Apples, Bushels, Crops, and Farmers: Ethical Transformation in Forensic Chemistry
My presentation at the Spring American Chemical Society Conference
I don’t want someone shoving his views down my throat, unless they’re covered in a crunchy candy shell.
--Stephen Colbert
Abstract
Ethical dilemmas confronting forensic chemists are far reaching and prevalent in today’s criminal justice system1. Inherent within the criminal justice system is the power to make discretionary decisions that impacts the offenders, victims, society, as well as the forensic professional. Individuals are not completely free in their selection of values and behavior. They are at the mercy of the traditions in which they are brought up, that is, culture; this includes workplace cultures. Ethical behavior is not acquired naturally: It must be learned or taught. Learning about proper behavior only through personal experience is inefficient and painful for the learner and others. Learning how to make ethical decisions is necessary in order to avoid the pain of unethical conduct, especially in professional situations. Because of the outsized effects they can have on society and individuals, forensic chemists must be aware of their ethical responsibilities.2
Ethical dilemmas confronting forensic chemists are far reaching and prevalent in today’s criminal justice system. Inherent within the criminal justice system is the power to make discretionary decisions that impacts the offenders, victims, society, as well as the forensic chemist.
Because of the out-sized effects they can have on society and individuals, forensic chemists must be aware of their ethical responsibilities. Individuals are not completely free in their selection of values and behavior; Upbringing and Workplace culture create the foundation and environment of ethical behavior.
“It’s not enough to give somebody a code of ethics and expect them to know instantly what it means.”
--Kabrena Rodda, PNNL, US
Ethical behavior is not acquired naturally: It must be learned or taught. Learning about proper behavior only through personal experience is inefficient and painful for the learner and others. Learning how to make ethical decisions is necessary in order to avoid the pain of unethical conduct, especially in professional situations. Training about ethics makes the transition and their adoption easier.
Etiquette and manners are precursors to morals:
Etiquette tells how people should interact with others in social relations
Manners express ethical obligations toward others in behavior.
Morals are good conduct; they constitute permissible behavior, the rules that prescribe proper action, and the principles of right and wrong. Ethics is the discipline and study of morality, that is, the study and analysis of what constitutes good conduct.
But what about laws?
Moral behavior requires more than the law requires: A law may not exist for a particular ethical situation. Laws reflect and reinforce the morals and ethics of a community but do not create them. Laws provide only the baseline or boundaries of civil behavior. Therefore, a person of good character is one who engages consistently in moral conduct, regardless of what the law demands.
Values are judgments of worth of attitudes, statements, and behaviors. Value judgments express whether something is “good” or “bad”. A statement of preference (“I like pizza with anchovies”) is a statement about the speaker, not the thing; you are stating your likes or dislikes, not the value of something.
Facts are true statements. Factual judgments can be verified based on facts. They can be verified empirically through observations.
Humans have a hard time with Is vs. Ought. A statement of preference (“I like pizza with anchovies”) is a statement about the speaker’s values, not the thing; the person is stating their likes or dislikes, not the factual value of something.
Moral relativism and tolerance
Moral relativism attempts to justify the way people behave, rather than focusing on how people ought to behave, which is the real subject matter of ethics.
But moral relativism has an unappealing consequence: if all value judgments are subjective, then it is possible to justify any action, including the worst one can imagine.
Moral relativism is the belief that morals can be different, but none are better than another (aka, situational ethics).
Sometimes relativism is confused with tolerance. Tolerance accepts that there are moral principles, but people should not have the views of others imposed on them. Relativism sees nothing wrong with imposing views on others because there are no general principles (so nothing can be wrong). This can lead to “I was just following orders.”
Protocols are like laws
If laws are the minimum requirement…and protocols and regulations are law-like, then they are the minimum requirement for ethical actions. Like accreditation, they are literally the least you need to do. If you claim, “I was just following protocols,” then you probably don’t have a solid ethical position for your argument. Ethics exceed protocols.
Examples of lapses in forensic ethics
Misrepresentation of education and credentials
Dishonest or falsified laboratory analysis
Incompetence
Interpretation that exceeds the data or is misleading
Testimony
Influenced by non-scientific considerations
An expert witness is sworn to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” But what does “the whole truth” include? In case the whole truth includes all the possible alternatives for a given situation, what should a forensic expert witness do when an important question is not asked by the prosecutor? Does the obligation to tell the whole truth mean that all possible, all probable, or only the most probable alternatives must be given in response to a question?
What to do?
Drive out the fear of retribution for calling out bad behavior.
Train employees to recognize the severity of outcomes from misconduct.
Develop and enforce a code of conduct that clearly states what constitutes acceptable and inappropriate behavior.
Have regular discussions about ethics; Make the community aware of what good behavior is to elicit better behavior from others.
Ethics References for Chemists
National Commission on Forensic Science: National Code of Ethics and Professional Responsibility for the Forensic Sciences
Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons: The Hague Ethical Guidelines
Royal Society of Chemistry, Guide to Ethics
Global Chemists’ Code of Ethics (GCCE) (Training)
Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.
Potter Stewart
The reference to apples, bushels, crops, and farmers was discussed verbally in the preamble to my talk. It references the idea in fraud investigations of bad apples (individual actors), bad bushels (a group of actors, like law enforcement gangs), or a bad crop (an entire organization; think Enron or Theranos). The “farmers” reference comes from my friend and colleague Dean Gialamas, who added that a bad manager (“farmer”) could also create or allow a toxic environment. One could argue that all bad actors are allowed or abetted by their organization to act badly, but that’s for another post.