Criminal Justice Ethics

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Criminal Justice Ethics
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Criminal Justice Ethics

• Why worry about whether the CJ system is moral?
• What can we learn from moral philosophy about CJ
  ethics?
• Does the CJ system have special moral demands?
• What about the CJ system is subject to moral
  evaluation?

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The Criminal Justice System

• What are the elements of the CJ System?

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The Criminal Justice System

• What are the elements of the CJ System?
• Courts
• Police
• Prisons
• Laws
• Laws the system enforces
• Laws that determine what the CJ system can do to
  enforce laws
• Constitutional Laws or Principles
• Place limits on government
• Search and Seizure, Due Process, Trial By Jury,
  etc.

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Morality

• What is morality?

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Morality

• What is morality?
• The standards of rightness and goodness by which
  we judge human behavior.
• Fairness
• Non-Malevolence
• Tolerance
• Truthfulness
• Others

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Ethics And Morality

• How do we distinguish between ethics and
  morality?
• Morality The standards of rightness and goodness
  by which we judge human behavior.

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Ethics And Morality

• Ethics has two special meanings.
• The philosophical study of morality, the search
  for principles that justify the moral standards
  that we seek to apply.
• Moral standards that are appropriate to
  particular occupations.

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Criminal Justice Ethics

• Criminal Justice Ethics
• The study of whether and how criminal justice is
  moral.

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Morality In The CJ System

• How is the CJ system similar to crime?

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CJ System Morality

• How is the CJ system is similar to crime?
• Both use force to compel compliance.
• Every CJ punishment would be a crime if applied
  by one citizen to another.

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CJ System Morality

• How can it be right for the CJ system to do what
  criminals do?
• Why are acts done in conformity to the law right
  when the same acts done in violation of the law
  are wrong?

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CJ System Morality

• Why are acts done in conformity to the law right
  when the same acts done in violation of the law
  are wrong?
• Law itself is not enough to make wrong acts or
  practices right.

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CJ System Morality

• Law itself is not enough to make wrong acts or
  practices right.
• Only morality can distinguish the states force
  as right from the criminals force as wrong.
• Only by being moral can criminal justice be
  distinguished from the crime it condemns.

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CJ System Morality

• What do we mean when we say,
• Morality accounts for the obligation we have to
  comply with the authority of criminal justice.

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CJ System Morality

• What do we mean when we say,
• Morality accounts for the obligation we have to
  comply with the authority of criminal justice.
• Morality is what makes it right, not mere might.

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CJ System Morality

• What if morality means only the standards that
  some people accept at some time?
• Slavery
• Apartheid

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CJ System Morality

• What if morality means only the standards that
  some people accept at some time?
• Slavery
• Apartheid
• The morality we seek is more than peoples actual
  beliefs.

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Moving From Morality To Ethics

• Peoples actual beliefs are not enough.
• The more that is needed moves us from morality
  to ethics.
• Movement from accepted standards to the
  reflection on and justification of standards.

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Moving From Morality To Ethics

• What makes the difference between might and
  right?
• What makes the difference between crime and
  criminal justice?

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Moving From Morality To Ethics

• What makes the difference between might and
  right?
• What makes the difference between crime and
  criminal justice?
• A morality worthy of acceptance.

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Moving From Morality To Ethics

• A morality worthy of acceptance.
• This morality is rationally justifiable.
• It is called ethics.

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Moral Philosophy Lessons

• What is the meaning of the concept of morality?

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Moral Philosophy Lessons

• What is the meaning of the concept of morality?
• A neutral standard of goodness.
• Standards of behavior that are good in ways that
  are neutral among people, and
• In ways that reasonable people can understand.

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Moral Philosophy Lessons

• Morality is not private.
• Morality is accessible to all people.
• It must be to expect them to be moral.

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Relativism

• What is relativism?

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Relativism

• What is relativism?
• The idea that there are no generally valid or
  binding moral standards.

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Refuting Relativism

• The answer to relativism is showing that some
  moral standards are valid on the basis of reason.
• Virtually all cultures and people agree on some
  issues of right and wrong.
• The Golden Rule
• Murder
• Stealing

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Refuting Relativism

• Three Main Approaches
• Finding something widely accepted as good
• Finding something that can be defended as
  appropriate to human nature
• Finding something that can oblige people to make
  the sacrifices morality demands

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Proving Morality Is Natural

• These three approaches yield five categories.
• Consequentialism
• Virtue Ethics
• Communitarianism
• Deontological Ethics
• Contractarianism

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Break

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