Ethical Dilemma In Primal Fear

In the novel Primal Fear by William Diehl, there are many ethical dilemmas in the entire novel. This is to be expected because the plot of the novel was centered around a court case. The stakeholders involved were the attorneys, judges, the citizens of Chicago, as well as the people being defended in court. The three main characters of the novel were the ones involved in the major ethical dilemmas. With the center of the novel being around the court case, there are many different aspects pertaining to the law. The setting of the novel was important in the ethical point of view seeing as the fundamentals of ethics state that just because something is ethical doesn’t necessarily make it legal. Having this in mind, I was able to connect the principles

Martin was focused on winning the case by attempting to prove Aaron 's innocence. At the start of the novel, Martin stated that every person has the right to the best defense regardless of the accusation. He did however pose an ethical dilemma, he would defend the guilty and make a way to convince the jury to think otherwise. The basic ethical pillars are being violated by him doing this the main one being trustworthiness. Martin believed that it was acceptable to skew the truth, which in turns violates the ethical codes of honesty. His awareness of being dishonest, causes an unethical situation in itself. Martin was interested in becoming a big shot attorney, he often stated he did not care about his client all he was concerned with was the outcome of the case. Martin wanted to be the best win every case regardless of his client’s guilt. This raised questions while I was reading, why is this considered ethical in the workplace? It is important to have compassion, a person of integrity acts out of moral principle. This person would do what was right, even if it meant a job loss or the loss of a client. The public interest should always be placed before self-interest, which was not the case in this situation. In defending Aaron, he knew he wasn 't taking the care for Aaron 's best interest, he was concerned with his career and success over the threat to the public.

In the novel, he acted like an innocent person because he claims he doesn 't remember murdering the Archbishop. When he was questioned about the murder, he stated that he witnessed someone else murdering the bishop. What followed was truly shocking, he revealed having symptoms of multiple personality disorder. In a case with a mentally incompetent person would be proven innocent and set free. Aaron succeeded in proving that he was a schizophrenic person, however this was all a sham. The scheme was that Aaron was to make it believable that he was mentally incompetent. This showed Aaron’s true unethical character, he was dishonest, manipulative, and he lacked integrity. Aaron portrayed the illusion of a mentally ill person, a character Martin told him to play in order to win the case. Aaron got away with the satisfaction of murdering the Archbishop and fooling Martin into believing he was innocent. The outcome shows how being unethical can be falsely beneficial but will cause more damage than there was to begin