Other law enforcement officials who have received ethics training through Hopkins described it as largely classroom-based — and intense. The classes begin with a foundation in ethics, including a primer on Aristotle, then move on to modern applications of those ancient lessons.
Johns Hopkins University is teaching Secret Service guys not to fuck prostitutes.
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UD thanks David.
May 3rd, 2012 at 2:11PM
But wouldn’t Aristotle teach them to fuck prostitutes in moderation? Not messing with prostitutes at all would see more Augustinian to me.
May 3rd, 2012 at 3:27PM
Dave: LOL.
May 3rd, 2012 at 5:15PM
Or the early Augustine, of course – Lord, help me not fuck prostitutes…on the next Presidential Excursion.
May 3rd, 2012 at 6:29PM
You’re not much of a CS Lewis fan, UD, if I remember right, but the Secret Service ethics class reminds me of this:
“No justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous. Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism. I had sooner play cards against a man who was quite skeptical about ethics, but bred to believe that ‘a gentleman does not cheat’, than against an irreproachable moral philosopher who had been brought up among sharpers.”
May 3rd, 2012 at 6:45PM
david: That quotation makes me more of a Lewis fan than I’ve ever been. It’s wonderful, and it gets so beautifully and clearly at the joke of ethics training.
May 3rd, 2012 at 11:25PM
Officers are trained to lie to civilians as a matter of course. This is how police-work is done.
Additionally officers commit – and get away with – perjury routinely, every day the courts are in session and in every jurisdiction.
There can be no ‘ethical’ policing under the prevailing conditions.