Should Bernie Madoff Have Been Awaiting Trial in Prison or at Home, Article Review Example

Formative ethics is a comparatively old science – this fact is predetermined by eternal speculations of the mankind on the subject of what is good and what is right in human actions, attitudes and behavior. It has turned out so that people are naturally exposed to committing different actions according to the scale of morality. They act differently because they are biased and are guided by personal considerations. Something that is good for some individuals is bad for others – it is hard to pursue one’s self-interests that are at times egoistic without impairing the interests of others.

There are some rare cases when people achieve success, wealth and recognition by being laborious, by pure individual effort. The distribution of resources in the world is cruel because of their being limited and scarce, so one can get an extra portion thereof only in case other individuals will not get something they are entitled to. For this reason it is often hard to distinguish moral and immoral actions – when many people are involved, some of them are content and others are not, thus creating multiple challenges to ethical dilemmas.

A similar situation can be observed with the infamous Bernard Madoff – a criminal who arranged numerous financial crimes and defrauded thousands of investors in the USA (Quinn 1). This personality raises much attention from the press and common public wishing to return their money; this is why the legal prosecution of this person is widely discussed nowadays. The current issue causing much dispute among various groups of people is whether Bernie should have been allowed to leave the jail on the huge bail and stay under home arrest, or whether he should await the trial in prison. There are followers of different opinions in this respect, so it is really relevant to consider these points of view from the point of view of formative ethics, as it will reveal much information that a biased person is simply unable to detect.

It is certainly possible to suppose that offended investors who were defrauded by Madoff are willing to see him in jail and not to allow him to stay at home. The additional reason causing outrage of the common public (and at times not that common one – it is enough to recollect that some investors who lost their money because of Madoff are American celebrities) is the fact that Madoff is leading a more than normal way of life, which was shown by his actions on Christmas when he did not limit himself much and sent generous presents to his family and friends. The total sum of the presents he afforded equals several millions, which is totally unacceptable from the point of view of law as well as ethics of an imprisoned person being in the process of a legal prosecution (Quinn 1).

Judging about the situation in general it is possible to conclude that Bernard Madoff is behaving in a totally illegal way and his actions should be limited. But since normative ethics has a plenty of subdivisions as it evolved in the course of time, and there are several directions of thought that one should follow to produce a comprehensive judgment about the situation. The situation appears totally immoral from the point of view of Cant’s Categorical Imperative, which speaks about certain inviolable moral laws that cannot be interpreted in any way but are a must for everyone living in this world. One of these laws says that one cannot steal from another one, and fraud is severely punished. In addition, if one takes into consideration the scale of Madoff’s crime and the number of people who he managed to defraud, it will appear reasonable to demand his staying in jail. One more inviolable law is that a criminal should be kept in prison, which is unfortunately not kept to nowadays.

Another angle of normative ethics from which a person can look at the situation is contractarianism –this branch of normative ethics says that an action of a person may be considered ethical and moral is it is considered as such by all unbiased, objective people. However, it is highly impossible to suppose that some unbiased people will consider it normal that a person who is accused of such a serious crime stays at home and sends so expensive presents to his relatives – it is even necessary to find out where he takes funds for such presents as it may well be the money of investors that is due to be returned to them, but not presented in haste to members of his family.

This situation appears absolutely immoral, but on reading the justification given by official law enforcement authorities it will be possible to understand that the judgment about immorality of the action is still biased – even if people judge not from the point of view of investors, they still put themselves on the place of those defrauded, and not wishing to appear in such a situation, judge the action from the point of view of those defrauded. The official opinion about the propriety of bail is as follows:

“Even for the most serious offense, more than half of all defendants are released on bail conditions, including 51 percent for violent offenses, 57 percent for property offenses and 73 percent for fraud” (Judge Allows Madoff to Remain Free on Bail 1).

Hence, it is possible to accept this point of view as the most unbiased one since it is dictated by the federal law. Still, it is arguable whether Madoff should be allowed to use his personal funds before their origin is found out and the money is returned to those who appeared victims of Madoff’s machinations.

However, one should not forget about some other trends in normative ethics such as, for example, natural rights, consequentialist libertarianism or situation ethics (the last two belong to the larger trend of consequentialism) that dictate relativity of ethics and its situational application. Surely, it is possible to accept their credibility to a certain extent, but here comes the question – from whose point of view should one judge the situation? Madoff and people of his circle will gladly justify his actions explaining them by the fact that since his guilt is not fully proven he has the right to live his normal life, and presenting expensive jewelry is an ordinary action in their society.

People who are waiting for the trial to return their money will object to this fact and will protect the point that since Madoff is a suspect he should still be limited in actions until the court finally finds him guilty or innocent. Until then he should be restricted to spending money on something really vital, such as food or clothing, as compared to the conditions that he would have in jail if he stayed there.

Finally, from the point of view of consequentialist libertarianism that assumes ethics should maximize human liberty the situation appears totally moral – Madoff, while still being free, decided to make his friends and relatives happy. Knowing that he may be put to jail soon, he made a decision to spend his money rationally before it is taken by the government and to make his family happy. Why should he be restricted to decide what to do with his property? Maybe his accounts are frozen and all transactions are forbidden; but still, he can present something tangible that he has; and he decided to make such generous final presents because of his fault he felt due to his illegal actions or for some other reasons. Therefore, his deeds can be justified from that point of view.

Drawing up a conclusion, it is hard to say whether the decision to leave Madoff free on bail is ethical or not. From the point of view of rational, unbiased law everything is absolutely legal and ethical, but this fact can hardly be explained to thousands of defrauded people who lost their money because of Madoff and now have nothing more to do but to watch how the criminal spends their money on presents for his family. This situation should be solved in the way that appears the most acceptable for the majority of participants of the case. Maybe Madoff is entitled to bail, so let him enjoy the home arrest. But presents that he sent to his relatives should certainly be taken back by the police until guilt or innocence of the defendant is fully proven.

Works Cited

“Judge Allows Madoff to Remain Free on Bail”. Associated Press. 12 Jan. 2009: 10 Jan. 2010. <http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,479240,00.html>

“Normative Ethical Principles and Theories: A Brief Overview”, 2002. 10 Jan. 2010. <http://faculty.stedwards.edu/ursery/norm.htm>

Quinn, Jones. “US Court frees Bernard Madoff on $10m bail”. Telegraph. 12 Jan. 2009: 10 Jan. 2010. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/bernard-madoff/4225032/US-Court-frees-Bernard-Madoff-on-10m-bail.html>