Abstract

This paper argues that approaching a conflict like Spaulding v. Zimmerman limited to traditional considerations and leaving a lawyer only to choose between individual morality or fidelity to law is unduly myopic. Rather than getting mired in the traditional debate over which approach, individual morality or institutional morality, provides a stronger justification, this paper argues that a lawyer, when faced with a genuine dilemma, can justify herself not by her particular action, but by appealing to her possession of Weber’s three qualities and the consequent reconciling of the two ethics. By revealing the inadequacies in both Wendel’s and Luban’s theories, this paper suggests how a lawyer can take the most effective parts of both Wendel’s and Luban’s theories – fidelity to law and incorporation of moral remainders, tempered with Luban’s suggestion of Socratic skepticism – and bring them together through Weber’s theory.