[Professor Deni Elliot] 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 an act ethically justified.
Take, for example, the case of Snyder versus Phelps.
Members of the Westboro Baptist Church protested the 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, invasion of privacy, and emotional distress.
Westboro Baptist claimed that they were invoking their right to free speech, and had followed
all local ordinances for picketing.
Now initially, Snyder was awarded millions in damages, but the Supreme Court eventually
overturned the case and ruled in favor of Westboro Baptist on the grounds that free
speech is protected under the First Amendment.
In the lone dissenting opinion, Supreme Court Justice Alito wrote: "In order to have a society
in which public issues can be openly and vigorously debated, it is not necessary to allow the
brutalization of innocent victims."
So, when ethics and law conflict, what do we do?
[Dana] I personally believe pro-life is the right choice for everyone because I support life.
And if I'm somewhere where I shouldn't be, protesting, for example, on a planned parenthood
or an abortion clinic, people that go there should know ethically that's how I think,
and that maybe I can change their mind, or help them rethink what they're doing.
[Ramya] 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 a societal law,
which is respect for everybody that is in the community along with you.
Consider also the story published by ESPN-affiliated website, Grantland.
Written by Caleb Hannan, the story describes the invention of a new style of putter.
The golf club was claimed to be extraordinarily accurate 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 made what he considered to be a dramatic discovery:
the inventor, Dr. V., was a transgender woman.
Hannan also discovered that Dr. V. had made false 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 seek out the truth and provide a fair and comprehensive
account of 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 start
and did not want the story published.
A few months before publication, Dr. V. committed suicide.
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 over
the publication.
But having the legal right to do something is not the same as fulfilling one's ethical
responsibility as a professional.
[Rich] Something can be legal and be ethical, but also be unethical.
Grantland acknowledged the difficulty their editors faced in deciding whether or not to
publish the article.
And the website has apologized for not consulting with members of the trans community before
the story was published.
Just because the law allows you to do something doesn't mean it's the ethical thing to do.
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.
The law sets out what people are free to do, regardless of the effect that those actions
have on others.
Ethics describes what people should do, taking their responsibilities and the predictable
consequences of their actions into account.
In most cases, it's clear: ethics demands more than the law.
[Dana] There are a lot of things I don't agree 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, which is 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’re looking at that, you know, on paper sense, it distances us
from individuals.