Do the ends ever justify the means? Is it OK to lie to people in order to achieve an outcome you know is good?
Most people would probably answer with “it depends.” They’d be right.
Police lie to suspected criminals. Parents lie to children. We lie to each other when we want to spare each other’s feelings. We’ll tell lies to protect ourselves or other innocents from harm. You get the idea. There are times when lying is not only acceptable, it produces a more moral outcome than telling the truth would.
Since we are human, i.e. capable of self delusion, equivocation, rationalization and excessive blindness to that which makes us uncomfortable, we have a tendency to expand the range of justifiable lies. This seems especially common in issue advocacy.
In my younger years, I felt a particular affinity for environmental causes. I joined Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, the World Wildlife Federation and other such groups. I disliked polluters, I worried about deforestation, “peak oil,” overpopulation, the impending ice age, and many of the other hot topics of the 70s and 80s.
As I read up on these issues, a few seeds of… well, lets not call it “doubt,” but rather puzzlement, arose in my fertile young mind. I was shocked by the deforestation and species loss rates I had read in these groups’ publications (way, WAY before the Internet), and started finding it a bit hard to believe assertions like 100,000 acres of deforestation and 40 species lost a day. Still, I held onto my pro-environment attitudes. Then I came across an interview with the purported source of the 40 species a day statistic. He blithely admitted that he made the number up. As I recall, he stated that he wanted a number big enough to shock and outrage, but not so large as to be disbelieved. He succeeded, at least with me. The revelation started the gears whirring, and I started questioning what I had previously accepted as fact. One by one, the frightening assertions of impending doomsday started falling by the wayside, and the naivete of my youth was stripped away. No longer was there a stark line between the “good” environmentalists and the “bad” polluters. Good people will lie to advance a cause they feel is just. They will lie blatantly and without shame.
I didn’t break with environmental awareness, but I did break with the movement. I also started down a path that led to the maturation of my views, many of which I’ve discussed in this blog.
We reflexively expect the selfish to be more apt to lie than the noble and selfless. We err, however, in believing that standing for a noble cause makes a person noble and selfless. In fact, such a person can be as selfish as the most immoral and rapacious “bad guy” on the wrong side of any advocacy fence. In fact, such a person may feel more free to lie, because he has clad himself in a cloak of righteousness, and that cloak keeps his conscience clear.
I recently discussed how nanny-state politicians and other do-gooders are willing to either lie or embrace falsehoods in order to “do good” on behalf of the citizenry (and often in opposition to their own desires) but a story that exposes another environmental exaggeration/falsehood (the monster “garbage island” that purportedly exists in the Pacific Ocean) prompted a broader revisiting of this phenomenon. As it turns out, there’s a name for this sort of lying and exaggeration: noble cause corruption.
On the receiving end, people are often more willing to excuse others’ “noble” lies, especially when they happen to be in agreement with the cause and goals used to justify such lying. This goes beyond issues advocacy and into politics. Modern politics has become so binary, so tribal, and so zero-sum that people are willing to accept blatant and repeated lies from their candidates simply because such lies may work to get those candidates into office. They don’t seem to consider that condoning such lying has consequences, and that their candidates will have been informed with the knowledge that lying is OK.
People tend to distrust Corporate America and expect that big companies will lie and cheat. This distrust, coupled with product liability concerns, public image concerns, and basic criminal laws, has a positive effect: it incentivizes companies to be careful about what they claim. Are advocacy groups for “noble causes” held to a standard even remotely equivalent? When those groups are caught lying, do they suffer the way businesses would? Has anyone sued a big enviro group for fraudulent claims, and if so, don’t people reflexively take the side of the “noble cause” despite the lies?
When we excuse lies told in support of a goal we believe in, we corrupt our society. If the goal is worthwhile, lies aren’t necessary. If you disagree, and believe that your fellow citizens need to be lied to because they’re ignorant or misguided or simply selfish and greedy, what does that say about you? Aren’t you telling them that their rights don’t matter as much as yours? If you don’t respect them, don’t be surprised when they stop respecting you.
Yes, there are times when it’s OK to lie. We are justified in lying to prevent imminent harm, to our selves and to others. We cross the moral line when we lie to do good, especially when the good is diffuse, longer-term, generalized or subjective, and we especially cross the moral line when we delude ourselves into believing that our lies are altruistic rather than selfish. Don’t lie to advance your cause, even if your cause is just. And, don’t trust liars who tell you their cause is just. The corruption these lies spread does no one any good.
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That was a very nice read, with my morning coffee, Peter.