Alois Riklin
Veracity in Politics
Farewell Lecture
The Lies walking like cripples on the crutches
Farmer (cap)
Soldier (helmet) - Citizen (fur cap)
Aristocrat (crown) - Clergyman (miter)
The Beggars - Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Musée du Louvre, Paris
About the author -
Alois Riklin,
born 1935, Dr.iur., 1970-2001 professor for political science at the University of St. Gallen, founder and
director of the institute for political science, 1982-1986 rector of the St. Gallen University.
(c) Alois Riklin, St. Gallen, 2001
special edition by Stämpfli Verlag, Bern
(a)web/pdf re-edition courtesy of the author (a)
for Czech and Slovaks building up democracy
(a)
web :
vjrott.com/veracity-in-politics
(this page)
/ pdf download :
vjrott.com/veracity-in-politics.pdf
Table of contents
Veracity in Politics
1 Positions in moral philosophy
1.1 The absolute prohibition of
lying
1.2 The permissibility of lying
1.3 The partial permissibility of lying
2 A typology of practical cases
2.1 Legitimate untruthfulness
Untruthfulness out of courtesy or consideration
Suppression, discretion, and secrecy
Ambiguity and secret reservation
White lie to save life and limb
Stratagems
2.2 Illegitimate untruthfulness
Qualified mental reservation
Unlawful word of honour
Electioneering fraud
Disinformation of parliament and the people
Rigged elections
Broken promise
Politician's official lie
Perjury before a parliamentary investigation committee
3 Incentives for truthfulness
3.1 Person-oriented political ethics
3.2 Institution-oriented political ethics
3.3 Results-oriented political ethics
Conclusion
Bibliography
Veracity in Politics
Truthfulness in politics: is there such a thing? Is this
not a contradiction in terms? Isn't politics a dirty
business? Politics has to do with power, and is not power as
such evil, as Jacob Burckhardt thought? (1)
Didn't Niccolò Machiavelli recommend that whoever
wants to remain a good Christian, indeed a good human being,
should keep his distance from politics? (2)
Didn't Hannah Arendt write in her book Wahrheit und
Lüge in der Politik [Truth and Lying in
Politics]: "Truthfulness has never numbered among the
political virtues, and lying has always been permitted as a
political instrument"? (3)
Didn't Niklas Luhmann argue that political systems are not
meant to be checked on the basis of ethical criteria? (4)
Didn't he say that whoever entered the level of politics
would ineluctably face the dilemma of moral
naïveté or moral cynicism. (5)
Luhmann decided in favour of cynicism: if a politician is
caught lying, he will be sacrificed so that everything else
can continue to run its course unchanged. (6)
Didn't Hans-Georg Soeffner outline an equally cynical
representation theory whereby we delegate the dirty business
of politics to elected representatives so that we ourselves
will be able to wash our hands of it? (7)
And did not Jean-François Revel write: "The very
first of all the forces that govern the world is the lie"? (8)
However, it is not entirely true that truthfulness has
never numbered among the political virtues and that lying
has always been permitted as a political instrument. The
virtue of veracity and the vice of mendacity in general,
including the realm of politics, have often been discussed
in the history of ideas, in the Bible, by Aristotle (9),
by St Augustine (10),
by St Thomas Aquinas (11)
and by Kant (12),
to name but some of the most important sources. Still, any
express application to politics is somewhat rare; it is most
likely to be found in the so-called Mirrors of Princes, for
instance in the Mirror written by Aegidius Romanus. (13)
Unlike the cardinal virtues of justice (iustitia),
self-control (temperantia), strength
(fortitudo) and good sense (prudentia),
veracity (veracitas) is hardly ever found in the art
of politics, either. In most recent times, two authors in
particular have expressly treated truthfulness in politics:
the Harvard philosopher Sissela Bok (1980) and Freiburg's
moral theologian Eberhard Schockenhoff (2000).
Then again, the first political thinker who, in the long
history of political ethics, conceived of veracity as a
central problem of politics, is a contemporary: our honorary
doctor Václav Havel. In 1978, between his first
arrest and two later spells in prison, he wrote a courageous
book entitled Versuch, in der Wahrheit zu leben
[An attempt to live in truth]. (14)
In this book, Havel condemned the mendaciousness of the
post-totalitarian communist system and chose for himself the
way of truthfulness, irrespective of the high risks of false
imprisonment, professional discrimination and social
ostracism. Havel did not one-sidedly regard the powers that
be as guilty of lying; rather, he located the diabolical
aspect of the post-totalitarian system in the fact that it
turned victims into accomplices: by threatening them and
their descendants with disadvantages, it coerces the victims
to participate in it. When Havel had become president, he
reminded his fellow citizens of their complicity arising
from their coming to terms with life in lying. (15)
Consequently, he exhorted them in his address before the
first democratic general elections to vote for candidates
who "are used to telling the truth and do not wear a
different shirt every week". (16)
Havel was primarily thinking of life under a totalitarian
system where - to speak with Orwell - the Ministry of Truth
rewrote even history to make it fit the prevalent
circumstances. Yet in asides, Havel left no doubt that he
did not consider the reality evinced in democratic countries
to be flawless by any manner of means. (17)
Indeed, the lies that have been told by politicians and then
been brought to light in the most recent times, particularly
in big countries, are shocking. Cases in point are the
Rainbow affair in France, the Spiegel, Barschel, Engholm and
party donation scandals in Germany, and the Pentagon Papers,
Watergate and Irangate in the US.
I shall now proceed to describe the positions in moral
philosophy, then develop a typology on the basis of
practical cases, and finally outline incentives for
truthfulness in politics.
1 Positions in moral philosophy
Lying is not the sole deviation from truth. St Thomas
Aquinas classed truthfulness as one of the common virtues
and contrasted it, not only with lying, but also with
hypocrisy and boastfulness. (18)
This, however, is far from covering the entire field of
untruthfulness, whose further facets include perjury, false
promises, disinformation, dissimulation, guile, breach of
promise, palliation, flattery, pretexts, distraction,
suppression of important information, secrecy, obfuscation,
forgery, deception, and manipulation by means of
advertising. Montaigne wrote that the opposite of veracity
was a boundless field containing a hundred thousand
varieties. (19)
Yet lying is the clearest and most conspicuous form of
untruthfulness, and this is why moral philosophy has focused
on the lie as the nucleus of untruthfulness, lying conceived
as a false statement or a false sign made with intent to
deceive.
Three positions are to be discerned in moral philosophy:
the absolute prohibition of lying, the basic permissibility
of political lying, and its partial permissibility.
1.1 The absolute prohibition of
lying
The first author of antiquity to deal systematically with
lying was St Augustine. (20)
He differentiated between eight levels of lying. Yet he
regarded any lying as sinful, even a lying that would harm
no one or protect someone innocent. The Bible and the church
fathers were his main sources. Christ said in the Sermon on
the Mount: "But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay,
nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil"
(Matt. 5, 37). John calls the devil "the father of the lie"
(John 8, 44). The Old Testament, however, gave St Augustine
more of a headache than the New. Of course, he was able to
refer to the Eighth Commandment (Ex. 20, 16) and to the
numerous complaints about falsehood in the Psalms (e.g. Ps.
5, 7). But what should be thought of the false reports in
the Old Testament, and particularly of the "most refined
staging of a successful feint" (21)
when Jacob, at the instigation of his mother, Rebecca, made
his blind father, Isaac, believe that he was the elder
brother, Esau, thus obtaining the firstborn's inheritance by
false pretences? (Gen. 27, 1-40) Augustine solved the
problem presented by such biblical passages with the pious
explanation: "Non est mendacium, sed mysterium."
Immanuel Kant represented the same rigorism, not on
theological grounds, but on the basis of the ethics of
reason. (22)
Benjamin Constant had attacked him on that score. (23)
Kant replied with a small work entitled Über ein
vermeintes Recht aus Menschenliebe zu lügen [On
a putative right to lie for the love of mankind], (24)
in which he quoted the standard case, brought into play by
Constant, of the potential murderer who wants to be told
whether his intended victim is inside the house. According
to Kant, even the person thus addressed by the potential
murderer is obliged to tell the truth. The obligation of
veracity applies regardless of any consequences. Lying "is
the waste and, as it were, destruction of his human
dignity". (25)
1.2 The permissibility of lying
St Augustine and Kant did not set their sights on
political lying, but it was implied. With a view to
political lying, Plato and Machiavelli defended the opposite
position. In his Politeia, Plato granted the
philosopher kings the right to lie in the interest of the
state. They, and they alone, were allowed to tell lies in
order to safeguard the ideal state. (26)
If subjects tell lies, they will have to be punished for it.
The powers that be, however, may spread the false tale that
God had admixed the rulers with gold, the guardians with
silver, and the providers of food with iron ore. (27)
For the purpose of human breeding, they may also deceive
couples by letting them believe they had met by chance
whereas in fact they had been brought together with intent. (28)
An even more general justification of political lying and
untruthfulness was provided by Machiavelli in his
Principe (29):
the prince must be a "master of hypocrisy and
dissimulation"; he does not keep promises if that is
detrimental; since people are evil and bad, the prince is
entitled to break his word; people are so stupid that every
fraudster will find someone to defraud; it is neither
possible nor necessary for the prince to have all the
virtues - indeed, it is positively harmful to have them all
and use them all the time: the appearance of virtues is
sufficient. The Principe's motto is "seeming, not
being": the inversion of Cicero's "being instead of
seeming". (30)
By way of a role model, Machiavelli recommended Cesare
Borgia, one of the biggest crooks in the history of the
world. He admired the sang froid with which Cesare
lured his disloyal condottieri into a trap in
Sinigaglia under the guise of friendship and killed them one
after the other (31)
- an atrocity which would serve Hitler as the model for the
Röhm putsch. (32)
1.3 The partial permissibility of
lying
The intermediate position of the partial permissibility
of lying is equivocal. In early modern times, it was
particularly Hugo Grotius (33)
and Samuel von Pufendorf (34)
who investigated the problem and set up boundaries on either
side. Since then, moral theologians and moral philosophers
have found exemption rules in great numbers and have
permitted lies:
- if they are told in an extreme emergency,
- if they will result in great benefits, or prevent great damage,
- if they are told for reasons of humility or modesty,
- if their intention and purpose are good,
- if there is no intention to deceive,
- if the person to whom the lie is told has no right to be told the truth,
- if it is told for reasons of courtesy or in consideration of human frailty,
- if it will not harm anybody,
- etc. (35)
The former Bishop of Chur and present Archbishop of
Liechtenstein, who for a time adorned his name with the
letters indicating a doctor's degree which he had never
acquired, thought he would be able to exculpate himself by
saying that it had not harmed anyone...
Sissela Bok also permits exemption from the prohibition
of lying, but those do not go as far as the list adduced
above. Political lying, in particular, is measured against a
very severe yardstick. Contrary to Plato and Machiavelli,
she maintains that a government's position does not make
telling lies any more honourable. (36)
She scrutinises the usual excuses (37)
and then rates them according to their justifiability. (38)
First, it must be examined whether there is an honest
alternative to lying. Then, the lying must be subjected to a
public test, i.e. a fictitious discussion such as can be had
among reasonable people. (39)
The method is reminiscent of Immanuel Kant, John Rawls, and
discourse ethics.
Sissela Bok does not believe that these problems can be
solved in abstract terms. By that token, she also rejects
the utilitarian approach which determines the permissibility
of lying on the basis of beneficial consequences alone.
Rather, she prefers following the Stoics, Talmudists and
early Christian thinkers and tackling the problem on the
basis of concrete cases. (40)
The following typology will also be based on practical
cases.
2 A typology of practical cases
I shall first deal with some cases of legitimate
untruthfulness, followed by some that strike me as
illegitimate. In doing so, I shall admit forms of
untruthfulness which are not lies in the defined sense of
the word.
2.1 Legitimate untruthfulness
Untruthfulness out of courtesy or
consideration
The courtesies that are customary in diplomatic relations
are harmless, just as everyday restraint for reasons of
human consideration does not yet constitute hypocrisy. (41)
Truth can be hurtful, indeed offensive. We need not tell
every fool to his face that he is one.
Suppression, discretion, and secrecy
The case collection of Harvard University includes the
following occurrence. (42)
On the occasion of the Cuba crisis in 1962, the two
superpowers were facing the abyss of direct military
confrontation. The Soviet Union was about to establish a
nuclear missile base in Cuba. The US demanded that the base
should be closed down, and set up a blockade against Soviet
freighters. At the climax of the crisis, Khrushchev made an
offer to John F. Kennedy in a letter that the USSR would
give up the Cuban base if, by way of countermove, the US
withdrew the nuclear missiles stationed in Turkey. Now, the
American President had ordered the close-down of the missile
base in Turkey twice before; however, the order had not been
carried out because the Turkish government opposed it.
Kennedy did not regard it as politic to accept the Soviet
offer since such a deal might raise doubts among the
European allies as to whether the US nuclear umbrella over
Western Europe had any permanence. Kennedy decided to reply
to a previous letter of Khrushchev's and to propose that the
US would not invade Cuba. At the same time, he unofficially
sent his brother Robert to the Soviet UN ambassador, Anatoly
Dobrynin, with the private message that the President had
already ordered the withdrawal of the nuclear missiles from
Turkey and that he gave his assurance that this order would
be carried out speedily. Khrushchev gave in. Subsequently,
Kennedy was asked at a press conference whether the US had
made any concessions with regard to disarmament. The
President's answer was negative; he said that he had
instructed the negotiators to limit themselves exclusively
to Cuba and that no other questions had been discussed.
This reply was true, but it was incomplete. Strictly
speaking, there had not been any bartering of base against
base. But Kennedy suppressed that he had unofficially given
his assurance that the missiles would now be withdrawn from
Turkey without any delay. The President had not made a
concession but confirmed a decision he had made earlier.
This suppression was risky, but not contrary to the truth.
No one, not even a politician, is obliged to tell everyone
else the whole truth at any time. Unlike a witness in a
criminal trial, we are not obliged "to tell the truth, the
whole truth and nothing but the truth". We would not have
won the popular ballot for the extension building of our
University if we had not carefully suppressed our weak
points.
This does not mean that suppression, discretion and
secrecy are justified in every case. Secretmongering can
also be exaggerated, which is what Pericles criticised the
Spartans for in his funeral oration for the Athenians who
had fallen in the first year of the Peloponnese War. During
the time when I served in the Swiss Army, I had the
impression that secrecy was exaggerated. Virtually every
order could have been classified one level lower.
Aargau's senator Julius Binder made a move along these
lines in parliament. Conversely, a joker proposed that a
fifth level of secrecy should be introduced: "For service
use only", "Confidential", "Secret" and "Top secret" should
be supplemented by the new and highest level called "Destroy
before reading"!
Ambiguity and secret reservation
Galilei stated in the ecclesiastical inquisition trial
that he had never believed that Copernicus was right. When
he was saying that, however, he was secretly thinking that
he did not believe but knew that the earth revolves around
the sun and not vice versa. In this way, he ensured that he
was given a milder punishment. It is quite possible that the
circles around Cardinal Bellarmin realised what Galilei was
up to. His secret reservation was legitimate since the
inquisition court was not entitled to force anyone to revoke
the results of scientific research. Meanwhile, the Roman
Catholic church has had to acknowledge this, too, in that it
has rehabilitated Galilei in a highly embarrassing and
lengthy proceeding, with a delay of nearly four hundred
years.
The secret reservation was brought into discredit,
particularly among Protestants, under the term mental
reservation, after Pascal, in his ninth Lettre
provinciale had launched a polemic against "Jesuit"
craftiness. (43)
Again, this does not mean that ambiguity and secret
reservation are legitimate in every case. I shall return to
this later.
White lie to save life and limb (44)
For English Catholics, French Protestants and Spanish
Jews, pretending to have changed their denomination or
religion was often the only way of saving their property,
often even life and limb, in early modern times. (45)
This was legitimate since the state and the churches
violated the freedom of religion with their repression. If
self-defence against the use of violence is lawful, then so
is a white lie to save life and limb. And if a white lie is
lawful on one's own behalf, then it is a fortiori
lawful for the protection of others.
The Bible provides an example. When Saul wanted to kill
his son-in-law David, David's wife Michal lied to the
messengers in order to enable him to escape (I. Sam. 19,
8-24). St Augustine and Kant may have thought of this when
they fundamentally rejected any white lie, even the one in
this specific case. In the fragment "Was heisst: Die
Wahrheit sagen" [What does it Mean: to Speak the
Truth], which Dieter Bonhoeffer wrote in a Gestapo
prison, he called the exponents of this rigorism "truth
fanatics ". (46)
In a hierarchy of values, the protection of innocently
prosecuted people carries more weight than the obligation of
being truthful. Those people who, in the Second World War,
hid Jews and, in so doing, invented a white lie or violated
a law, deserved admiration for their brave deed, not blame
or even punishment.
Stratagems (47)
In the Second World War, the Allies planned to invade the
French Atlantic coast from England. These plans were not
only kept secret but were combined with strategic deception.
This deception proved successful, and the Germans believed
that the invasion would take place at a different time, and
not in bad weather, and in a different place, not in
Normandy.
This case is easy to judge. If military force against an
aggressor is legitimate (jus ad bellum), then it
would not make any sense if the milder form of deception
should not be legitimate, either (ius in bello).
Warring parties expect stratagems to be used. Since Hugo
Grotius (48)
the international law of war (49)
has expressly declared stratagems lawful.
2.2 Illegitimate untruthfulness
My seven cases of illegitimate untruthfulness all come
from abroad, not one of them from Switzerland. However, this
does not mean to say that I am inclined to see the mote in
the other's eye but not the beam in my own. The simple
reason is that I have not found any spectacular Swiss case.
Apparently, exponents of bigger countries are more sorely
tempted than the politicians of small countries. Power is
liable to entice people into corruption, great power into a
high degree of corruption. Life in a small country may well
be governed by what George Bernard Shaw mockingly wrote:
"Virtue is insufficient temptation!"
Qualified mental reservation
The Harvard case collection describes the undercover
operation conducted by the US secret service, the CIA,
against the election of Salvador Allende in 1970. (50)
After no candidate had won an absolute majority, it was up
to the Chilean congress to choose from among the two leading
contenders. Although the CIA had spent eight million dollars
to prevent it, Allende was elected. The secret operation had
an aftermath in the American Senate when President Nixon
nominated the previous CIA chief, Richard Helms, to be the
US ambassador to Iran. During the hearings in the Senate,
the following dialogue took place: Senator Symington asked
Helms whether the CIA had tried to topple the Chilean
government. Helms replied: "No, sir." Senator Symington then
asked whether any monies had been given to opponents of
Allende's. Again the reply was: "No, sir."
According to the letter Helms's answers were correct. The
point at issue was not to topple the government but to
prevent the President's election. And no monies were given
to individuals but to groups which supported or rejected
candidates. This case of mental reservation cannot be
justified, for there is no excuse for deceiving a
democratically elected parliamentary organ, which is
entitled to clarify issues in a democracy, with a cheap
trick. Helms's behaviour undermined democracy and, in the
long term, contributed to a loss of confidence in the
American administration.
Thus not every mental reservation is legitimate. The US
Congress considered the question. When the members of the
House of Representatives are sworn in, they must swear to
take and comply with the oath upon the constitution without
any mental reservation: ""Do you solemnly swear that you
will support and defend the Constitution of the United
States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that you
will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that you
take this obligation freely, without any mental
reservation or purpose of evasion; and that you will
well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on
which you are about to enter. So help you God?"
Unlawful word of honour
The case of illegal, i.e. undeclared party donations to
Germany's chancellor Helmut Kohl is still widely talked
about. After the former chancellor first denied the
acceptance of such donations and then only admitted as much
as had been proved already, he refused to disclose the names
of the donors by invoking his word of honour.
The chancellor's behaviour was in glaring contravention
of the constitution, the party donation law, and the
official oath. A politician's word of honour "only deserves
the general public's respect as long as the action to which
he pledges his honour remains within the framework of the
law and on the ground of honesty. A word of honour which
refers to the maintenance of secrecy about jointly
perpetrated violations of the law does not meet this
requirement. In a case of conflict, it must therefore give
way to the readiness to enforce the law, as is in accordance
with the official oath sworn by high-ranking politicians
before the general public." (51)
Electioneering fraud
Sissela Bok's book refers to the case of the American
presidential campaign of 1964. (52)
The point at issue was the re-election of President Johnson
as against Senator Goldwater. In the campaign, the Vietnam
War played an important part. The situation in Vietnam was
constantly worsening. In the Johnson Administration, the
view had gained ground that an increase in the US commitment
could not be avoided. Making a big song and dance about
this, however, was not politic in the campaign. Senator
Goldwater championed an escalation of the war and did not
shy from nuclear threats, either. Conversely, Johnson was
depicted as a harbinger of peace. He himself proclaimed that
the overriding problem, the crucial point in the election
campaign was the question as to who would best be able to
preserve peace. The electioneering strategy proved
successful. Johnson was elected. A short time after the
election, he ordered a reinforcement of troops in South
Vietnam and the bombardment of North Vietnam. In order to be
elected, Johnson duped the American electorate in a
reproachable manner.
Disinformation of parliament and the
people
The 1964 electioneering fraud was systematic. It was no
isolated incident but part of a deception that went on for
years: a deception not of the enemy but of the country's own
population. There is evidence of this in the Pentagon
Papers. Hannah Arendt wrote a great essay about them. (53)
Still under Johnson's presidency, the US defence minister
Robert S. McNamara had commissioned a secret study to
provide a systematic picture of the history of the Vietnam
War. This study clearly revealed that for years, the
government had deceived the American public with purposively
optimistic information about how the war was progressing.
The deception of Congress in the Tonkin affair was
particularly grave. In August 1964, a US destroyer was shot
at by North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin.
The American government reacted to the alleged surprise
attack with indignation. The Pentagon Papers made it
clear that the incident was a concerted American
provocation. Its purpose was to get the US Congress to grant
the President the power of attorney for a stronger
commitment in this undeclared war. This then happened.
Someone involved with this secret study, Daniel Ellsberg,
informed the New York Times, which started to print
selected articles from the Pentagon Papers. In the
meantime, Johnson had been replaced by President Nixon, who
tried to stop publication by means of a court order.
However, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the freedom of
the press and deemed that the Pentagon Papers were
not worth classifying. Subsequently, they were published in
their entirety.
The 47 volumes of the Pentagon Papers prove that
the American government had for years provided its own
people with an overoptimistic picture of the war. The
Vietnam War, which had never been declared and which ended
with a disastrous defeat of the
USA, was accompanied by a large-scale disinformation
campaign aimed at saving the US population's fragile
acceptance of the commitment. This short-term, dishonest
image policy resulted in a credibility gap with long-term
effects.
Rigged elections
The invocation of the name "Milosevic" will suffice!
Broken promise
It makes an essential difference whether the person
making the promise at the time believed in good faith that
he would be able to fulfill it and circumstances then
changed fundamentally in an unforeseeable manner, or whether
he secretly harboured the intention to break the promise
even at the time when he made it. The latter was the case
when the Hungarian uprising was crushed in 1956. The Soviet
government guaranteed the Hungarian Prime Minister Imre Nagy
and his Defence Minister Pál Maleter safe conduct to
the negotiations, and then killed them immediately.
Politician's official lie
The 1972-1974 Watergate affair is a case in point. In May
1972, the Democrats' headquarters in the Watergate Building
were broken into in order to tap the telephone of President
Nixon's Democratic rival. In June 1972, a second burglary
was attempted, this time to tap the phone of the chairman of
the Democratic Party. However, the burglars were caught,
arrested and tried. On the strength of an investigation
conducted by the Ministry of Justice, and of research
carried out by two journalists on the Washington
Post, it came to light that the break-ins had been
executed with the approval of Nixon's campaign chief, and
that they were merely the tip of an iceberg of numerous
dirty tricks, such as defamatory machinations against rivals
of Nixon's. The two journalists were later awarded the
Pulitzer Prize. President Nixon tried to wriggle out of it
by solemnly protesting that he knew nothing about it. He
repeated this statement several times, both before and after
his splendid re-election. After his re-election, the Senate
set up an investigation committee. When it became known that
all the conversations in the Oval Office of the White House
had been tape-recorded, the Justice Ministry's and the
Senate Committee's special investigator demanded that the
tapes be surrendered. Nixon refused this request with
reference to his executive privilege. However, the Supreme
Court ordered the disclosure of the tapes, which revealed
that Nixon had been informed three days after the second
burglary at the latest, and that he had therefore lied to
the American public several times. In July 1974, the House
of Representatives initiated the impeachment proceeding
against the President. Nixon escaped his impeachment by
resigning from office.
Perjury before a parliamentary investigation
committee
This leads us to the Iran/Contra affair of 1984-1986. It
is documented in the case collection of Harvard University. (54)
The affair was an undercover action since it was known to
only a few people in the National Security Council and in
the CIA. President Reagan was partially informed, the
Secretary of State and the Defence Minister were as good as
not informed at all, and nor were Congress and the
committees responsible for secret operations. The double
affair consisted, first, in the secret sale of weapons to
Iran for the liberation of American hostages in Lebanon and,
second, in the use of the proceeds of the arms sales for the
support of the Contra rebels against the Sandinista regime
in Nicaragua. When the deal came to light, Congress
conducted an investigation that lasted several months.
During the interrogation, the two main protagonists, Admiral
John Poindexter and Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, lied to
the Congress committees and sabotaged the investigation by
destroying and forging documents. Even so, Congress managed
to expose the affair. North was cashiered, and Poindexter
had to resign from this office as the President's security
adviser.
The main protagonists tried to exonerate themselves by
saying that the arms export had not been carried out
directly but through third parties, that no budgetary funds
released by Congress had been used, and the President had
basically given his consent, and that lies and cover-ups had
been necessary because the "enemy" was listening in. Both
covert operations were illegal since there was a ban on arms
exports to Iran and because Congress had prohibited any
support of the Contra rebels. Lying to parliament, and even
more so committing perjury before a parliamentary
investigation committee, cannot be justified in a democracy
by any manner of means.
These horror stories involving different types and cases
of whopping lies and other untruthfulness might create the
impression that politics is a thoroughly dirty business even
in constitutional democracies. This conclusion would,
however, be premature. Although we are unaware of the
percentage of undetected cases, we do not know when and how
often politicians have been prevented from untruthful words
and deeds by their personal integrity or for fear of the
consequences of being found out.
3 Incentives for truthfulness
Are there any incentives for truthfulness in politics? Or
more precisely: are there any incentives in person-oriented,
institution-oriented or results-oriented ethics? (55)
-
Person-oriented political ethics strive towards an
approximation to morally good politics through good office
holders,
-
institution-oriented ethics do so through good
institutions, and
-
results-oriented ethics through good
results.
3.1 Person-oriented political
ethics
In November 1997, the General Secretary of the United
Nations was presented with a draft Universal Declaration
of Human Responsibilities. (56)
The draft was conceived of as a counterpart to the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which had been
announced by the United Nations in 1948. Fifty years on, the
declaration of rights was complemented by a declaration of
responsibilities.
Art. 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Responsibilities says: "Every person has a
responsibility to speak and act truthfully. No one,
however high or mighty, should speak lies. The right to
privacy and to personal and professional confidentiality is
to be respected. No one is obliged to tell all the truth to
everyone all the time."
At first sight, this may sound naive. But on closer
inspection, one is amazed to find that the author of the
Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities is
none other than the InterAction Council, an association of
former heads of state and heads of government from all five
continents. Its Honorary Chairman is Helmut Schmidt, former
Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, and its
present Chairman is Malcolm Fraser, former Prime Minister of
Australia. Twenty-five of the elder statesmen signed the
draft declaration, among them Switzerland's former Federal
Councillor Kurt Furgler.
The draft of the Universal Declaration of Human
Responsibilities was not simply dashed off. Rather, it
was prepared in two expert meetings and two annual general
meetings of the InterAction Council. The main author was the
Swiss theologian Hans Küng, who had initiated a
worldwide movement with his book Global Responsibility,
In Search of a New World Ethic in 1990. The aim of the
movement is the establishment of a modicum of shared ethical
values, fundamental attitudes and standards which can be
agreed upon by, if at all possible, all the religions,
regions and nations. In 1993, the Parliament of the World's
Religions issued a declaration regarding a global ethic. (57)
This declaration, as well as Hans Küng's book A
Global Ethic for Global Politics and Economics,
published in 1997, emphasise the obligation of truthfulness. (58)
The publication of the Universal Declaration of Human
Responsibilities triggered off a partially fierce debate
in the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit. (59)
This is not the place to go into the ins and outs of that
debate, but a further-reaching result of the controversy has
an immediate connection with the obligation of truthfulness.
In his opening article, Helmut Schmidt had laid a false
track. (60)
Like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of
1948, the Declaration of Human Responsibilities is
not legally binding; they are both declarations of intent.
Yet the Declaration of Human Rights resulted in treaties
that are binding under international law, particularly the
two UN Human Rights Conventions of 1966. Now Helmut Schmidt
hoped that the Declaration of Human Responsibilities
would have a legal impact in a comparable manner. That was a
wrong track. Why?
There are legal responsibilities, and there are ethical
responsibilities. The distinction here used to be between
perfect and imperfect responsibilities. (61)
Tax liability, conscription, electoral duty, the prohibition
of torture, the prohibition of theft, the protection of the
civilian population in times of war, etc., can be
established as legal responsibilities. But the
"responsibility to treat all people in a humane way" (Art.
1) or the golden rule "What you do not wish to be done to
yourself, do not do to others" (Art. 4) are inappropriate
for a legally binding form. The same applies to the
obligation of truthfulness of Article 12.
If we recognise that the obligation of truthfulness is
not meant as a legal responsibility but as a moral appeal,
then it has the potential to sharpen office holders'
consciences. It does not only merit inclusion in a
Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities, but
also in professional codes of conduct for politicians or in
newly formulated political oaths, which office holders have
to swear in most countries. Understood in this way, Article
12 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Responsibilities is not naive. And generally speaking,
the wish appears to be justified that the Declaration of
Human Responsibilities should be debated by the United
Nations and that it should be adopted as a declaration of
intent, possibly in an amended form.
3.2 Institution-oriented political
ethics
Moral appeals on their own are effective only up to a
point. Claus Offe wrote: "Politics are only as honest as
their institutions are effective..." (62)
The qualifier "only" strikes me as exaggerated. However,
institutions are very important as incentives for
truthfulness. In a democracy, such institutions are the
opposition, parliament, the judiciary, and the media. If
they work well, they will discourage lies, deception and
other kinds of untruthfulness.
In four of the cases discussed above, the democratic
institutions functioned, albeit with losses, and only after
the event. In the German party donation scandal, the media,
parliament and the parties worked together. In the affair of
the Pentagon Papers, it was a combination of an
individual citizen's personal courage, the media, and the
Supreme Court. In the Watergate and Irangate cases, the
checks worked thanks to the interaction between the media,
the Justice Ministry, and Congress. Such cases may well act
as signals. Any future politician will have to think about
whether the risk of untruthfulness is worth it. He is well
aware now that public response will be very severe. Those
who are caught will have to expect a hiatus in their career,
or its very end.
3.3 Results-oriented political
ethics
Political trust and mistrust are the result of, among
other things, truthful or untruthful behaviour. Truthfulness
fosters trust, untruthfulness destroys it. Trust is a
fundamental category in a democracy, in a constitutional
state and in international law. The principle of trust is
the foundation of all law. Politicians want to be elected or
re-elected, i.e. they must make an effort to win the
electorate's trust. Political parties want to secure as big
a share as possible in parliamentary and government power,
i.e. they must also make an effort to win the electorate's
trust. It is not only the politicians and the political
parties, however, that depend on the trust of the electorate
and, in a direct democracy, of the voters; rather, trust and
mistrust are also directed at institutions, at parliament,
government, the judiciary, the constitutional state,
democracy itself. In a democracy, any policy can only be
implemented in the long term if it is accepted by the
electorate, i.e. it again depends on trust. Elections and
referendums are a trial of trust. In parliamentary
democracies, votes of confidence or of no confidence may
take place between election times. Opinion polls determine
the measure of trust placed in persons, parties and
institutions. An official ethical code enjoins US senators
and representatives to behave so as not to bring Congress
into disrepute. (63)
Most recently, "truth commissions have been set up, for
instance in South Africa, to create a new basis of trust
through reconciliation after bloody conflicts.
Of course, truthfulness and untruthfulness are not the
only criteria of trust and mistrust. Other criteria include
political successes and failures, or lawful and unlawful
behaviour. However, the results of polls and media reports
reveal very clearly that the politically interested general
public responds very sensitively, angrily, indeed
indignantly to untruthfulness. During the Vietnam War and in
the wake of Watergate, the American's trust in their own
government shrank drastically: from three quarters in 1964
to a quarter in 1980. (64)
Similar collapses of confidence could be observed as a
consequence of the scandal surrounding the donations to the
German Christian Democratic Union party and the nuclear
submarine disaster in Russia. Politicians', political
parties' and institutions' interest in preserving and
enhancing trust is a positive incentive for
truthfulness.
Conclusion
In the introduction, I quoted Václav Havel. To
conclude, I would like to return to him. 2500 years of
political ethics came and went until a statesman, namely
Havel, raised truthfulness to the rank of a decisive quality
of politics. Max Weber, in his famous lecture Politik als
Beruf [Politics as a Profession], demanded three
prime characteristics from politicians:
- passion for the cause,
- a sense of responsibility,
- and Augenmass. (65)
[quick perception and sense of judgement]
Should not a fourth characteristic be added:
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Arendt, Hannah (1972), Wahrheit und Lüge in
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Augustinus, Aurelius (1900), "De mendacio" and "Ad
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The English text on
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> .../publications/universal-declaration-human-responsibilities
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(1) Burckhardt
1921, pp. 33/96/140
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(2) Machiavelli
1967, 1126, p.88
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(3) Arendt 1972, pp.
8/44
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(4) Luhmann, in:
Kemper 1993, p.40
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(5) Ibid., p.34
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(6) Ibid., p.39
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(7) Soeffner 1998,
p.224 (quoted after Münkler 2000, p.303)
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(8) Revel 1990, p.
11
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(9) Nicomachian
Ethics, 1127 a 20-1128 b 9
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(10) De
mendacio and Contra mendacium
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(11) Summa
theologica, II-II q. 109-112
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(12) Über
ein vermeintes Recht aus Menschenliebe zu lügen
(Kant, Vol. 4, pp. 637-643)
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(13) De regimine
principum, pp. 80-82
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(14) Havel 1989
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(15) Havel 1991,
pp. 8-17
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(16) Ibid., p.83
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(17) Havel 1989,
pp. 84-86
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(18) St Thomas
Aquinas, II-II q. 109-112
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(19) Montaigne
1985, pp. 79-83 ("Von den Lügnern" [Of the
liars])
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(20) Augustinus
1968, pp. 411-466/467-528; Müller 1962, pp. 52-56
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(21) Schockenhoff
2000, p.59
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(22)
Geismann/Oberer 1986
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(23) Ibid., pp.
23-25
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(24) Kant 1963,
Vol. 4, pp. 637-643
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(25) Ibid., p.562
("Metaphysik der Sitten" [The Metaphysics of
Morals])
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(26) Plato, 389 b-d
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(27) Ibid.,
414c-415b
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(28) Ibid., 459c-e
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(29) Machiavelli,
Il Principe, Chap. XVIII
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(30) Cicero, De
officiis, II/44, p. 181
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(31) Machiavelli
1990, pp. 375-379
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(32) Sternberger
1988, p.85
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(33) Grotius 1950,
111/1
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(34) Pufendorf
1994, 1/10
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(35) Müller
1962, pp. 271-279/325-327/330-334
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(36) Bok 198O, p.
219
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(37) Ibid., pp.
98-116
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(38) Ibid., pp.
117-135
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(39) Ibid., pp.
119-132
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(40) Ibid., pp.
76/78
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(41) Ibid., p.213;
Schockenhoff 2000, p.37
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(42)
Gutmann/Thompson 1990, pp. 39-74
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(43) Pascal 1998,
p. 679
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(44) Laros 1951, p.
37; Bok 1980, pp. 65/136; Schockenhoff 2000, pp. 106-108
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(45) Zagorin 1990;
Schockenhoff 2000, p. 89
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(46) Bonhoeffer
1963, p. 388
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(47) Ibid., p.391;
Bok 1980, p. 178
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(48) Grotius 1950,
III/1, VI
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(49) The Hague Law
of Land Warfare, Art. 24
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(50)
Gutmann/Thompson 1990, p. 44
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(51) Schockenhoff
2000, p.324
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(52) Bok 1980, pp.
207-209
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(53) Arendt 1972,
pp. 7-43
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(54)
Gutmann/Thompson 1990, pp. 48-60
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(55) For an
explanation of this differentiation, cf. Riklin 1995
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(56)
Text on:
interactioncouncil.org
> Human Responsibility
> .../publications/universal-declaration-human-responsibilities
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(57) Towards a Global Ethic: an Initial Declaration,
> google.ch/search?q=Towards a Global Ethic: An Initial Declaration cpwr.org
[no more] on
cpwr.org/resource/global_ethic.htm (cpwr.org/calldocs/EthicTOC.html) [as in the printed edition]
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(58) Küng
1997, pp. 108-112
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(59) Die
Zeit, No. 41 of 3/10/1997, No. 42 of 10/10/1997, No.
43 of 17/10/1997, No. 44 of 24/10/1997, No. 45 of
31/10/1997
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(60) Die
Zeit, No. 41 of 3/10/1997
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(61) Küng in:
Schmidt 1997, p.92
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(62) Offe in:
Kemper 1993, p.131
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(63) Martel 2001,
p. 71
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(64) Orren 1997,
pp. 80f
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(65) A term that
does not readily translate into English. Literally
"measurement by eye", it means precisely that for a
craftsman who, with a quick and experienced eye, is
capable of measuring dimensions without the application
of a measuring tape. At an abstract level, the term
accordingly denotes a quick faculty of perception
combined with a sound sense of judgement.
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