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Doing the right thing:
Jeannie Phillips is "Dear Abby", daughter to the original who wrote the column for decades. Like her mom, Jeannie promises anonymity to those who write her, but a recent letter left this "Dear Abby" with her own dilemma. What to do about a man who confessed his love for a trusting ten-year-old girl, a man who wrote her in confidence?
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Marlow [host]: Did "Dear Abby" do the right thing? This was in fact a confessional. Would it have been different if this writer had confessed to a priest or a clergyman?
Kusala: Well, I think "Dear Abby" did do the right thing. I think one of the consequences of his actions perhaps could have been to hurt the girl and cause her a lot of suffering. Where those ethics come from, in Buddhism, would be the five precepts that a buddhist would take: not to kill, not to steal, not to indulge in sexual misconduct, not to lie, not to consume intoxicants.
As a reference in their life, would this fall under the third precept of not indulging in sexual misconduct? I'd have to say yes. To Buddhists, specifically, having lust for children who are being supported for their parents is wrong. It causes a lot of suffering.
Zavala [host]: So this usurps her promise of anonymity?
Campbell: Oh, absolutely. I think that to not have turned the man in would have been criminally negligent on her part. There are some things that supersede confidentiality. There are some secrets that have to be broken and I think this man's letter was in actuality a cry for help and a cry asking her to stop him because he couldn't stop himself.
Marlow: But if he had confessed to a priest?
Campbell: I think that the greater burden or the greater -- what is most important is to protect children and that supersedes whatever breach -- you know, if you have to breach confidentiality to protect the helpless, then that's what you have to do. You just can't keep a secret like that.
Zavala: Michael, what would have happened if they had arrested the man or tried to arrest the man and they found no child pornography, and it turned out there was nothing illegal he had done?
Josephson: Well, I don't think the question is whether he had done anything illegal as to whether or not he had some evil intent or may have been even endangering the young girl. I think part of the problem is we're assuming that "Abby" is like a priest and that's not a reasonable expectation.
I mean, the priest is in a very different setting vis-à-vis the parishioners and there may be some real reasons why, for the preservation of that valuable issue, the confessional, let's say, in the Catholic Church, that you might have to say they're going to pass up certain individual instances of justice because I think a priest would not tell in this case.
Zavala: Well, how interesting that is because you're saying the behavior of "Dear Abby" may be right, but different behavior by somebody else would be wrong?
Josephson: Because their obligations may be different. The fact that she's a newspaper person, you know? This is an entertainment column. There may be some kind of expectation of confidentiality, but it doesn't have the sanctity. Now the most precious of the privileges generally are the lawyer-client privilege and the priest-penitent privileges. You people think it's the reporter (laughter), you know, informant privilege.
In each of those cases, you have an ethical conflict between keeping a promise, which is a significant moral obligation, and also in some cases avoiding significant harm to others. I think many people come out -- for instance, there's a big challenge in the legal field right now. They've tried to modify the privilege for lawyers so that lawyers can in fact report clients who are going to do harm in the future as opposed to something they've done in the past. There are many states that absolutely oppose this and a few states that allow this. I think we have to realize that's an ethical dilemma between two different requirements.
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