EN I.3 and the ICE Shooting Deaths

In the discussion of the post below on ICE shooting two more people recently, Thomas Doubting expressed concerns that the media treatment of ICE meant that we can't expect the matter to be handled fairly in the press. That turns out to provide a practical example for the application of Nicomachean Ethics (EN) I.3, which I cited frequently during the discussion of the EN. 

To some degree the United States is transitioning from a high-trust to a low-trust society. Mostly it remains high-trust across its breadth and depth; but in certain cities now everything is locked up to prevent theft, and in politics there is deep distrust between factions. There are many costs to such a transition, and one of them is on display here. People on the right do not trust that ICE will be portrayed or treated fairly, and worry that the protests against it and obstruction of it create additional dangers that may sometimes merit (even lethal) force; people on the left do not trust that ICE will behave morally in any case, suspect it is recruited from bad people to begin with, assume any statements from the Trump administration or any of its subordinate agencies are lies, expect evidence to be hidden (or planted!), etc. 

As a result, the only way to address any of these shootings in a way that might gain broad public support for a proposed change is to conduct a thorough investigation, assemble and evaluate the evidence, and then publish the findings. Responsible people thus always call for this (Senator Collins did so in this case).

However! Because such an assembly, evaluation, etc., takes so very long, people who just want to avoid accountability and carry on misbehaving also call for such investigations. By the time the process can play out, ten or a hundred or a thousand more things will have happened. The public will have forgotten the details, also the urgency, and nothing will end up getting done. Thus, both the responsible and the irresponsible settle upon the same course of action; and the result is that nothing changes. 

The resolution of a problem like this lies in the principles expressed in I.3. 

Our discussion will be adequate if it has as much clearness as the subject-matter admits of, for precision is not to be sought for alike in all discussions... We must be content, then, in speaking of such subjects and with such premisses to indicate the truth roughly and in outline.... it is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits[.]

So too here. When it comes to legal accountability for the shooter, of course the agent is entitled to a full investigation and -- should immunity be suspended -- a fair trial before a jury. In the subject matter of applying criminal law to past actions, that is the appropriate standard.

When it comes to deciding whether we need a safety stand-down to go over lethal force law in detail with ICE agents for a couple of weeks, with practical exercises and considerable reinforcement about the rights and laws protecting the people on the streets, we do not need such an investigation. That subject can be decided on the basis of the probability, inferred from repeated observations of this type, that such lessons would be wisely applied. The subject matter here is a current ethical decision about the best way to proceed given multiple fatal shootings of unarmed civilians by armed agents of the state.

Likewise a reconsideration of how long agents remain in training before they are deployed, armed and immune, on our streets; likewise, a reconsideration of whether immunity is a wise policy in these cases at all. 

The application of criminal law to a particular case is not the same subject as an ethical consideration about whether or not to call for a stand down for further training. A different level of certainty is appropriate to the decision.