Arguing The Unarguable

This article is about legal ethics. It analyses the debate on Lord Brougham in Queen Caroline’s Case in 1820. The eminent Professor Monroe Henry Freedman argued in the article ‘Henry Lord Brougham, Written by Himself’ that: "[A]n advocate, in the discharge of his duty, knows but one person in all the world, and that person is his client". As to whether Lord Brougham fulfilled his moral duty in line with Kant’s Ethics of Duty to defend his client's interests resolutely and without fear of judicial disfavour or public unpopularity to attain an ultimate ‘Good Will’ is indeed a dilemmatic question. According to many critics, he had resorted to derogatory tactics considered as being unethical from the standpoint of Virtue Ethics in order to attain that ultimate 'Good Will'. Which is which as far as this ethical oxymoron is concerned?