NICE OR HONEST

Should a Police Officer be Nice or Just Honest?

Should a Police Officer be Nice or Just Honest?

Introduction

The virtue of a police officer is to keep the peace by knowing the law and enforcing the law for the greater good of public safety. “For Aristotle, virtue is the ability habitually to know the good and to do the good (Dreisbach, 2009, pp. 83).”

“Morality is a matter of character, and character is a matter of habit. The more one is in the habit of knowing and doing the good, the more one is virtuous (Dreisbach, 2009, pp. 83)”

Honest means “being in the habit of telling the truth.”(The Merriam-Webster Thesaurus) According to the definition, it can be said that honesty is an essential component of every human's character. Similarly, it is also an essential characteristic of a police officer's character and integrity.

This paper examines the question, should police officer's be honest or nice?

Nice Vs. Honest

Nice, what does it mean to be nice? We are all familiar with the saying that” Nice guys finish last.” Niceness has been a sign of weakness in the past, meaning an individual was a pushover or someone easily manipulated. The meaning of nice has evolved since the 18th century and 19th century. In today's society, being nice is considered exemplifying as a well behaved gesture and being respectful. We need to have a golden mean of respect when policing in the community. For a police officer one ethical code of conduct is respect for human rights and health. The meaning of respect for human rights and health is treating everyone fairly within the guidelines of the law and with compassion, kindness, and integrity with the mindset at any given moment ready to defend and protect those human rights against adversaries (Peter, 2010).

One ...