John Kleinig

This book is the most systematic, comprehensive and philosophically sophisticated discussion of police ethics yet published. It offers an in-depth analysis of the ethical values that police, as servants of the community, should uphold as they go about their task. The book considers the foundations and purpose of police authority in broad terms but also tackles specific problems such as accountability, the use of force, deceptive stratagems used to gain information or trap the criminally intentioned, corruption, and the tension between personal values and communal concerns. Offering the fullest, most rigorous and up-to-date treatment of police ethics currently available, this book will be a perfect textbook in courses on applied ethics in philosophy departments or police and criminal justice ethics in departments of criminology and law schools.

Although law enforcement codes have a history that parallels most other recent occupational and professional codes, they have been almost completely ignored in the literature of occupational and professional ethics. This volume fills that gap and offers teachers in criminal justice ethics and law enforcement practitioners a rich selection of materials that have emerged in the course of law enforcement professionalization. The book's historical and international orientation reveals something of the development and variety of code formation. A detailed introduction covers the role of codes in professional life as well as the purposes, problems, and value of ethical codes. The substantial bibliography offers students and scholars of professional ethics a unique resource for further research.

Superficial acquaintance with the literature on punishment leaves a fairly definite impression. There are two approaches to punishment - retributive and utilitarian - and while some attempts may be made to reconcile them, it is the former rather than the latter which requires the reconciliation. Taken by itself the retributive approach is primitive and unenlightened, falling short of the rational civilized humanitarian values which we have now acquired. Certainly this is the dominant impression left by 'popular' discussions of the subject. And retributive vs. utilitarian seems to be the mould in which most philosophical dis­ cussions are cast. The issues are far more complex than this. Punishment may be con­ sidered in a great variety of contexts - legal, educational, parental, theological, informal, etc. - and in each of these contexts several im­ portant moral questions arise. Approaches which see only a simple choice between retributivism and utilitarianism tend to obscure this variety and plurality. But even more seriously, the distinction between retributivism and utilitarianism is far from clear. That it reflects the traditional distinction between deontological and teleological ap­ proaches to ethics serves to transfer rather than to resolve the un­ clarity. Usually it is said that retributive approaches seek to justify acts by reference to features which are intrinsic to them, whereas utilitarian approaches appeal to the consequences of such acts. This, however, makes assumptions about the individuation of acts which are difficult to justify.