Legal Ethics and Human Dignity

Cover......Page 1
Half-title......Page 3
Series-title......Page 5
Title......Page 7
Copyright......Page 8
Dedication......Page 9
Contents......Page 11
Acknowledgments......Page 12
Introduction......Page 15
Who are the lawyers?......Page 16
The rule of law and human dignity......Page 17
Organizational evil......Page 21
The adversary system and moral accountability......Page 23
The messiness of moral life......Page 25
A note on the text......Page 28
I The ethics in legal ethics......Page 31
Introduction......Page 33
Institutional excuses......Page 35
The adversary system and the two principles......Page 37
Criminal versus noncriminal contexts......Page 42
Truth......Page 46
Legal rights......Page 54
Ethical division of labor......Page 58
Nonconsequentialist justifications of the adversary system......Page 61
Adversary advocacy as intrinsically good......Page 62
The social fabric argument......Page 65
Pragmatic justification......Page 69
Pragmatic justification and institutional excuses......Page 71
Conclusion and peroration......Page 76
2 Lawyers as upholders of human dignity (when they aren't busy assaulting it)......Page 79
Human dignity and the right to counsel: Alan Donagan's argument......Page 82
Paternalism toward clients......Page 88
Human dignity, confidentiality, and self-incrimination......Page 94
Human dignity as non-humiliation......Page 102
Pro bono and its critics......Page 104
II The jurisprudence of legal ethics......Page 111
Introduction......Page 113
The word "law" means the life work of the lawyer......Page 116
Excellences as powers: "Sin is a sinking into nothingness"......Page 119
"The citizen's role as a self-determining agent"......Page 123
" 'Discovery' in the moral realm"......Page 130
The progressive positivists' critique of natural law......Page 134
"A brutal indifference to justice and human welfare"......Page 140
4 A different nightmare and a different dream......Page 145
Judge-centered jurisprudence......Page 146
The importance of point of view for jurisprudence......Page 150
Judge-centeredness......Page 157
The realist argument: judges as the power people......Page 159
Judging and reason......Page 166
Impartiality......Page 167
The ethics of advising......Page 171
The nightmare and the noble dream......Page 172
5 The torture lawyers of Washington......Page 176
The background......Page 179
The result......Page 183
The post-9/11 legal response......Page 186
The Bybee Torture Memo......Page 190
The Levin Memo......Page 194
The Beaver Memo......Page 196
The Draft Article 49 Opinion......Page 198
Cruel, inhuman, or degrading treament......Page 204
Frivolity and indeterminacy......Page 206
The ethics of legal opinions......Page 211
The lawyer as absolver......Page 214
Government lawyers......Page 216
Conclusion......Page 218
III Moral complications and moral psychology......Page 221
6 Contrived ignorance......Page 223
Willful ignorance in the criminal law......Page 225
The negligence approach......Page 226
The Model Penal Code approach......Page 227
A nasty example......Page 231
The ostrich and the fox......Page 234
The structure of contrived ignorance......Page 236
The locus of wrongdoing......Page 238
A proposal......Page 240
Should the law penalize willful ignorance by lawyers of their clients' deceits?......Page 243
Miriam's case, or, the messy morality of "Don't ask, don't tell"......Page 246
7 The ethics of wrongful obedience......Page 251
An example: the Berkey-Kodak case......Page 252
The Milgram obedience experiments......Page 253
The Agentic Personality......Page 256
The Authoritarian Personality......Page 257
The Sadistic Personality......Page 258
The Deferential Personality......Page 259
The situationist alternative......Page 260
A proposal: the corruption of judgment......Page 262
Explaining Berkey-Kodak through corruption-of-judgment theory......Page 266
Are compliant subjects morally blameworthy?......Page 267
Warranted excuses and free will......Page 274
Conclusion......Page 279
8 Integrity: its causes and cures......Page 281
Counterattitudinal advocacy......Page 283
Diffusion of responsibility and social cognition......Page 285
Recursively reinforcing commitment and the road to perdition......Page 287
Advocacy to excess......Page 289
Group polarization in adversary systems......Page 291
Blaming the victim......Page 292
The scripted self: playing roles......Page 293
Taking stock of situationism......Page 295
The difference between integrity and dissonance reduction......Page 299
The truth cure......Page 305
The canary in the mineshaft......Page 308
Noticing when you are deflecting blame to someone else......Page 309
Socratic skepticism......Page 310
IV Moral messiness in professional life......Page 313
9 A midrash on Rabbi Shaffer and Rabbi Trollope......Page 315
Trollope's Orley Farm......Page 316
The legal ethics problem in Orley Farm......Page 318
Shaffer's legal ethics: the advocate on the cross......Page 320
Edith Orme's ministry......Page 322
Introducing Rebekah......Page 323
How the Hebrew Bible undermines primogeniture......Page 326
The Jewish elevation of social justice over property law......Page 330
The case for Rebekah......Page 332
The failure of Mrs. Orme's ministry......Page 335
Trollope's ambivalence about lawyers' ethics......Page 339
Truthfulness or community?......Page 342
Index......Page 346