Confidential Confession

The law, medicine, and theology trilogy uniting these Essays, addressing the ethical response to information a professional gains in confidence about a wrongful conviction and an impending execution, raises an overarching question: How does the role of a professional affect our ethical duties as members of society? Likely, few would seriously argue that if the same disclosure about an impending wrongful execution were made to a friend wearing no professional garb that we would find an ethical duty to prevent the friend from disclosing a confidence, rather than an ethical duty compelling the friend to come forward to avoid the wrongful execution. Does the role of a professional displace personal moral standards? Implicit in the problem is the assumption that professionals should act differently. Attempts to articulate a profession's sense of its unique ethical responsibilities are contained, in part, in its ethical code. Psychiatric ethics draw from the field of medical ethics...