Randal Marlin
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existence of bindingness not related to consequential considerations.
Kantian theory in particular is a form of deontology based on rationality. Kant
thought that rightness or wrongness was determinable in the light of a certain test of
rationality, presented in two forms. The first was the principle of universalizability: if
you want to know whether an action is right or wrong, first ask what the underlying
justificatory “maxim” behind the action is. For example, if you are tempted to steal,
you might ask yourself what is implied by telling yourself that it is right to steal. One
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such answer is: “It is right to enrich myself, in whatever way I feel like, whenever I feel the urge to do so.” Now ask whether that “maxim” can be universalized. As a rational
being, you must recognize that others are rational beings similar to yourself. If you
reason that you have a right to enrich yourself in that way, so may they because, insofar
as you are claiming rationality for your action, so may they. But can you accept that
others have a right to steal from you? Clearly not. So the universalizability test reveals
that the maxim does not survive rational scrutiny. It fails the test, and the action of
stealing is deemed immoral. The second form of the test concerns whether our action
shows respect for other people as ends in themselves rather than simply as a means
to ends of our own. If we steal another’s goods, we are not valuing that person for his
or her own sake but are treating them solely as a means to our gratification, ignoring
their needs and wants. Judicial murder—the murder of an innocent person for expe-
diency—treats the victim solely as a means to the ends of others and not as an end in
himself. It is irrational to treat ourselves as worthy ends while denying such worthiness
to others who possess the relevant attributes for worthiness. Kant thought the relevant
attribute was rationality, but we may call the relevant fact that of being human.
Ethical egoism is the theory that enlightened selfishness is the right basis for determining morality. A major advantage to arguing from this stance is that a frequent
rejoinder to claims about ethical obligations—“Why should I be moral?”—is not
difficult to answer. If you can show that something is to a person’s advantage, they
have an attractive reason for doing that thing. Normally, we think of selfishness as the
antithesis of morality. “You are being selfish!” is usually said reprovingly, not approv-
ingly. Hence, the key word for defence of this is “enlightened.” The ethical egoist does
not barge in ahead of others or grab the largest slice of cake, because that kind of
selfishness brings the rebuke of others who are likely to exact some kind of sanction.
Quite apart from that, it is possible to develop sensibilities that enable one to expe-
rience pleasure in the happiness of others. It is not difficult to see that egoism, so
interpreted, appears to be no great threat to morality, despite the negative associations
with the word “selfish.” A problem with relying on this theory is that control ing our
unenlightened impulses may be so difficult that the mere thought that we will benefit
from doing so may be insufficient to bring about the desired effects on our behaviour.
By contrast, visions of punishment and rewards in an afterlife may have an effective
impact (though Bentham observed that the lack of propinquity diminishes the force
of these appeals). The egoist may also be restrained by such visions, but the message
from the Christian account of the afterlife has not favoured the egoistically motivated
person. Nietzsche was scornful about the hypocrisy involved in adopting superficially
a humble, self-sacrificing stance merely as a means to achieving superiority in an after-
life, and on this point he may well have reflected Jesus’ primary message, which had to
do with love rather than rewards and punishments (though he includes reference to
these as well). Acting from motives of fear or gain seems less honourable than acting
out of a genuine desire to help others, a desire based on a cultivated sense of empathy.
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If we take this last turn, we seem to land in the paradox that enlightened egoism leads to the requirement that we think non-egoistically. For if we don’t, we are liable, such is
our nature, to engage in unenlightened selfish behaviour since we would lack sufficient
counterweight to our impulses.
Utilitarianism is a very popular theory, especially in relation to public planning
policy. The idea of this theory is, first, that the morality of actions is determinable in
the light of the amount of happiness and unhappiness that they create, taking into
account all the people affected and counting them all equally. If one contemplates a
range of possible actions at any given time, the right one is that which will maximize
overall happiness (one word for this is “optimific,” but it has an awkward sound). There
are many questions about utilitarianism. Is pleasure to be identified with happiness, as
Bentham thought? If so, should we alter our understanding of pleasure, or of happiness,
or both, and in what way? What happens to individual human rights if our sole guide
is the overall net benefit? Consider such cases as that of Robin Hood, who stole from
the rich to benefit the poor; it seems the net benefit to the poor is greater than the lack
of benefit to the rich, but is that a sufficient reason for giving Robin Hood the morally
approved go-ahead? The matter is complicated by many considerations. The act of rob-
bery causes great consternation in the victims and a very unpleasant sense of insecurity
that persists long after the event. The rich may fight back in ways that make the poor
worse off. One lawless act provokes others. The utilitarian does not have to bow to the
simplistically formulated case, producing an over-simplified ethical conclusion.
Ostensibly opposed to the utilitarian is the rights upholder, who maintains that
for the sake of stability and order, rights such as property rights need to be entrenched
to a point where they are not subject to undermining by some pleasure-pain calcu-
lus favouring forced, illegal redistribution. But the utilitarian can incorporate that
argument into the theory by noting that stability has its own quantum of utilitar-
ian weight, which needs to be added in. So the seeming opposition between rights
upholder and utilitarian may not survive more extensive analysis.
Another, more macabre case posits three children who will die if they don’t get a
new lung, kidney, and heart respectively and soon. There is a seriously ill person with
brain damage but healthy organs otherwise. Should that person be killed to save the
lives of the others? The utilitarian is asked whether an affirmative answer is acceptable
to the theory. If it is, the theory seems subversive of law and order. Of course, the utili-
tarian could respond by saying, “Law and order are very important for the common
good, and a utilitarian cannot countenance acts that would undermine the system
and produce chaos.” Whatever the problems of detail, u
tilitarianism has a very strong
attractive force overall, and in a secular or multicultural society its principles form a
large part of the reasoning for policy decisions. The question is whether utilitarian-
ism nevertheless leaves out an important part of the moral story. If it does, then in
regularly appealing to the principle of utilitarianism, the policy-maker risks blindness
as to its deficiencies.
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Over two millennia ago Plato supplied us with a model for reasoning about ethics. In his Republic, the question “What is justice?” was discussed, and one of the
answers supplied was that justice is repaying one’s debts. However, Socrates asked
whether one should give back a deadly weapon borrowed from a friend when the
friend came for it drunk, intending to kill someone. The answer, in the negative,
showed that the principle of justice has at least one exception and, therefore, cannot
be relied on always to give the correct answer. The col ision between intuitions about
a particular case and principles that seem otherwise sound is a common experience in
moral thinking. We have to find a way to balance those intuitions against principles,
which will need some kind of reformulation. The goal is to bring the two into what
the contemporary philosopher John Rawls called “reflective equilibrium.”2
Ethics is also concerned with character and virtue. If we suppose that utilitarian-
ism is correct, we may find that the best course of action, so determined, could involve
a politician having to break a promise. Assurances given at election time may later
appear to him or her to be contrary to the public interest. We may find ourselves judg-
ing the actions of the politician favourably but still dislike the character of a person
who is readily able to abandon personal commitments.
THE MoRALITy oF LyIng
In the history of morality, lying has generally been viewed with disfavour. St.
Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Kant all argued that lying is immoral, with no
exceptions, although with varying degrees of turpitude depending on the lie. Yet, there
are many other philosophers who argue that lying may be the right and even the mor-
ally obligatory course of action to take under exceptional circumstances. Some believe
that lies are wrong only to those to whom truth is “owed,” and they maintain that not
everybody is entitled to the truth from another person. More recently, David Nyberg
argued that lying is part of everyday experience and that it is frequently, and not just
exceptionally, the right thing to do. Nyberg concentrates on how to separate harmful
and immoral lies from those that are harmless and beneficial. By talking about lying
in general, he thinks, we lose the right perspective on those lies that are especially
harmful. He prefers a “bottom-up” approach to the question of lying, that is to say,
an approach that is generated by consideration of real-life experiences and seeks to
formulate rules out of those experiences.3 This is different from a “top-down” model,
which seeks to find general principles first and then apply them to individual cases.
Sisella Bok is among those philosophers who allow for the moral justification of lies
but only in very exceptional circumstances. Her book, Lying: Moral Choice in Public
and Private Life,4 serves as a foil for Nyberg, since it continues the practice of earlier moralists of arguing from general principle down to individual cases.
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Even if we disagree with the earlier moralists, it is valuable to start with their insights. It is sometimes more instructive to take a theory that is rejected and show
why it was rejected than to ignore it altogether.
St. Augustine
St. Augustine (354–430) might be taken as the originator, in the Western world, of a
certain tradition which, despite recognizing that in special circumstances there can be
very strong moral reasons in favour of lying, and despite sympathy for the plight of
people caught in such special circumstances, stil refuses to accept and teach categori-
cally that it is ever morally right to do so. He approves of some actions that might be
thought by others to be lies but does so only if, in his view, some essential feature of a
lie is lacking. Truth to him is so vital that he is unwilling to have truck with even well-
motivated lies, but he does not roundly condemn them either. Augustine is quite at ease
with the idea that human beings might have to sin in a small way from time to time.
Augustine inclines toward a narrow definition of the lie. It is not enough for a
person to say something false, knowing it to be false; the person must do so with the
intention to deceive, or there is no lie. An obvious case of not lying is the ironic rejoin-
der to an improbable statement, such as “Yes, and pigs fly.” More problematic is the
case in which a politician says, “I will not seek the nomination,” knowing that people
will judge by the very fact of the pronouncement that he will seek it. This would seem
not to be a lie, on Augustine’s account, because what the candidate says engenders true
belief, and the candidate (we will suppose) knows this.5 For a similar reason, stories
made up for jocular purposes are not lies, nor are fictional writings: “No one has been
so illiterate as to think that similar fables of Aesop, related for the same purpose, ought
to be called lies.”6 Although narrow in one sense, Augustine’s view of what constitutes
a lie is broader in another, for he also holds that a person can lie not only by words but
by any outward manifestation contrary to what he or she believes.
Augustine presents us with a nice puzzle about lies and truth-telling. Suppose
you know that down one fork in the road there are bandits, while there are no bandits
along the other fork. You tell someone who never believes what you say that bandits
lie in wait down the fork where you know there are none. You do this so that the
person, disbelieving you, will take the safe road and not come to harm. Do you lie?
Do you do something wrong? You surely do not do any wrong; indeed, if you told the
truth the person would end up in great harm. Do you lie? Not if lying includes the
intention to deceive. Now consider the case where, out of malice, you tell the person
that there are no bandits down the road where there are no bandits, knowing that the
person will take the dangerous road and come to grief and wanting this to happen.
Should this be considered a lie? Do you do something wrong? Clearly, Augustine
says, you do something wrong. However, if we strictly hold to the definition of a lie as
the saying of what one knows to be false in order to deceive, then there is no lie here
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either, because you are not saying what you know to be false, even though you speak the truth only to deceive.7
We will certainly avoid lies, Augustine writes, if we say what is true and deserving
of belief, if there is a need to express the truth, and if we want to convince people of
what we say. Th
e inclusion of the idea of a “need to express the truth” is an impor-
tant moral consideration, and, interestingly, it is reflected in the Anglo-American law
of libel, which allows the existence of “qualified privilege” for people to say publicly
things that are in the public interest to know. Certain defences against a libel suit are
open to those with qualified privilege but are denied to those who defame merely out
of a desire to gossip or increase circulation of a scandal sheet.
There is still no lie, in Augustine’s view, either if we merely say something false
believing it to be true, or if we hold something to be true that we don’t know to be true
but don’t know to be false either, or if we believe what is not worthy of belief, or if we
express an opinion without a need to do so. In other words, there are factors that can
seriously taint what we say with immorality but that do not amount to lying. One of
the great scholarly sins is to present as true something for which there is no evidence.
At least with a lie, there will be some means of showing the statement false. When a
totally unsupported claim is made in an area where no evidence exists for or against
the claim, it is annoyingly unrefutable in the straightforward way of demonstrating
its falseness. By detaching in this way the question of ignorant and deceptive com-
munications from that of ful -blown lies, Augustine has done a useful service. It helps
to show that, to be morally wrong, deceptive communication does not have to involve
what are, strictly speaking, lies. The immorality can be linked to negligence regarding
ascertaining of truth in circumstances where the truth matters (as distinct from harm-
less jokes, for example). The concepts of negligence and recklessness are useful for sort-
ing out the ethics of what Harry Frankfurt cal ed “bul shitting,” meaning presenting
things as true without having serious concern for whether they are in fact true,8 and
what political satirist Stephen Colbert referred to as “truthiness,” meaning the quality
that “facts,” ideas, or doctrines have of seeming or feeling true at a gut level whether
or not there is any objective evidence to support them.9 Negligence or recklessness
regarding the truth of what we believe can have seriously harmful consequences, so