The Liverpool Murder Case

1. The Liverpool Murder Case • British law prohibits reporting the names and family histories of children facing criminal charges until their trials are complete. Is the legal standard the only possible one we can use to evaluate this case? • Is Britain’s domestic standard compelling for the international media? The above picture taken from a shopping center security camera shows two-year-old Jason Bugler being kidnapped from his mother by two ten-year-olds who would eventually brutally murder the child.

2. Ethics and Values • Ethics - the discipline dealing with what is morally right or wrong, good or bad. • Ethical system describes the critical process of how we work through moral issues • Values - the accepted principles or standards of an individual or a group • All decision-making involves values which reflect our presuppositions about social life and human nature!

3. Types of Values ProfessionalProximityFirstnessImpact/magnitudeRecencyConflictHuman InterestEntertainmentNoveltyToughnessThoroughnessImmediacyIndependenceNo prior restraintPublic’s right to knowWatchdog Moral ValuesTruthtellingHumannessJustice/fairnessFreedomIndependenceStewardshipHonestyNonviolenceCommitmentSelf-control AestheticHarmoniousPleasingImaginative LogicalConsistentCompetentKnowledge-able Socio-culturalThriftHard workEnergyRestraintHeterosexuality

4. Values Used by the British Press Legal value: Honor the court restrictions against reporting juvenile names and family background. Principles Used by the British Press Other-regarding care: The privacy of children facing criminal charges must be protected at all costs. Values Used by the American Press Professional value: Do not suppress public information. Principles Used by the American Press Truth-telling: All people have a right to know the truth. The truth must be proclaimed under all conditions.

5. Resulting Action of the British Press Withhold information about the defendants including names and personal histories Resulting Action of the American Press Print names of defendants and information on their personal histories.

6. Four Dimensions of Moral Analysis Definition Loyalties ↓ ↑ → Values Principles

7. Potter Box Applied to the Liverpool Murder Case JUDGMENT British Television: withhold broadcasting U.S. Newspaper: publish names and details SITUATION Two ten-year-olds go to trial for kidnapping and brutally murdering two-year-old Jason Bugler LOYALTIES British Television: to juvenile defendants and their families U.S. Newspaper: to general readership VALUES British Television: honor the court restrictions against reporting juvenile names U.S. Newspaper: do not suppress public information PRINCIPLE British Television: other-regarding care U.S. Newspaper: truthtelling is categorical imperative

8. Determining the Ethical Decision • Is there a universal ground for making ethical decisions, an overarching theory from which we can choose among competing alternatives? • Or is ethical decision making simply a process of adjusting to the mores of a given community? The Potter Box accounts for both. • Without an appeal to an explicit ethical principle, a conclusion is not considered morally justified.

9. Evaluation With the Potter Box Model • When competing values seem appropriate, resolution usually occurs in step three (ethical principles). • When two different ethical theories are relevant, the adequacy of the theories themselves must be evaluated through metaphysics or theology. • Occasionally, the ethical choice is not apparent until quadrant four, loyalties, as in the case of the Liverpool murder.

10. Why We Study the Process By Which Choices Are Made • Knowing the elements in moral analysis sharpens our vocabulary and enhances our discussion of media ethics • Understanding the logic of social ethics improves the quality of our conceptual work and the validity of the choices we make in media practice. • The four dimensions of the Potter Box allow us to develop normative ethics.

11. Using Ethical Principles

12. Guidelines 1. Always treat specifics very carefully. 2. Values must be isolated and accounted for. 3. Values must be checked, questioned, or corrected using steps three and four of the Potter Box.

13. Ethics vs. Values • Ethics involves an understanding of theology and philosophy as well as debates in the history of ideas over justice, virtue, the good, etc. • Values pervade all dimensions of human experience, even scientific experimentation.

14. Challenging Moral Norms • Oursociety challenges the practice of searching for moral norms. • BUT norms rightly understood are foundational for moral commitment.

15. Purpose of Sound Ethical Reasoning • Allows us to draw responsible conclusions that yield justifiable actions • Helps us to determine which ethical theory is most powerful under which conditions

16. 1. Ethical Theories based on Virtue Aristotle’s Mean/Confucius’ Golden Mean 2. Ethical Theories based on Duty Kant’s Categorical Imperative 3. Ethical Theories based on Utility Mill’s Principle of Utility 4. Ethical Theories based on Rights Rawls’s Veil of Ignorance 5. Ethical Theories based on Love Judeo-Christian Persons as Ends Five Categories of Ethical Theories

17. Ethical Guidelines Based on Virtue Aristotle’s Mean Confucius’ Golden Mean

18. “Moral virtue is a middle state determined by practical wisdom” Aristotle’s Mean

19. Four Cardinal Virtues TEMPERANCE JUSTICE COURAGE WISDOM

20. Extremes JUSTICE COURAGE WISDOM Indifference Indulgence Cowardice Temerity Caution Spontaneity

21. Main Ideas • Propriety before duty or love • Character over conduct • Outer behavior as a reflection of inner disposition • Equilibrium and harmony

22. Practical Wisdom • Phronesis • Moral discernment • Knowledge of the proper ends (telos) of conduct and the means of attaining them • Distinct from both theoretical knowledge and technical skill

23. Using Practical Wisdom • Applied to “individual facts” by locating “the mean between two vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defect” • Examples • Case 16 • Case 29

24. Summary of Aristotle’s Mean • NOT a weak-minded consensus • NOT a compromise • NOT a mathematically equal distance between two extremes • Aristotle’s mean involves the correct quantity, the correct timing, the correct people, the correct motives, and the correct manner

25. “Moral virtue is the appropriate location between two extremes” Confucius’ Golden Mean

26. Main Ideas • Rooted in virtue • Virtue as benevolence, kindness, generosity, and balance (a mean between two extremes) • Excellence dependent on character not social position

27. Equilibrium and Harmony “Equilibrium (chung) is the great root from which grow all human actings in the world. And harmony (yung) is the universal path all should pursue. Let the states of equilibrium and harmony exist in perfection, and happy order will prevail throughout heaven and earth, and all things will be nourished and flourish”

28. Applying Confucius’ Golden Mean • Identify all extremes • Resolve competing obligations using the Golden Mean • Reject any extremes • Choose the middle path

29. Ethical Guidelines Based on Duty Kant’s Categorical Imperative

30. “Act only on that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law” Kant’s Categorical Imperative

31. Main Ideas • Ethics are objective • Any genuine moral obligation can be universalized • Categorical = unconditional • What is right must be done regardless of circumstances • Existence of higher truths • Deontological ethics

32. Higher Truths • Noumena • Superior to reason • Transcend physical universe • Innate in human beings • Apprehended by conscience NOT reason

33. Deontological Ethics • From deon (Greek for duty) • Rule determines the result • Rule is the basis of the act • Rule is good regardless of the act • Result always calculated within the rules

34. Application of Kant’s Categorical Imperative • Moral law is unconditionally binding on all rational beings. • Certain actions are always wrong. • Certain actions are always right. • Examples

35. Ethical Guidelines Based on Utility Mill’s Principle of Utility

36. “Seek the greatest happiness for the greatest number” Mill’s Principle of Utility

37. Main Ideas • Consider what course will yield the best consequences for the welfare of human beings • Ethical choice produces the greatest balance of good over evil • Good end must be promoted, bad end must be restrained

38. The Good End • Happiness or pleasure • To Mill, preventing pain and promoting pleasure are the only desirable ends. • Pluralistic utilitarians argue that other values besides happiness possess intrinsic worth (friendship, knowledge, health). • Rightness or wrongness assessed according to total value ultimately produced

39. Application of the Principle of Utility • Calculate the consequences of various options. How much benefit and how much harm would result in the lives of everyone affected, including ourselves? • Choose the alternative that both • Produces the greatest possible balance of good over evil • Distributes this balance as widely as possible

40. Two Types of Utilitarianism • Act Utilitarianism: Greatest good in a specific case Will a particular action in a particular situation result in a balance of good over evil? 2. Rule Utilitarianism: Greatest good for general welfare Will a general rule result in a balance of good over evil?

41. Ethical Guidelines Based on Rights Rawls’s Veil of Ignorance

42. “Justice emerges when negotiating without social differentiations” Rawls’s Veil of Ignorance

43. Main Ideas • Fairness fundamental to justice • Egalitarian perspective • Fairness as quantitative in basic cases • Elimination of arbitrary distinction • Emphasizes the morally appropriate action, not the action that benefits the most people

44. Veil of Ignorance • Roles and social differentiations eliminated • Race, class, gender, and other personality features suspended behind the veil • Equality behind the veil intended to protect the weaker party and minimize risks

45. Two Principles 1. Maximal system of equal basic liberty 2. All social goods other than liberty may be distributed unequally only if distribution favors the least advantaged side

46. Ethical Guidelines Based on Love Judeo-Christian Persons as Ends Noddings’ Relational Ethics

47. Judeo Christian Persons as Ends “Love your neighbor as yourself” “What is the Will of Heaven like? The answer is – To love all men everywhere alike”

48. Main Ideas • All moral obligations derived from the command to love God and humankind • Love for neighbor as normative • Regard for others as personal, not legalistic (as with Rawls’s contract) • Humans made in the image of God and with unconditional value apart regardless of circumstances

49. Agape Love • Unselfishness, other-regarding care • Much more than friendship, charity, or benevolence • To love is to accept a person as he or she is with unalterable commitment and permanent loyalty • People are never given instrumental value

50. Advantages • Practical, gives help to those who need it • Avoids discrimination without denying distinctions • Does not presume to assign value to an individual