By Bruce Weinstein, Ph.D.
This week’s featured “mover and shaker” in this recurring feature of the column is Emmy-Award winning journalist Catherine Crier, host of “Catherine Crier Live” on Court TV News, Monday - Friday, 5 p.m. ET/PT (courttv.com).
Bruce: If you could summarize the most important guideline you use in conducting yourself professionally and personally, what is it? Where, or from whom, did you learn it?
Catherine: Justice Potter Stewart set out an excellent guideline with the following definition; ethics is “knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is the right thing to do. “ I am certain that my parents were responsible for instilling this belief in me, but of course the indoctrination occurred at such a young age, I cannot recall the specific lessons. However, it certainly set me on a path that led to the law and the bench and a lifelong pursuit of justice in the world. I haven’t changed course a whit, despite my varying job titles. However, I have added a caveat to Potter’s definition. To know the difference is not enough. You must ACT upon such knowledge to lead a truly ethical life. A wonderful Buddhist saying tells us, “He who knows and does not act, never really knows.”
Bruce: What have you observed that was legally permissible but unethical?
Catherine: It is legal to remain silent in the face of injustice in the world. Yet for me, such omission is a moral sin. To read great religious or spiritual teachings and fail to perform accordingly leaves out the critical element in a value-driven life. To witness unethical conduct, although clearly removed from the behavior, makes one complicit in my opinion. Such acts of omission are rampant in our society. We moan about problems; we readily wag our fingers at transgressors, but rarely do we determine to make an effort to change the circumstances that produce such problems. This is nothing new. Mark Twain found it curious that “physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare.”
People do not have to take on the great struggles of our time to simply ‘add their light to the sum of light’. Small acts can ripple across a community, the country or the world with amazing speed, producing enormous change. To paraphrase Margaret Mead, never think a small group of people cannot change the world. That is the only way such change occurs.
Bruce: Why should we be ethical?
Catherine: Ethical conduct is much more than ‘the right thing to do’. It is empirically the best practice in any setting. When integrity, values and morality guide decision-making, trust is instilled, cooperation is achieved and honesty is encouraged. We are all rewarded from such individual behavior. Unethical conduct is invariably a MacBethian bargain. The Karmic repercussions may seem hidden, but they are there, and the psychic destruction of one’s soul, irreparable by money, success or fame, can be the greatest punishment of all.
Bruce Weinstein, Ph.D. received a B.A. in philosophy from Swarthmore College, a Ph.D. in philosophy and bioethics from Georgetown University, and a certificate in film production from New York University. He has appeared as an ethics analyst on NBC's "Today Show," ABC's "Good Morning America," CNN's “Anderson Cooper 360,” the Fox News Channel's "O'Reilly Factor," and many other national television news programs.
Sadly, unethical behavior from our leaders in virtually every field of endeavor seems rampant these days. From the classroom to the boardroom, from the halls of Congress to the West Wing, shady, even illegal conduct has become commonplace. Teachers help students cheat on exams or rig scores to meet government requirements for their districts. Scientists falsify lab reports or bury findings to bolster the desired research results. The Catholic Church, all the way to the Vatican, works to conceal the felonious conduct of its parish priests. CEOs fix their bottom line while skimming money to support their extravagant lifestyles. Journalists make up quotes while commentators take money to pitch White House policies. Members of Congress take payoffs from lobbyists to push damaging programs or deliver outrageous subsidies to the detriment of their constituents and country. The executive branch, cloaked in secrecy, lies to the American people to bolster support for international forays while driving the nation deeper into debt, catering to the big money interests that put it in power. Just where are young people to turn for moral example in such a world?
While you really cannot legislate ethics, you can insist on such behavior in a manner that will produce results. It does require a ‘top-down’ approach. The leaders, be they parents, teachers, politicians or corporate chiefs, must set the example for others to follow. They must demonstrate that while short-term gain may occur through unethical, even illegal conduct, long term success comes with obedience to moral, ethical behavior. Operating within a value-driven environment, people learn to trust their associates. They learn the art of teamwork. All boats are lifted, rather than the limited success that occurs when rogue individuals (or companies, schools, etc.) simply take for themselves. Everyone wins in such an environment, including those who seek only self-gratification.
As a lawyer, judge and journalist, I have confronted countless ethical challenges. Such events are not always a choice between acting one way or another. Sometimes the failure to act — behavior by omission — can qualify as an ethical dilemma. When you see wrongdoing and keep silent, that can present the greatest ethical quandary of all. As to the first, making a choice between one path or another, I have not had much difficulty in charting my course. I am lucky, or cursed, to have a healthy dose of puritan guilt. My decisions always weight heavily on my overactive conscience, so I try to choose right the first time. However, to decide to speak out, to act, when most would not notice or criticize my safer silence, is the greater challenge. In the world of journalism today, keeping one’s opinions to oneself is usually applauded. Just the facts, ma’am. Presenting voices from the left and right is deemed balanced reporting even when the author knows that this does not deliver ‘the truth’ to readers or listeners. Yet, to hide behind seeming objectivity can be cowardly at times. When I wrote my first book, The Case Against Lawyers, I decided to pull out the stops and tell ‘my’ truth, bolstered by the facts as I tried to divine them. I was prepared to make enemies and shatter the illusion of objectivity in the process. I have never been happier since stepping from behind that protective curtain and entering the fray.
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