Assignment task:
Using outside sources:
1. What problems and issues are presented in this article below?
2. What are 2 or 3 relevant courses of action? Describe strengths and weaknesses
3. What alternative is most appropriate and ethical? Justify why.
Introduction:
According to Machiavelli, the successful ruler must be "a great liar and hypocrite." Politicians have to appear to be moral even though they are not because politics requires methods that citizens would find morally objectionable if· they knew about them. We do not know how many politicians follow Machiavelli's advice today (those who do so most successfully may seem to be the least Machiavellian). We know that many public officials have tried to justify deception, as have some political commentators and theorists.
Deception involves intentionally causing. (Or attempting to cause) someone to believe something you know (or should know) is false. Political deception is not always easy to recognize since it seldom comes in the form of an out right lie. More often, officials give us half-truths, which they hope we will not see are half-lies, or they offer us silence, which they hope will cause us to ignore inconvenient truths. Sometimes, officials provide so much information that the truth is deliberately obscured and lost in a plethora of facts and figures. Thus the first task in analyzing a case of alleged deception is to decide whether deception actually occurred and precisely in what ways.
Those who want to justify political deception usually grant what ordinary morality maintains: lying is generally wrong. But they go on to argue. No one (except perhaps Kant) believes deception is always wrong. Therefore, the general presumption against it can be rebutted in certain circumstances, such as those that typically characterize politics. Politics is supposed to make deception more justifiable for several reasons: (1) political issues are complex and difficult to understand, especially when they must be presented in the mass media or in a short time; (2) the harmful effects of some political truths can be severe and irreversible; (3) the political effects result as much from what people believe as from what is actually true; and (4) organizing coalitions and other kinds of political action requires leaders to emphasize some parts of the truth to some people and different parts to others; telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth would make compromise almost impossible.
But, at least in a democracy, these reasons cannot give political leaders a general license to deceive whenever and wherever they think it necessary. Unless we can find out what officials have actually done, just what they appear to have done cannot hold them accountable. At most, the special nature of politics may justify exceptions to a general presumption against deception in a democracy.
If we conclude that deception may sometimes be necessary, our task should be to define carefully the conditions under which citizens should permit public officials to engage in deception. The main factors we should consider are (1) the importance of the goal of the deception; (2) the availability of alternative means for achieving the goal; (3) the identity of the victims of the deception (other officials, other governments, all citizens); (4) the accountability of the deceivers (the possibility of approving the deception in advance or discovering it later); and (5) the containment of the deception (its effects on other actions by officials). The cases in this section offer the chance to identify various kinds of deception and to discover what if any, conditions would justify deception. The first selection is a group of mini cases. They are simplified versions of actual episodes in American politics, and they provide an indication of the variety of the kinds · of deception and circumstances in which politicians have tried to justify it.
''Disinformation for Qaddafi" and "The Iran-Contra Affair'' describes two recent foreign policy ventures in which deception was a key element; the first was formally approved by the president and key administration officials, while the second was kept secret even from some responsible officials within the administration. The two episodes also differ with respect to their goals, the victims of the deception, the possibilities of holding the deceivers accountable, and the chances of containing the deception.
Moral difficulties often do not come neatly packaged with labels announcing, "This is a dilemma of deception." In "The New York City Fiscal Crisis," many of the ethical issues lie buried in the intricate and sometimes tedious details of accounting routines. It is important to work through these details while keeping in mind the larger issues that they imply-such as the conflict between the obligation to keep the public informed and the obligation to protect the public welfare.