The purpose of the Discussions is to examine the ethical values displayed in various organizations and view such in light of Scripture, the course text, and scholarly research. For eac

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Chapter 9

HONESTY and DECEPTION

(Part 2)

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its pants on.

WINSTON CHURCHILL

He who tells a lie is not sensible how great a task he undertakes; for in order to uphold one lie, he must invent twenty others.

JONATHAN SWIFT

A lie told often enough becomes the truth.

VLADIMIR LENIN

Men are so simple that one who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.

NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI

CHAPTER EIGHT CONCLUDED with a brief discussion about possible exceptions to honesty. Is deception ever justifiable? Augustine, Calvin and Wesley thought not, but Luther, Bonhoeffer and others disagreed. This chapter will explore the plausibility of five possible deviations from truth telling: conflicting duties, mutual deceits, no right to hear the truth, exaggeration and ambiguity.

CONFLICTING DUTIES

 CASE STUDY 

Information leak. Tom is the public relations officer for Universal Chemical Company (UCC). A minor chemical leak has occurred at one of UCC’s plants and its scientists have assured Tom that no long-term risks have been created for the local community.

Yesterday, a former UCC employee informed the media of the leak, presenting Tom with an unpleasant moral dilemma. If he admits that a problem exists, irrational panic may force the plant to be temporarily closed. This would cost UCC shareholders a great deal of money and result in significant job loss for UCC employees. On the other hand, it would be untrue to deny the problem. Tom is torn by his loyalty to UCC, personal integrity concerns and the potential consequences of his actions. He is confident, however, that if he chooses to lie, UCC can cover up any trace of the leak.

What happens when the duty of truth telling conflicts with another moral duty? Two biblical stories cause particular difficulty for those who adhere to Augustine’s strict prohibition against lying. In the first instance, Jewish midwives misled the Egyptian king after he had commanded that they put to death all Hebrew male infants. Rather than follow the king’s mandate, the midwives delivered the babies and concocted a story about the ability of Israelite women to give birth without medical assistance. In the second, a prostitute named Rahab saved the lives of several Hebrew spies by lying to Jericho’s soldiers about their whereabouts. In both situations, the misrepresentations were intentional, communicated and believed by the hearers. Yet in neither instance does Scripture criticize the women for their actions. To the contrary, they are praised and rewarded.1

Rejecting Augustine’s absolutist stance has its risks. If lying is ethically justifiable in those situations where truth telling conflicts with the obligation to protect life—as it appears to do with the midwives and Rahab—might not this rationale be extended to include other duties as well? For example, in the case above, could Tom argue that his obligations to protect the property rights of UCC shareholders and the job rights of workers supersede his responsibility to tell the truth?

The logical result of this approach is a hierarchical ranking of duties, with the preservation of life heading the list. When moral duties conflict, the lesser of two evils is the preferable selection. Those who accept this view are divided as to whether deception in such exceptional situations is morally permissible or morally wrong (albeit subject to a lesser punishment).

A second interpretation of the midwives and Rahab situations is that no lying occurred at all because coercion was involved. By way of illustration, if a client were to put a gun to an attorney’s head and demand that she lie, few would hold her ethically accountable. Such coercion removes the voluntary aspect of deception. If self-defense is an accepted exception to murder, some argue, lying should likewise be permitted in such high-stakes situations.

The problem with this approach in the marketplace, however, is that coercion rarely rises to life-and-death status. If Tom’s superior were to force him to lie with the threat of dismissal if he refused, the measure of coercion would not be life threatening. Since pressures to make moral compromises are often present, we must be extremely chary of extending the concept of coercion beyond the most extreme situations.

A third interpretation of the midwives and Rahab is that while they were applauded for their fidelity to the Lord, Scripture nowhere honors their deception. It was, in essence, a forgivable sin, fitting eighth on Augustine’s list of lies. One might argue that if Rahab, a brothel madam, had had more faith, the Lord would have provided her with a more ethically acceptable means of action. This more mystical approach posits that whenever two duties conflict, faith finds a noncompromising way out of the moral labyrinth.2

Following this view, Tom should pray and consult with a few close friends to come up with a creative alternative that would permit him both to tell the truth and to minimize collateral economic damage to innocent shareholders and employees. While this is the easiest and most satisfying answer, its plausibility in every situation is subject to debate.

Whether we utilize (a) Augustine’s view (all lying is sinful, but benevolent deception should receive a lighter punishment), (b) coercion analysis (some lying is not sinful because it is not really voluntary) or (c) a more mystical approach (God will always provide a means of escape so that no moral duty need be violated), tolerance of lying must be narrowly tailored to exceptional life-and-death situations involving the protection of innocent people. Stretching it to include situations comparable to the one in which Tom finds himself would appear to exceed biblical bounds.

MUTUAL DECEITS

 CASE STUDY 

Do it to others before they do it to you. A survey indicates that 46 percent of business practitioners approve of obtaining nonpublic information from a competitor by having an employee pose as a graduate student working on a thesis. Eighty-six percent believe that their competitors would use this method against them.3

 CASE STUDY 

All’s fair in love, war and business. A factory owner falsely claims that he would be forced into bankruptcy if his workers were to go on strike for higher wages. Fearful of losing their jobs, the employees agree to a lesser pay package.

The second commonly cited exception to the duty of truth telling is when those receiving communications are on notice that what is being communicated is untrue, so-called mutual deceits. For example, when an actor claims to be Romeo, the audience understands that he is not who he is claiming to be. His nontruths are justified because everyone understands the fiction. If, with a wink and a smile, a mother informs her daughter that there is a dinosaur in the backyard, the child knows that some type of game is being played.

Likewise, the intentionally misleading feints used by Joshua in his Canaan campaign,4 by General Dwight Eisenhower before the invasion of France in World War II, or by a basketball player who fakes left and then dribbles right are not generally considered deceptive because the opponent does not expect the truth to be told.

Extending this concept to the professional realm, when attorneys enter not-guilty pleas for their clients, fully intending to later plea-bargain for a reduced charge, most of us would concur that no lying has occurred. Within the courtroom context, everyone understands that the initial plea is not the attorney’s final word on the subject.

Similarly, when a British company claims to be the “official sponsor” of a solar eclipse, customers laugh, knowing that the spoof is not to be taken seriously.5 Likewise, when a video, posted on April 1, offers “election insurance to move to Canada if your presidential candidate loses,” most viewers get a good laugh.6

Taking the concept to an extreme, envision a child’s game called Lying, where for ten minutes everyone agrees to tell nothing but lies. In this context, someone telling the truth would actually be the liar! Why? Because the audience has been put on notice that only lies will be communicated. Truth telling can itself become deceptive.

The last chapter noted that lying involves both the speaker’s intentions and the audience’s expectation to receive the truth. If, as in war, sports, theater or the game Lying, the speaker knows that the audience does not expect the truth to be told and, in addition, the audience does not believe the communication to be true, arguably no lie has been told. Untruthfulness is not the total sum of lying: the speaker’s motives, the hearer’s expectations and the speaker’s knowledge of those expectations are also essential factors.

Thus, if a car manufacturer’s advertisement shows one of its vehicles climbing straight up a mountain, the audience is on notice that the message is not to be taken seriously. Likewise, if a diet soda company shows its customers floating among the clouds after drinking its product, consumers understand that the claim is not intended to be literally true.

It is important to note, however, that acceptance of the concept of mutual deceit is quite distinct from the doctrine of dual morality discussed in chapter five. According to the theory of mutual deceits, nontruths are permissible not because they occur in the rough-and-tumble of the marketplace rather than in one’s personal life (as per dual morality) but because they do not constitute lies. If the speaker knows that the audience understands the communication to be untrue—as in teasing, acting and silly advertising—no deception has occurred. The primary issue with mutual deceits is not whether the communication has occurred in business or in private life but whether the speaker informed the audience that truthfulness cannot be expected.

Dual morality, on the other hand, stands for the proposition that dishonesty is tolerable in the business environment because of the intensity of competition. The intent of the speaker and the expectation of the hearer are irrelevant. Unilateral deceptions are justified in the name of winning. Mutual deceits, on the other hand, involve an understanding on the part of both the speaker and audience that honesty cannot be expected.

In tolerating the concept of mutual deceits in limited situations, we must not underestimate its potential for invoking serious moral dangers. The concept of justifiable nontruths is so volatile that it must be pigeonholed into a relatively small corner of ethical theory, to be applied only when all parties possess equal information and fully understand the “rules” of the communication.

The rarity of morally permissible mutual deceits should caution us against their use in the marketplace. In recent years, the popularity of purchasing fair-trade coffee has created a growing niche for many small American companies such as Larry’s Beans (North Carolina) and Just Coffee (Wisconsin). Fair trade has come to mean promoting livable wages for small farmers in Latin America, Africa and Asia. However, since the term lacks clear definition, large chains such as Starbucks use “fair trade” in their advertising by purchasing a small percentage (say 5 percent) of their coffee from certified growers.7 A recent study indicates that the benefit to poor farmers is “close to zero.”8 Since most customers would reasonably believe that “fair trade” means more than just a token amount, this would not qualify as a mutual deceit.

Likewise, when an appliance store engages in bait-and-switch practices by luring customers with promises of special deals on certain items and then switching them to more expensive products, it alone possesses the relevant information. In doing so, these companies resemble the biblical rancher Laban, who baited his nephew Jacob with one unmarried daughter only to switch her with another at the last minute.9

The problem of applying the concept of mutual deceit to the business environment is compounded by the fact that some groups lack the sophistication to effectively distinguish between true and untrue messages. Children, for example, are relatively incapable of separating fact from fiction. Not able to fully understand the tactics ofadult marketers, they become easy prey. The apostle Paul would no doubt chide advertisers who hide behind the concept of mutual deceits vis-à-vis children.10

Immigrants, before learning subtle cultural signals, are likewise often easy targets when they buy big-ticket items such as automobiles, appliances or real estate. Senior citizens, fearful for their personal and financial security, may be unaware of the manipulative sales tactics used by home-security-system companies and financial advisers. People in emotional situations, such as at the death of a family member, are often incapable of rational analysis. Professionals such as funeral directors who regularly deal with such situations have no legitimate justification for utilizing the doctrine of mutual deceit.

Even in situations where both parties have roughly the same level of moxie, mutual deceit rarely functions