Public, Professional Ethics Under Scrutiny : New Institute Will Explore the Involvement of Individuals in Political and Business Dealings

Oh, if only Fawn Hall had considered the ethics of helping Lt. Col. Oliver North alter, destroy and remove White House documents in an attempt to cover up the Iran- contra scandal.

This is the lament of Michael Josephson, a millionaire Los Angeles attorney and law professor who has embarked on an ambitious--some say impossible--campaign to make American public and professional conduct more ethical.

Through conferences, seminars, papers and lobbying, Josephson plans “a Ralph Nader-type movement” to take on such ethical issues as insider trading on Wall Street, self-serving foreign policy in Washington and countless other snares that daily tempt doctors, lawyers, accountants, journalists and other citizens such as Fawn Hall.

Josephson, 44, is beginning work on this huge and admittedly nebulous task out of antique-furnished offices in a neo-Victorian office building in Culver City, headquarters of the Josephson Institute for the Advancement of Ethics.

It was there the other day that Josephson, surrounded by relics of another era, pondered the current national scene. He wondered aloud if Hall, a National Security Council secretary and former part-time fashion model, might have benefited from what his institute has to offer. Hall, according to published accounts, helped North change, destroy or cart off large numbers of documents in an attempt to mislead investigators probing the complex scandal involving arms sales to Iran and the funneling of profits from those sales to the contras .

If Hall had “gone through a sensitization program (on ethics), if she would not have destroyed the copies that he (North) wanted her to, notice how that could have changed everything because he would have been afraid of doing it thereafter,” Josephson speculated. “It’s not like it would have changed him internally, but if his secretary says, ‘Mr. North, I think this is wrong, I’m just not going to do this,’ he’s got to recalculate this whole thing now, doesn’t he?”

In fact, Josephson maintained that one brave soul saying no could have prevented much of the scandal that has brought the Reagan Administration to a low ebb.

One Person’s Effect

“When somebody was starting to shove money to the contras --and a lot of people had to know about it, you’re dealing with a lot of money--if somebody would have said, ‘Hey, I think this is wrong and I think I’m going to have to be sure the President knows or the Senate (Intelligence) Oversight Committee knows.’ Just one person saying that would have changed the entire dimension,” he said.

Might-have-beens aside, Josephson seems deadly earnest about his drive for higher ethical standards. The institute he unveiled in late January is the result of more than 10 years of research and soul-searching, dating from the day when he was assigned to teach a legal ethics class at Loyola University Law School.

“When I taught legal ethics that first time in 1976, I taught it like a code course--these are the rules,” he recalled. “The orientation I had as a lawyer was that you teach people how to not get into trouble, how to avoid the rules. So I taught the rules of professional responsibility as if they were some kind of code of taxation. . . . After the year was done and I reflected on it, I said, ‘This is awful, I’ve done a terrible job, I’ve taught people how to not get into trouble.’ . . . One of the reasons lawyers are in such bad shape publicly, I think, and that they’re not a very constructive social force is because there’s no affirmative ethic that is controlling us. It’s all a negative ethic--don’t get into trouble and do everything you can get away with.”

The institute that eventually emerged from Josephson’s introspection is still seeking ways to fulfill its mission. But an agenda is beginning to emerge. It includes two workshops for U.S. Senate and congressional staffers later this spring to “help them anticipate ethical conflicts and nip them in the bud,” according to Susan Medalie, a Washington attorney and the institute’s East Coast director.

Other projects are a workshop for students and alumni of UC Berkeley’s school of public policy, financial and intellectual support for drafting a new code of ethics for judges by the American Bar Assn., and formation of ethical advisory committees for each of the major professions.

Josephson also has assembled a board of directors studded with famous and influential people in law, medicine, labor, journalism, public policy and accounting. They include NBC News diplomatic correspondent Marvin Kalb, former United Auto Workers president Douglas Fraser and Harvard University law professor and television personality Arthur Miller, as well as representatives of the Rand Corp. and experts on medical ethics. Helen Kelley, former president of Immaculate Heart College, is executive director.

‘Cynical’ Reactions

Josephson said he hopes the combination of practical projects and important people will help the institute transcend often “cynical” reactions to his institute.

Some of those reactions have come from the institute’s own board members.

For example, NBC’s Kalb said, much of his role has been throwing “a dash of cold water” on Josephson’s enthusiasm. But he added, “What he is trying to do, though long range and perhaps impossible, is worthwhile.”

Former UAW president Fraser said he isn’t sure how the institute will actually work.

“I don’t think anybody has any firm ideas; I’m unclear on how he can have an impact,” he said.

Despite their doubts, Kalb and Fraser said they agreed to enlist with the institute because they believe the country has been lurching through a series of ethical crises.

“In the last decade we have as a people reached for greater degrees of gratification and self-satisfaction, often without any sense of responsibility to others,” Kalb said.

Fraser said the institute is “much needed now given what’s happening on Wall Street and in Washington.” Adding that the labor movement is not unblemished, Fraser, now a professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, said he fears that “people are losing faith in the system. The most dangerous thing in a democratic society is people becoming apathetic and cynical.”

Josephson, who is divorced and has an 11-year-old son, said he’ll be emphasizing the practical, everyday uses of ethics, rather than a philosophical approach.

“This isn’t a question of building people into saints,” he said. “Being ethical is like being on a diet; you have to remind yourself when you fall off.”

Moreover, Josephson said, there’s lots of room for disagreement even among the highly ethical.

“On the major issues of our time--abortion, capital punishment, euthanasia, surrogate motherhood--the most ethical people often disagree. What’s important is not that we have a symmetry or a total parallelism of decision, it’s that we’re deciding on ethical grounds, that we’re caring about other people.”

That last phrase is the key to what Josephson calls “ethical reasoning.” He explained, “The big distinction between ethical reasoning, principled reasoning, and normal reasoning is that a principled or ethical person places a very high priority on how his conduct affects others. . . . If I do this, how will it affect the President, how will it affect the Congress, how will it affect our credibility?”

As far as Josephson is concerned, a real appreciation of ethical dilemmas doesn’t happen to people until they’re out of school and supporting themselves.

‘An Empty Idealism’

“Until people are emancipated, until they’re truly making binding decisions, they don’t have to choose, so they can talk as honestly or ethically as they want,” he said. “And that’s why young people are often fraudulently idealistic. It’s an empty idealism because it is untested.”

Josephson, who made his fortune partly by selling his publishing and bar review business, has pledged $1 million to the institute. But the institute will seek continuing support from individuals and institutions, Josephson said, noting that his goal is 100,000 contributing members by 1990.

As for his own ambitions, Josephson said, “I’m no paragon of anything. I want to be better than I am. I think I’m better now than I was last year. But I don’t want the viability of this movement to depend on whether I’m a good guy or a bad guy. I’m not sure I even want to be perfect all the time. I’d like to have some human frailties and foibles and say, ‘OK, I want to be a little selfish today.’ ”