Quote:
Originally Posted by Gareth Monkton
I was suffering from depression and paranoia prior to receiving anonymous malicious emails which were threatening in naure and became blackmail. I was terrified and thinking irrationally rather than go to the police I decided to appease my blackmailer and meet the demands which involved improving the career progression of junior colleagues.
However the blackmailer was never saisfied so I then decided to carry out surveilance of the person I suspected. I also tried to trap the suspect by me pretending to be another person on facebook and trying to gather evidence by communicating. That was fraudulent and deceitful but I was very unwell ; psychotic, suicidal.
The moral outcome would be to discover and prove the identity of the suspect but the irrational means I used was immoral and I am therefore no better than the original culprit because I resorted to deception. But I was mentally unwell whereas he was not when blackmailing me.
Does the end justify the means ? Or is only a moral method the only way to achieve a moral ending ? What about undercover detectives ?
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To be honest with you, I'm not entirely sure in my own ethical judgment
about this....
One of the lessons we should have learned from Watergate is that the end
cannot justify whatever means you wish to use; then-President Nixon used
means up to and including burglary and willful deception to conceal the
activities of Re-election Candidate Nixon.
Most people would say that step-by-step escalation of a response is
acceptable (aiming at the least severe means to achieve a given end).
In such a case, adopting a second persona and using it to go
"undercover" as part of your investigation could be defensible (a
necessary evil, consistent with the ethical standard of
proportionate
response).
On the other hand, one of the big warning signs that someone has a
psychopathic/sociopathic/anti-social (depending on which edition of the
DSM you prefer) personality is
not showing remorse when you do
something doubtful, objectionable, shady. Knowing that you yourself
are not entirely certain about what you did leaves me feeling relief
that you have some sense of moral standards.