Chapter 1

Define a public servant and why public servants should be especially sensitive to ethical issues.

A public servant is paid by the public these jobs can include legislators, public official, police officers, judges and prosecutors. These jobs have taken on special duties involving the public trust and are held higher standard then others.

Superogatories

Actions that are commendable but not requited in order for a person to be considered moral.

professional ethics

An even more specific type of applied ethics relating to the behavior of certain professions or group.

Normative ethcis

Determines what people ought to do and defines moral duties based on ethical systems or other means of analysis.

Ethical issues

Difficult social questions that include controversy over the "right" thing to do.

Duties

Required behavior or actions, i.e., The responsibilities that are attached to a specific role.

Ethical dilemmas

Situation in which it is difficult to make a decision, either because the right course of action is not clear or the right course of action carries some negative consequences

Explain why the study of ethics is important for criminal justice professionals.

We study ethics because criminal justice is uniquely involved coercion, which means there are many are varied opportunities to abuse such as power. Almost all criminal justice professional are public servants and, thus, owe special duties to the public they serve. we study ethics to sensitize students to ethical issues and provide tool to help identify and resolve the ethical dilemmas they may face in their professional lives.

What are the steps in analyzing an ethical dilemma?

1. Identify the facts. 2. Identify relevant values and concepts. 3. Identify all possible moral dilemmas for each party involved. 4. Decide what is the most immediate moral or ethical issue facing the individual. 5. Resolve the ethical or moral dilemma by using an ethical system or some other means of decision making.

Discuss Felkenes's reasons for why it is important for criminal justice professional to study ethics.

1. Professionals are recognized as such in part because "profession" normally includes a set of ethical requirements as part of it meaning. Professionalism among all actors at all levels of the criminal justice system depends upon their ability to administer policy effectively in a moral and ethically responsible manner. 2. Training in ethics helps to develop critical thinking and analytical skills and reasoning abilities needed to understand the pragmatic and theoretical aspects of the criminal justice system. 3. Criminal justice professionals should be able to recognize quickly the ethical consequences of various actions and the moral principles involved. 4. Ethical considerations are central to decisions involving discretion, force, and due process which require people to make enlightened moral judgments. 5. Ethics is germane to most management and policy decisions concerning such penal issues as rehabilitation, deterrence, and just deserts. 6. Ethical considerations are essential aspects of criminal justice research.

Describe what behaviors might be subject to moral/ethical judgments.

Behaviors that can be adjudged under moral criteria are those that are acts committed by humans of free will, and that affect others.

Explain the difference between ethical issues and ethical dilemmas.

Ethical issues are broad social or policy questions, while ethical dilemmas are situations in which one person must make a decision that can be judged as right or wrong, and where what is right is difficult to decide or is hard to do for some other reason.

Wholesight

Exploring issues with one's heart as well as one's mind.

Values

Judgments of desirability, worth, or importance.

What are the four elements that specify the types of behaviors that are judged under ethical criteria? Which groups traditionally have been exempt from legal and moral culpability? Why?

Meta-ethics, normative ethics, applied ethics and professional ethics. Professional ethics is traditionally been exempt from legal and moral culpability because they can be fairly inclusive and enter into what we might consider the private life of the individual.

Imperfect duties

Moral duties that are not fully explicated or detailed.

Morals

Principles of right and wrong.

Applied ethics

The application of ethical principles to specific issues.

Discretion

The authority to make a decision between two or more choices.

Ethics

The discipline of determining good and evil and defining moral duties.

Meta-ethics

The discipline that investigates the meaning of ethical systems and whether they are relative or are universal, and self-constructed or are independent of human creation.