Stephen J. Vicchio

About the author: Stephen J. Vicchio, a professor of philosophy at the College of Notre Dame in Baltimore, Maryland, is a nationally renowned ethicist and a faculty member in the Police Executive Leadership Program at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He gave this keynote speech at the National Symposium on Police Integrity held in Washington, D.C., in July 1996.

There are two reasons why people act in a good and moral way. One is because they fear punishment if they are caught doing wrong; the second is because people want to be morally good. Police officers frequently act on the principle that people do good because they are afraid of getting caught. However, if this is true, then people, including police officers, will continue to do wrong because...