the key to forgiveness, resentment may be forsworn without punishment being canceled. (shrink)

The economically deprived come into contact with the criminal court system in disproportionate number. This collection of original, interactive essays, written from a variety of ideological perspectives, explores some of the more troubling questions and ethical dilemmas inherent in this situation. The contributors, including well-known legal and political philosophers Philip Pettit, George Fletcher, and Jeremy Waldron, examine issues such as heightened vulnerability, indigent representation, and rotten social background defenses.

The book roots corruption in the idea of a departure from conventional standards, and thus offers an account not only of its corrosiveness but also of its malleability and controversiality. In the course of a broadranging exploration, it examines various links between private and public corruption, connecting the latter with other social and political structures.