Kyle Fritz
Assistant Professor of Public Policy Leadership
Phone Number:
Email: kgfritz@olemiss.edu
https://kylegfritz.com/

Key Words: ethics, punishment, hypocrisy, leadership, conscientious objection, blame, moral responsibility

Research Description:

Careful philosophical thinking can have significant implications for public policy and for leadership. With this in mind, I’ve spent much of my time thinking about the nature of moral standing or authority, and what it takes to have the moral right to hold others accountable. While this is an interesting question in its own right, it has practical upshots in leadership and public policy. After all, leaders need this sort of moral standing to be effective ethical leaders.

Perhaps one of the most important themes I have found for moral standing is that of consistency. To have the moral standing to blame, for instance, one must not be hypocritical in blaming others. The explanation for this, I argue, lies in the fact that in one’s dispositions to blame inconsistently, one rejects the equality of persons–the very grounding of one’s right to blame in the first place.

Notably, this idea of consistency has implications for public policy. Drawing on my work on moral standing, I argue that the state’s moral authority to punish is seriously undermined by the state’s inconsistency in the way it punishes individuals for the same crimes. People of color and impoverished offenders are punished more often and more severely than white or wealthy offenders who commit the same crimes. Consistency is important for our policies regarding conscientious objection as well. Although many states in the US allow health care professionals to refuse to provide an abortion on grounds of conscience, the same privileges are not included in recent heartbeat laws that have been passed in the South outlawing abortion after a heartbeat can be detected. I argue that if we protect a professional’s right to refuse to provide an abortion for reasons of conscience, consistency demands that we also protect a professional’s right to provide an abortion for reasons of conscience where it is otherwise illegal. The alternative would be unjustified hypocrisy.

Of course, being inconsistent isn’t always necessarily a bad thing, nor is it always hypocritical. Sometimes leaders will grow and morally progress, and their past positions will be inconsistent with their current ones. It may take courage for leaders to evolve on an issue, and it’s important to give them the space to change their minds without reflexively labelling them hypocrites.

Honors Theses:

Jordan, Olivia Harris (2022) The American Prosecutor and the Carceral State: An Analysis to Address Prosecutorial Power and Discretion in an Effort to Reduce Overincarceration in the United States (full text)

Fennell, Jacob Aaron (2022) Confronting Stigma: Ethical Leadership, Influence, and the Dignity of People Struggling with Addiction (full text)

Alliston, Madison (2022) How to Combat the Negative Effects of Punishment Drift on Children (full text)

Endorf, Ella Rose (2022) They Say I Did Something Bad: An Ethical Analysis of Presidential Leadership in Crisis Situations

Winstead, Katelyn S. (2022) A Study on whether Jim Crow-Era Voter Suppression Tactics still affect Mississippi Voters Today

Young, Connor Christian (2022) Liquor, Lust & Lynching: The Racial Politics Of Prohibition In Mississippi & Implications For Contemporary State Policies

Jordan, Sally (2020) "The Tyranny of the Majority" A Framework Proposal to Assess the Moral Justification of Voter Identification Laws in the United States (full text)

Pruitt, Lucy (2020) Analyses of Prosecutorial Power and Discretion in Mississippi: Evaluating Proposals to Address Misconduct and Abuse (full text)