I’m not sure I agree re: lawyers, or about how people/society thinks of this. For one thing, I don’t think most people are that OK with lawyers—they tend to get a lot of flack, and e.g. criminal defense attorneys will often get pushback from people who identify them with their clients, irrespective of the fact that they know the lawyers don’t necessarily condone their clients’ actions.
Another thing—most people absolutely hate hypocrisy. I think it’s considered a death-blow to most people’s arguments. People compliment politicians on their speaking skills, but if they discovered that the politician’s are not saying things they believe in, they’d turn on them. (Well, theoretically—President Trump is a good counterexample).
Btw, an aside, but I also think you misrepresent what lawyers do in some way. They’re supposed to be advocating for the rights of their clients, and supposed to persuade, but they can’t for example lie. They are a check on the system that works from within the system—they need to make sure everyone is playing by the rules, but they can’t just make up their own rules or anything. That said, of course rhetoric is important for trial lawyers.
Trump is a good example. Trump appears to most voters to not be a skilled orator but to simply state the facts in a down to earth way as he believes them to be.
He’s persuasive without signaling that he is a great orator.
I did not mean to misrepresent what lawyers do (or are allowed to do). I noted they are restricted by lawyer ethics, but that was in a different comment than the one you replied to. Yes, absolutely, they not supposed to lie or even deliberately mislead, and a lawyer’s reputation would suffer horribly if they were caught in a lie.
I’m not sure I understand people who aren’t OK with ethical lawyers, as a concept. Is there something they would like instead of lawyers? (See: my other comment.) Or do they feel that lawyers are immoral by association with injustice—the intuition of “moral contagion” (I forget the correct term) that someone who only partially fixes a moral wrong, is worse than someone who doesn’t try to fix it at all?
Hypocrisy is anathema to me, but I’ve notice that many (most?) people are happy to let other people live with their contradictions as long as they are not very painfully glaring.
I’m not sure I agree re: lawyers, or about how people/society thinks of this. For one thing, I don’t think most people are that OK with lawyers—they tend to get a lot of flack, and e.g. criminal defense attorneys will often get pushback from people who identify them with their clients, irrespective of the fact that they know the lawyers don’t necessarily condone their clients’ actions.
Another thing—most people absolutely hate hypocrisy. I think it’s considered a death-blow to most people’s arguments. People compliment politicians on their speaking skills, but if they discovered that the politician’s are not saying things they believe in, they’d turn on them. (Well, theoretically—President Trump is a good counterexample).
Btw, an aside, but I also think you misrepresent what lawyers do in some way. They’re supposed to be advocating for the rights of their clients, and supposed to persuade, but they can’t for example lie. They are a check on the system that works from within the system—they need to make sure everyone is playing by the rules, but they can’t just make up their own rules or anything. That said, of course rhetoric is important for trial lawyers.
Trump is a good example. Trump appears to most voters to not be a skilled orator but to simply state the facts in a down to earth way as he believes them to be.
He’s persuasive without signaling that he is a great orator.
I did not mean to misrepresent what lawyers do (or are allowed to do). I noted they are restricted by lawyer ethics, but that was in a different comment than the one you replied to. Yes, absolutely, they not supposed to lie or even deliberately mislead, and a lawyer’s reputation would suffer horribly if they were caught in a lie.
I’m not sure I understand people who aren’t OK with ethical lawyers, as a concept. Is there something they would like instead of lawyers? (See: my other comment.) Or do they feel that lawyers are immoral by association with injustice—the intuition of “moral contagion” (I forget the correct term) that someone who only partially fixes a moral wrong, is worse than someone who doesn’t try to fix it at all?
Hypocrisy is anathema to me, but I’ve notice that many (most?) people are happy to let other people live with their contradictions as long as they are not very painfully glaring.