David Underhill – 22 Nov to 24 Nov 04 (Week 14) – Truthtelling

Monday: 395-409

Upholding the Truth (Lucas) (395)

• War requires secrecy and utilizes deception
• Honesty is the best policy in most situations, however
• Trust is “essential for organizational effectiveness”
• The military does not allow officers to lie
• Western culture believes lying to be the worst of all immoral acts
• Dante (The Inferno) put liars in the deepest layer of Hell
• Individuals lie because of: performance, protection from punishment, others doing it, etc

When is the Whole Truth Attainable? (Bok) (397)

• Focus is on whether or not you intend to mislead
• Lie – “intentionally deceptive message”
• Grotius argued that lying to thieves, etc. was justifiable
• “Mental Reservation” – if you say something misleading but qualify it in your mind to make it true
• When a law is too strict to live by, people find loopholes
• Public authorities still swear not to hold mental reservations
• Truthfulness is essential to society
• Deception is coercive and gives the liar power (until one is caught)
• Liars do not like to be lied to
• Liars use caution around those who they have lied to
• “Few lies are solitary”
• As you lie, it becomes lies psychologically distressing and they seem more necessary and less evil
• Trust is the foundation of relationships among people
• Aquinas defined three kinds of lies
• Helpful lies, Jocose lies (jestful), and malicious lies
• Only malicious lies are mortal sins (the others are much less serious)
• Religious Absolutist Perspective – “Death kills the body, but a lie loses eternal life for the soul. To lie to save the life of another, then, is a foolish bargain.”
• Two beliefs which support this:
• 1) God does not allow any lies
• 2) God will punish all who lie
• Utilitarians did not accept the absolutist perspective
• Stress the differences in severity between lies
• White Lies – a lie not meant to do harm (little moral importance)
• Upsetting news is usually sugar-coated, etc.
• Discretion must limit what is said
• Excuses – moral reasons people use to persuade themselves that lying is acceptable
• Four most common reasons used to defend lying: avoid harm, get benefits, fairness, truth
• Moral justification must be made public
• Test of publicity – asks which lies would be regarded as justifiable by other reasonable people
• Look at the lie from the perspective of all who it affects
• Levels of publicity
• 1) Look at the lie from the perspective of all who it affects (“soul-searching”)
• 2) Present the case to peers
• 3) (for more serious cases) Allow any to review the case – none may be excluded
• Nature of publicity: 1) The public we consult should be greater than just ourselves; 2) No one may be excluded
• Limitations – it is just a check
• What must be done to justify
• 1) Look for alternatives to lying
• 2) Compare moral reasons for and against lying
• Remember that lying and force are similar
• Also, remember that lying can spread quickly
• Most lies are unjustifiable

Wednesday: CSME: 81-82, 109-114

Major Knight and Cambodia (Wrage) (81)

• Knight directs B-52s to their bombing targets
• One day he gets coordinates from an envelope from a special plane
• The coordinates are inside Cambodia and he is to destroy all evidence that the planes bombed in Cambodia and pretend they hit normal targets within Vietnam

Falsification of MV-22 Readiness Reports (Slyman) (109)

• A squadron of MV-22’s is having very poor readiness – the aircraft are breaking quite a bit
• The CO gets heat and has his job threatened for not having a higher readiness rate
• The CO compels his officers and men to fudge the numbers and go around the system in order to trick the system and be able to report 100% readiness
• This came to the attention of an officer outside the squadron who tried to get the CO’s boss to put an end to the dishonest practices
• The squadron was reviewed by criminal investigators and charges were pressed against the marines who were guilty