law legal

(rich) i don't think they go hand in hand. something can be legal and be ethical, but also be unethical. the fact that people or institutions have a right to do something doesn't imply that they should do it. a legal right is not sufficient to make anact ethically justified. take, for example, the case of snyder versus.phelps. members of the westboro baptist church protestedthe funeral of u.s. marine matthew snyder, who was killed in iraq. church members picketed the funeral, denouncing both the deceased and his father, albert snyder,for raising his child catholic.

snyder sued the church for defamation, invasionof privacy, and emotional distress. westboro baptist claimed that they were invoking theirright to free speech, and had followed all local ordinances forpicketing. now initially, snyder was awarded millionsin damages, but the supreme court eventually overturnedthe case and ruled in favor of westboro baptist on the grounds that free speech is protectedunder the first amendment. in the lone dissenting opinion, supreme courtjustice alito wrote: "in order to have a society in which publicissues can be openly and vigorously debated, it is not necessary to allow the brutalizationof innocent victims."

so when ethics and law conflict, what do wedo? (dana) i personally believe pro-life is theright choice for everyone because i support life. and if i'm somewhere where i shouldn'tbe, protesting, for example, on a planned parenthood or an abortion clinic,i could be infringing on other people's rights or that specific spot i shouldn't be at.but i do support that cause and i think that those people that go there should know ethicallythat's how i think, and that maybe i can change their mind, orhelp them rethink what they're doing. (ramya) obviously, because of religion, there'sa lot of people out there that have very strict beliefsand according to their religion what is right

or what is wrong,and enforcing that on people because of those beliefs is not okay because at the end ofthe day, you are hurting somebody. and while you are exercising your freedom of speech or whatever it may be,you are, um, following the law, but you are not following, i guess, in my mind, like asocietal law, which is respect for everybody that is inthe community along with you. consider also the story published by espn-affiliatedwebsite, grantland, written by caleb hannan. the story describes the invention of a newstyle of putter. the golf club was claimed to be extraordinarilyaccurate because it took advantage of what

the inventor called "the physics of golf." and many experts agreed that it struck the ball in a revolutionary way, helping golfers'accuracy. as hannan investigated the story, he madewhat he considered to be a dramatic discovery: the inventor, dr. v., was a transgender woman. but from the outset, hannan had made an agreement with the inventor to focus the story "on the science, not the scientist." hannan also discovered that dr. v. had madefalse claims about her education and work experience. he reasonably included this information in the story.

readers judge the credibility of a scientist based on academic degrees and previous successes. they had a right to know if this scientist's claims about the physics behind the putter were true or not. as a journalist, hannan's duty was to seekout the truth and provide a fair and comprehensive accountof the story. from hannan's perspective, dr. v's undisclosed gender identity was intertwined with her fabricated academic and career history. in the end, the invention of the putter became a backdrop to his story, which hannan framed around what he saw as dr. v's life of deception. on the other hand, dr. v. had been adamant about maintaining her privacy from the startand did not want the story published.

a few months before publication, dr. v. committedsuicide. both the writer and the website had the legal right to publish what they did.neither hannan nor grantland is legally responsible for dr. v.'s decision to end her life overthe publication. and neither is legally responsible for thepromise broken to dr. v. but having the legal right to do somethingis not the same as fulfilling one's ethical responsibility as a professional.grantland acknowledged the difficulty their editors faced in deciding whether or not topublish the article. and the website has apologized for not consultingwith members of the trans community before

the story was published.the law sets out what people are free to do, regardless of the effect that those actionshave on others. ethics describes what people should do, takingtheir responsibilities and the predictable consequences of their actions into account. (rich) when i was an undergrad i worked at this lab where i was working on a very highly sophisticated study, and then i was also in charge of the data and i realized i had made a mistake with something that how i entered the data. i just missed a lot of information that it was going to take me weeks and weeks to put back together and i was approaching the deadline.

so i had these two sides pulling at me. on one end, i wanted to meet that deadline, regardless of the mistakes that i had made, but at the other end, i wanted to keep the integrity of the data and make sure that everything was as it was meant to be. just because the law allows you to do something, doesn't mean it's the ethical thing to do. and, conversely, you might have an ethical responsibility to do something even though it's not legally required. in most cases it's clear: ethics demands morethan the law. (dana) there are a lot of things that i don'tagree with in the legal system, because of how unethical it may be, for example,just, um, death row! (shaun) choosing to do an air-strike whichis relatively indiscriminate,

you know, as far as the targets are concerned. (madilynn) you know, there are a lot of things that we can see on paper and say"oh! you can legally do that! you can!" but i think when we are looking at that,you know, on paper sense, it distances us from individuals. (jacky) i think, if anything, it's just a matter of like, going with your gut intuition and you findsomething. if you feel that it's not right and actionneeds to be made, if it goes against law, i think if you have sincere intentions, ithink it is okay then.