This is an important and difficult question. If we answer in the affirmative, then suspects are likely to know that they may be lied to by law enforcement agents. Still, they may nonetheless often be fooled or tripped up (they don't know when an officer is lying and when she is being truthful), and this in turn could lead to more convictions of guilty people which in turn would reduce recidivism and increase deterrence, thereby reducing the victimization of citizens by criminals. I would think that a practice of telling lies that may be helpful for finding the truth (e.g., by eliciting a full confession) is justifiable if the reduction in crime it engenders is sufficiently large -- and this is quite large. Such a practice should be carefully circumscribed and supervised to minimize harm and to suppress abuse. And the lies should be revealed to those who end up not being charged -- and revealed also to those who will be charged, and before their trial. Circumscription is important. Lies should...

I am in full agreement with the precept that an accused person is to be presumed innocent until proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be guilty. But this precept is not violated when your defense attorney declines your case or resigns from it. This is so because the presumption applies to the state and its agents and agencies. The precept does not forbid citizens to form the opinion that some accused person is guilty. Nor does it forbid citizens to act on such opinions. You are perfectly free, for example, to change your mind about buying Joe's used car or to warn your daughter against dating Joe, on the sole ground that you have just learned of a criminal case of fraud against Joe and of the evidence presented against him. I agree that an accused person is entitled to be represented by a qualified attorney. But again, this right is not violated when one attorney declines or resigns. Compare: your right to get married is not violated when the person you have chosen as your spouse declines -- or even...

I read your queston as envisaging that the attorneys in question not merely contribute to a miscarriage of justice but do so knowingly -- or at least have strong reason to believe that the outcome they are achieving is the wrong outcome. I also read you as stipulating that the cases you have in mind happen within a largely just legal system. Within a seriously unjust legal system, an attorney who gets a guilty client (who really did make a joke about the dictator) acquitted has done a morally good deed, and similarly the attorney who gets one of the regime's torturers convicted for a crime he didn't commit. To be reasonably just, a criminal justice system must not merely punish the kinds of conduct that ought to be punished and permit the kinds of conduct that ought to be permitted. It must also have rules and procedures that are reasonably reliable in ensuring that guilty people get punished and especially that innocent people are acquitted. It is not consistent with such a system that...

You make two good points. On the first, re death penalty, I would agree that there are cases where it's crystal clear that the accused is guilty. But this is really beside the point. The question is whether we can design a mechanism that correctly identifies these cases. In the absence of such a mechanism, we must be especially reluctant to use the death penalty. Your other point is that perhaps we should incorporate into criminal verdicts an assessment (by the judge or jury) of the degree of certainty. But again, there is the question how accurate this assessment would be. And there is the further point that it would look quite bad to impose a severe punishment on someone with the comment that we've just barely reached the minimally required level of certainty. Better then perhaps to handle this issue unofficially: just as jurors sometimes acquit someone who very clearly did what the law proscribes when they feel the person did nothing wrong (example: the killing of a suffering and terminally ill...

I've argued for an affirmative answer in my response to question 2466. This appears also to be the view of Joseph Levine (response to question 2535). If these earlier responses leave you unsatisfied, then please write in again and say what these reasons are.

Yes. Clear cases are ones where the agent has strong reasons to believe that (1) the law is unjust, (2) compliance would cause substantial harm, and (3) non-compliance would neither (3a) lose much greater benefits, nor (3b) cause harm of comparable magnitude or (3c) unreasonable cost upon the agent. The Nazi period offers examples. Justice required German citizens in typical circumstances not to obey a law that mandated that they report Jews to the authorities for internment in concentration camps. This is so because German citizens knew, or could and should have known, that (1) the internment of Jews (and others) was unjust, (2) reporting a non-interned Jew to the authorities was very likely to harm this person greatly, (3a) the internment of the person reported would not bring any substantial benefit, (3b) the non-internment of the person would cause no harm comparable to the harm of internment, and (3c) not reporting a Jew was typically without risk to the agent (at least when one could plausibly...

More than on your preferences, the answers also depend on the kind of students you face and on the legal system within which they serve. In light of my limited knowledge of these and other relevant matters, I would suggest you focus on leading your students to think philosophically about the law. For example, what moral authority do those in government have to enforce laws against non-consenters? What must the government be like, and what must the laws it is enforcing be like, for such enforcement to be morally permissible? And under what conditions does the mere fact that something is the law give citizens a moral (as opposed to a merely prudential) reason to act accordingly? These sort of questions and reflections are crucial, I think, for students to appreciate the conceptual gap between the law and justice -- a gap that is often deliberately obscured, as when the government agency in charge of law enforcement is called the Department of Justice (its recent head in the US, Attorney General...

The two statements in quotes are surely different. But the first can also express a moral standpoint: that it is morally important to achieve a low murder rate. This moral standpoint is reflected in various more specific claims. 1. We should not inflict punishment or pain on anyone unless doing so produces some good for others (e.g., by preventing the person from offending again or by deterring others). 2. We should inflict pain whenever doing so produces some greater good for others. This second claim is highly problematic insofar as it may justify "punishing" the innocent when doing so helps deter real criminals. For this reason, those who hold deterrence to be morally important often claim instead: 3. In deciding how severely to punish specific types of crime, we should take into account how much of an impact greater severity would have on the frequency of this crime. This third claim is consistent with the idea that people may be punished only for having done something...

Suicide is outlawed in different societies and epochs for all sorts of different reasons. These fall broadly into three categories: to enforce religious commands, to protect persons from themselves, and to protect persons other than the would-be suicide. Are these good reasons to outlaw suicide? Reasons in the first category are not acceptable in modern democratic societies (and, in the US, violate the First-Amendment separation of church and state). Those in the majority must not impose their religion on their fellow citizens. Reasons in the second category -- so-called paternalistic (or parentalistic) reasons -- can be plausible. It is a good thing that the police can stop the attempted suicide of a young man who is in despair after his lover broke up with him. Chances are he'll get over it and fall in love again, even if this now seems inconceivable to him. But what if, a year or two later, the man still judges his life not worth living and wants to die? Who are we to overrule his...

We sometimes play certain social roles in which it is morally appropriate to disregard certain otherwise weighty considerations and to give great weight to others than one could otherwise disregard. Examples. A trustee should try to find the best possible investments for her ward without regard to how such investments of his funds would affect the value of her own portfolio. A judge or juror should set asides her likes and dislikes of certain kinds of people. A legislator should disregard the impact pending legislation would have on her son's business. The common idea here is that important social purposes are best promoted if the occupants of certain roles understand them in these ways. The lawyer's role is somewhat unusual because it is fitted into an adversarial system. The idea behind such a system is that the socially best outcomes are achieved when some of the protagonists do not aim for them but for something quite different. To get the most exciting soccer match, we need players...