Justin Chen
Intro to Ethics
TA: Jake Boswell
10/8/00

Paper 1: Topic B

The fundamental conflict at the heart of this situation is that between justice, some sort of external desire that good behavior be rewarded and bad punished, and certain sects of utilitarianism that believe the ethically correct course of action will lead to the greatest good for the greatest number of people. All considerations of the future results of your actions aside, however, the only defensible position that can be adopted is to acquit the four police officers because—to the best of your knowledge—they are innocent of the crime for which they are on trial. The situation may be complicated by considerations of certain utilitarian viewpoints, but in this paper I will argue that in the end, a vote for acquittal is the much stronger and ethically sounder decision.

To do this, I will first consider why acquitting the police officers is the ethically correct course of action, assuming that the results of acquittal are irrelevant. Next, I will discuss the idea of justice as an innate concept of right and wrong, and how it relates to cases such as this one in which possible outcomes could negatively influence what is supposed to be an impartial decision. Third, I will discuss the major objection to acquittal that would be posed by some utilitarians, that is, the view that convicting the officers would result in a greater overall level of good. Finally, I will attempt to counter these objections and propose that there also exist certain utilitarian arguments that actually support the decision to acquit, specifically the notion that it is inherently valuable for a society to uphold justice as a means toward greater overall happiness. <

First of all, when considering the situation from a strictly judicially objective viewpoint, we must exclude the possibilities of riots or other future lawlessness, and work only with the facts of the case. The defense has succeeded in convincing you that the police did not in fact break the law. It does not matter that the defense is unable to convince the majority of the public of the officers� innocence, nor does it make a difference that the evidence is subtle and perhaps difficult for others to grasp. The only judicially relevant fact is that you believe that the police officers are innocent.

This argument alone is enough for some people to justify acquittal. As I stated earlier, there exists some idea of justice as an innate concept of right and wrong. John Stuart Mill argues in his treatise Utilitarianism, �It would always give us pleasure, and chime in with our feelings of fitness, that acts which we deem unjust should be punished,� and, �We should be glad to see just conduct enforced and injustice repressed� (47). There are two concepts described by these assertions. First, Mill makes reference to some sort of implicit desire within humans to see unjust actions punished. Whether this feeling arose as an evolutionary instinct to defend those whom the less just people in society might otherwise mistreat, or whether it is an essential impulse implanted in us by God is a distinction beyond the scope of this paper. The point is that we all possess this natural proclivity toward seeing �justice� served.

Second, Mill implies that it is not enough for bad actions to be punished; rather, we also obtain some sort of instinctual pleasure from seeing �just conduct enforced�—that is, along with punishment for bad deeds, we desire to see rewards for good deeds. Given the point I made earlier, that you personally are convinced that the police officers are innocent of the crimes for which they stand accused, it would therefore be the opposite of justice to convict them. Not only are there no bad actions to punish, but the officers will actually be penalized for the (to all appearances) good actions that they committed in trying to enforce the law. This last point violates Mill�s definition of justice as encouragement for just conduct. In sum, with no knowledge of future events, our understanding of the facts of the case in conjunction with some sort of inherent desire for justice must necessarily lead us to conclude that the officers should be acquitted.

Complications arise only when we start to consider the implications of acquittal. Because you have good reason to believe that release of the police officers could lead to violent riots and even fatalities, certain utilitarians might argue that such undesirable outcomes could, and indeed ought to, be avoided simply by convicting the officers. This, the welfarist must admit, would indeed produce unhappiness for the police officers erroneously convicted of wrongdoing. Yet when considering the overall good or happiness produced by the action of acquittal, a utilitarian could also insist that averting violent riots and any deaths that might result, and consequently the unhappiness that would stem from those deaths, is ethically the soundest course of action.

As a sidebar, it is important to note that the question involved here is not whether the riots will even occur. If it were, we would be trapped in the philosopher�s conundrum of determining how far into the future it is appropriate to extrapolate when deciding on a course of action, and whether one is responsible for everything that could result from one�s actions. Obviously, it is impossible to �weigh� potential outcomes quantitatively; after all, who is to say that the deaths that may result from a riot are any more tragic than the grief that will definitely be inflicted upon the convicted police officers? This would ordinarily be a strong objection to a strictly utilitarian analysis of a situation, but in this case, the premise is that you yourself fear that �several innocent lives will be lost� in the riots. Thus, the notion that those lives might not be lost after all is not a relevant objection to the utilitarian argument.

Instead, what we have to deal with is whether it is valid to suppress the notions of justice discussed earlier in this paper, and promote overall happiness instead. A strict welfarist might well argue that justice is only a guideline that people follow because it usually results in the greatest overall good, but that in certain cases, such as this one, greater good can and should be achieved by disregarding the notion of justice.

This is indeed an important objection because there are cases in which the breaking of certain rules does produce a greater good. For example, a situation could conceivably exist such that breaking a promise resulted in the saving of hundreds of lives. For the purposes of this illustration we must assume that breaking the promise would have no negative repercussions, because once again it is beyond the scope of this paper to surmise that one of the hundreds of people you save could turn out to be a mass murderer. Rather, we must assume that saving a life is valuable for its own sake. Thus, it would be difficult to argue that it is unethical to break the promise simply because in general, it is bad to break promises. In this case, then, the good that can be produced by disobeying an empirical rule far outweighs the importance of obeying it simply because it exists.

I would maintain, however, that despite these arguments, it is still ethically correct to vote to acquit the police officers. First of all, an important distinction between justice and most empirical �rules� must be made. Whereas no one has the �right� to make anyone else keep promises, inasmuch as a promise is a private contract between two or more people, I would maintain that people do have the right to be dealt with justly, and that this right must be protected by society. As I have argued previously, the concept of justice is fundamental to our very nature as human beings. This is not to say that everyone is dealt with justly; on the contrary, it is only in the most advanced societies that safeguards to people�s rights to justice have been implemented. The point is that as a juror in the American judicial system, it is up to you to defend the police officers� right to justice.

Furthermore, as a juror in this case, it is your duty to uphold the law, not necessarily to please the public. Basing a ruling in court on how certain groups might react is in essence a capitulation to pressure from an extreme faction. A situation in which justice bows to the whim of a violent minority is unacceptable, and would only result in the encouragement of violence as a means of influencing supposedly impartial decisions. Any deaths that result from the riots should not be attributed to the court ruling that provoked them, but rather to the rioters themselves.

Even a utilitarian like Mill who ordinarily would support the morality of choosing a course of action based on the consequences, also believes that it can be more important to uphold justice than to produce the greatest happiness. He states in Utilitarianism that a person who feels his �sentiment of justice outraged� is �asserting a rule which is for the benefit of others as well as for his own� (51). That is, Mill classifies justice as a sort of universal concept that is not limited to selfish cases. Thus, not only must we be concerned with justice as it pertains to how we are treated by others, but we must also view justice as important for all of humanity. Furthermore, Mill states that �justice is a name for certain moral requirements which, regarded collectively, stand higher in the scale of social utility, and are therefore of more paramount obligation, than any others� (62). Mill�s statements seem to point to the idea that justice is somehow, even in the utilitarian scheme, a more important concept in the overall good than any other.

In summary, the ethically sound decision in this case is to acquit the four innocent police officers. All considerations of the future aside, the ethically correct vote is the one that you truly believe upholds the law. Certain utilitarians could argue that greater happiness could result from violating the police officers� right to justice and preventing riots and perhaps deaths, but this position is untenable given the negative implications of justice submitting to fear of a violent minority. As a juror in the case, you must uphold the inviolate justice that, according to Mill, represents an exception in the utilitarian scheme. Or in the words of a certain contemporary defense attorney, �If the glove don�t fit, you must acquit.� (Quote attributed to Johnny Cochrane, OJ Simpson trial, c. 1996—no plagiarism!)