Originally Posted by
Themius
I'm not setting any rules though.. frankly this discussion I'm having is about the ethics. That's it really, and ethics goes beyond the specified profession which is just logical.
A lawyer can mount a defence against someone suing for asbestos injuries and it may be found because they smoked twice in their lives they either get no or a low settlement. The job of the lawyer was to defend their client, but was it ethical? Does society consider the reduction of recompense for crimes due to often subjective arguments or misleading arguments ethical? Of course not.
Lawyers often act in legal but unethical ways in the worldview. It is clear to know what society thinks just by all the jokes about lawyers in this country that are essentially known by all through osmosis. So it can be argued that indeed society sees an issue with lawyers, there's something that makes them feel that they skirt around ethical norms we have come to expect.
Not all... but there are major sectors of law that precisely fit "entirely legal defence as was my duty and entirely unethical as decided by society"
Is it ethical to fight and defend a corporation in the specific issue when they intend to privatise another country's natural resources with the express goal to exploit them, often making them far worse of? Society doesn't consider exploitation as ethical so to facilitate exploitation knowingly is also unethical. Now lawyer professional ethics says that the lawyer must fight for this but... is it ethical if you apply this idea to all professions?
Do all agents of all companies who fight for what is best in their particular company now ethical when they decide to dump chemical waste in order to boost profits and shareholder value? Of course not and we know this.
If you consider the important stakeholders here we have Cosby, all his victims, and a broad one (which you usually may not do) societal trust in the law.
Consider how something like this affects each group and it is easy to see how this can be unethical. The conundrum is that the lawyer should mount their best defence, but that opens us up to simply saying all agents who work on behalf of others need not concern themselves with wider societal ethics