If It's Legal, It's Ethical…Right?

The recent case of a TV crew allowing a woman to drive while drunk reminds us, when the law falls short, refer to the higher authority of ethics

by Bruce Weinstein, PhD

Imagine that you are producing a reality TV series about alcoholism. You like the cinéma vérité approach (otherwise known as the "fly on the wall" school of filmmaking), so you have your crew follow the routine of a woman, Pam, who is struggling with this disease. At one point, Pam decides to go for a drive. Before leaving the house, Pam takes a swig of vodka. She is in no position to get behind the wheel, so you ask her if she would like for someone in the crew to assist her.

She mumbles, "No, I can drive," and heads out to her Pontiac Sunbird. Fearing that the woman could be a danger to herself and others, you prevent her from getting into her car and turning it into a killing machine, right? Wrong. You let her drive off.

WHAT?

Well, according to an article in the Oct. 8 issue of The New York Times (NYT), this is actually how a member of the team responsible for the A&E program, Intervention, responded to the situation. As disturbing as the choice to do nothing is, The Times notes that "legally, producers are treated like witnesses: They bear no responsibility to intervene." Consider the following statement from Michael J. O'Connor, an attorney who has represented reality shows such as Survivor and America's Next Top Model, as quoted in The Times:

"Television producers are not policemen. On a moral level, you get to the point where stepping in seems like it would be something you'd want to do. But from a legal standpoint, third parties causing injuries to other third parties is not something a television program is really responsible for."

O'Connor' statement raises three meaningful questions that apply not just to the world of TV but to the world at large:

•Are our responsibilities limited to what the law requires of us?

•If we are legally allowed to do something, does that mean we ought to?

•If there is no relevant law to speak of with respect to a "What should I do?" problem we're facing, does that mean that anything goes?

The answers to these questions are: No. No. No.

Ethics vs. the Law

Imagine that you are at the end of your life and you are looking back on all you did and didn't do over the years. Imagine also that your life was dedicated primarily to satisfying your own needs and desires. When faced with the question, "What should I do?," you inevitably chose the solution that benefited you in some way, no matter how this choice affected others. How would you evaluate a life lived in this fashion?

Even if it was the case that you never broke any laws, you cannot say that you lived your best life, because life should not be solely about "me, myself, and I." To be fully human and be a part of civilized society means to go beyond what the law demands of us. It means to live according to ethical rules and principles, many of which ask more of us than the law does. The answer to "What should I do?" should therefore not be, "What can I get away with legally?" but "What does ethics ask or even require of me?"

There are other differences between ethics and the law. Laws change over time. Laws vary from state to state. Most significantly, political and economic interests, and not the interests of the people, often determine which laws get passed and what is in those laws. Ethical standards, however, transcend time, place, and the whims of politics.

Forms of Punishment

For example, when you encounter an inebriated person who is about to go for a drive, you may not legally be required to get involved, but ethically you are, even if you are a producer of reality TV shows. It is no defense to say, as Intervention Executive Producer Sam Mettler does in The Times article, that "this is their life with me or without me." As soon as you show up with a camera, you are ethically implicated in the choices your subject makes.