Are convenient fictions harmful to your health?

·期刊原文

Are convenient fictions harmful to your health?

Garner, Richard

Philosophy East & West

Vol. 43 No.1

Jan. 1993

Pp.87-106

Copyright by University of Hawaii Press

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1. Introduction

In the Republic, Socrates observes that the rulers of the

Ideal State may be called upon to administer "a large dose"

of the medicine of deception for the good of their subjects.

This willingness to prescribe wholesale duplicity has been

shared by distinguished leaders and teachers from many other

times and cultures. Then there are some Buddhists who see the

doctrines of karma, reincarnation, heavens, and hells as

merely expedient devices the use of which is justified by the

results, and this policy is defended in the Lotus Sutra. A

third expedient device is employed by those who appeal to

intrinsic values and binding moral obligations but do not

accept the objectivist implications of the moral language

they use and teach. John Mackie, after arguing that there are

no objective moral obligations or intrinsic values, invites

us to consider what sort of morality we need to "invent," and

Simon Blackburn has recently defended "quasi-realism/' the

view that while there are no objective moral properties, we

should speak as if there are. He says that without a belief

in objective morality, people might do terrible things.

In this essay, I will concentrate neither on lying as such,

nor on the larger topic of deception, but rather on the

deliberate and widespread promulgation of false beliefs by

those who know that they are false.[1] We have, without a

doubt, been served countless convenient fictions by both

cynical and well-meaning deceivers, but what is special about

Plato, the Buddhist authors of the Lotus Sutra, and

"projectivists" like Mackie and Blackburn is that they are

explicit about the need to employ their preferred convenient

fictions.

After setting out the three different convenient fictions, I

will comment on their plausibility, the motives of those who

use them, and the results we might expect from their

widespread acceptance. I will argue that, however much the

defenders of these and similar deceptions might promise, each

of the three is harmful in its own way. I will then look

briefly at some ways of thinking that discourage the use of

such devices, and conclude with some remarks about convenient

fictions today.

2. Plato's Lie

In the course of his discussion of censorship in the

Republic, Plato says that "to be deceived about the truth of

things and so to be in ignorance and error and to harbour

untruth in the soul is a thing no one would consent to."

"Falsehood in that quarter," he adds, "is abhorred above

everything."[2] But our indisputable aversion to falsehood

does not lead Plato to impose a total ban on lies. In

considering whether a god would "tell a falsehood or act one

by deluding us with an apparition," he makes a distinction

between what he calls "real or true falsehood" and "spoken

falsehood." True falsehood is ignorance, or falsehood "in the

soul," concerning reality--that is, false belief. It is a

thing "all gods and men abominate." Spoken falsehood, he

concedes, perhaps ignoring the connection between the two, is

sometimes helpful--"in war, for instance, or as a sort of

medicine to avert some fit of folly or madness that might

make a friend attempt some mischief."[3]

Though spoken falsehood is useful, Plato places a high enough

value on truthfulness to insist that if anyone is to employ

the medicine of the lie, "either on the country's enemies or

on its citizens, it must be the Rulers of the commonwealth,

acting for its benefit."[4] For example, when it comes to

marriage and childbearing, the Rulers are called upon to

"administer a large dose of that medicine we spoke of

earlier."[5] Plato has Socrates prescribe a mating festival

with a lottery rigged to guarantee that "there should be as

many unions of the best of both sexes, and as few of the

inferior, as possible." Only the Rulers are to know of this

ruse; "otherwise," he says, "our herd of Guardians [the

Auxiliaries] may become rebellious."[6]

Socrates notes that while both true and fictitious stories

are to be used in education, "we shall begin our education

with the fictitious kind."[7] Other deceptive practices occur

in the testing of young Guardians, and wherever the Rulers

felt that circumstances necessitated their use, but

notoriously in the best known of Plato's convenient fictions,

the "noble lie," as it is sometimes called. It isn't clear

who is supposed to be telling the lie, but it is clear that

as many of the citizens of the state as possible, even the

Rulers, are to believe it:

I shall try to convince, first the Rulers and the

soldiers, and then the whole community, that all that

nurture and education which we gave them was only

something they seemed to experience as it were in a

dream. In reality they were the whole time down inside

the earth, being moulded and fostered while their arms

and all their equipment were being fashioned also; and at

last, when they were complete, the earth sent them up

from her womb into the light of day. So now they must

think of the land they dwell in as a mother and nurse,

whom they must take thought for and defend against any

attack, and of their fellow citizens as brothers born of

the same soil.[8]

This story is so preposterous that it is hard to see how

anyone might be led to believe it. Plato is well known for

his frequent use of irony, and if he had not been so definite

about the usefulness of falsehoods, we might be tempted to

think he is making fun of paternalistic prevaricators. But

Socrates was not indulging in irony when he recommended "the

medicine of deception"; he was looking for a way to give

citizens a sense of unity, and Guardians a reason to care for

the common people as if they were their brothers. No story

would be likely to have these results if the citizens and

Guardians were not "convinced" of its truth.

We have recently come to understand that we are all children

of one mother, earth, made of the same material, doomed to

the same fate. No imperatives follow from this, but the

realization (and I do not mean mere assent to the

proposition) can change one's approach to life and the world.

It is important to see, however, that what is involved here

is not a false belief; it is a new gestalt, perfectly

compatible with the facts of birth as we know them. Can we

say, then, that, in speaking of the land as a mother and a

nurse, Socrates was only trying to produce some such new

gestalt? Probably not, and certainly the better-known part of

the fable, the famous "myth of the metals," will utterly fail

to achieve the purpose for which it was created (which

involves getting the citizens to accept serious inequalities)

if people do not believe that it describes genuine

differences among kinds of people.

The citizens who emerge from the earth, Plato continues, are

to be told that they were fashioned "by a god" who

mixed gold in the composition of those among you who are

fit to rule, so that they are of the most precious

quality; and he put silver in the Auxiliaries, and iron

and brass in the farmers and craftsmen?

Cornford doesn't use the expression "noble lie" to translate

the Greek term used to characterize this story. The word

'lie' suggests propaganda, so Cornford's Socrates calls the

story "a bold flight of invention." In a footnote, he says

that the story is a harmless allegory and compares it to a

New Testament parable? But the differences between this

"invention" and a standard parable should be obvious. It

doesn't matter if a parable is accepted as the truth about

what happened--the moral is the message. We have missed the

point if we argue that there is no evidence that any

Samaritan did the sood deed related in the Bible. The parable

was told as a way of urging us to exert ourselves to aid

others; it is no more than an illustration and a reminder.

Plato's Myth of the Metals, on the other hand, is a

"caste-fixing" myth--one designed to reconcile citizens to

the division of labor (and of privilege) found in the state.

It offers a bizarre but objectivist account of why some

people deserve to rule--they are made of the right stuff. No

mere parable or metaphor will convince anyone to accept the

authority of a class of aristocrats, so the gold had better

embody, or at least symbolize, some native attribute that

qualifies those who have it to rule and to hold the lives of

others in their hands.

Plato's myth is similar in function to the Vedic Purusa myth,

according to which the Purusa, a giant body, underwent a

primal segmentation. "The brahmin was his mouth, his two arms

were made the rajanya (warrior), his two thighs the vaisya

(trader and agriculturalist) , from his feet the sudra

(servile class) was born."[11] According to both stories,

class divisions are grounded in the way things are. If there

is no gold in the aristocrats, if brahmins and sudras are

made of exactly the same stuff, then unless some other

rationalization can be produced, class distinctions are

arbitrary, conventional, and open-to revision.

Perhaps we should be alerted by the contrast between Plato's

explicit statements about the danger of falsity in the soul

and his willingness to lie to everyone about the most

fundamental matters of reality, birth, religion, and human

nature. His goal was to design a stable society, but he never

seriously considered the dangers facing a society of

profoundly deceived and misguided citizens. We will seriously

consider those dangers in Section 5, but first I want to

introduce two further fictions, and two attempts to defend

the practice of exploiting them.

3. Buddha's Expedient Devices

Mahayana Buddhists have a concept called expedient devices

(upaya). The idea covers everything from skillful teaching to

the promulgating of false beliefs. The Mahayana ideal, the

bodhisattva, is a powerful being who has vowed to save all

sentient beings, and who is wise enough to realize that you

can't save beings without getting their attention, and that

you can't get their attention unless you offer them something

they want.

It is also a Mahayana tradition that when understanding is

reached, the Buddhist doctrine itself will be discarded, as

is a raft that has taken us where we wanted to go. This

suggests that many, or even all, the major Buddhist concepts

are "expedient devices," designed to help people get to where

they can grasp the real message (emptiness, perhaps, or

dependent origination). Included among these obsolescent

devices are the distinction between samsara and nirvana, the

concepts of karma and reincarnation, and the many heavens and

hells Buddhists were fond of describing.[12]

In the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha is said to have tailored his

teaching to his audiences:

The Buddha, by the power of expedient devices,

Demonstrates the teaching of the three vehicles. The

living beings, attached to this object and that, He

attracts and thus enables to extricate themselves.[13]

The "three vehicles" in question are the way of the

bodhisattva (seeking the salvation of both the self and

others), the pratyekabuddha (seeking one's own salvation by

one's own efforts), and the sravaka (aiming at the salvation

of one's own self by "listening to a Buddha and taking his

sermons to heart."[14] The sutra explains that this was a

teaching for a former time, when people were not yet ready

for the truth, or the "one teaching," which is that everyone

is capable of reaching the highest level of enlightenment,

Buddhahood, in this life. The Lotus Sutra does not say that

the Buddha actually lied to people about this, but if he said

things designed to give people a mistaken impression, then

some deception was involved, was it not? If, on the other

hand, he simply encouraged different people to seek different

paths, depending on their abilities, there need have been no

lies and no deception.

In chapter three of the Lotus Sutra a parable is offered to

support the practice of using expedient devices. The parable,

told by the Buddha to his disciple Sariputra, is about a

wealthy lord who has placed his children in a huge but

run-down house that catches fire. The children are occupied

with their toys, to which, we are told, they are addicted.

When the father cries to them about the fire, they pay no

attention, so busy are they with their play. Finally the

desperate father hits upon the expedient of telling them that

just those toys they most love are outside the door waiting

for them. This they hear and understand, and immediately

scamper to their safety.

Now the father has, strictly speaking, told the children a

lie; but few would blame him for that. In any case, it is one

he could make up for by getting his children the toys he

mentioned. But, as the Buddha tells this story, the father

appears to have compounded his mendacity. He would have been

ashamed, in his great wealth, to give his children what he

actually promised, so, instead, he gives them toys of much

greater value. The Buddha asks: "Is the man guilty of

falsehood or not? Sariputra answers that he is guilty of no

falsehood, that even if he gave them nothing at all, "he

would still be no liar."[15]

Perhaps Sariputra is confusing usefulness with truthfulness,

because on any plausible account of lying I can think of, the

father was guilty of falsehood. He produced a false statement

intending for his children to believe it. He said there were

toys when in fact there were no toys. If that isn't a lie or

a falsehood, what is?

It makes more sense to admit that the father did lie to his

children, and then to say that his lie was completely

justified. Then we can point out to Sariputra that the

question is not whether the father is a liar (one lie does

not a liar make), but whether the father lied. He did.[16]

Later in the sutra, when the Buddha is explaining this

parable, he insists that he is, like the father, "free of

falsehood," in spite of the fact that he "first preached the

three vehicles in order to entice the beings, then conveyed

them to deliverance by resort to only the One Great Vehicle."

As we have seen, the Buddha may have been free of falsehood,

but that depends on what he actually said when he preached

the three vehicles.

The point of the parable, of course, is that what the Buddha

offered (identified in the Lotus Sutra as "Buddhahood") would

not have been attractive to people at every level of

development. So, just as with the children, it is expedient

to promise less than one gives. We are like the children in

the burning house: without stories of heaven and hell, karma

and reincarnation, without the best devices bodhisattvas can

devise to help us, we will never escape from the flames of

our desires to set out on the road that leads to what is

really valuable.

The Buddhist idea of convenient devices, unlike Plato's noble

lie, has actually been put into use; people have been taught

according to their abilities and Buddhists have been

shamelessly eclectic in the devices they have been willing to

employ and the stories they have been willing to tell.

However much good this might have done, it still makes sense

to ask, as we did of Plato's proposed deception, whether we

might be harmed by accepting these myths and stories as

truths. After considering one more expedient device, we will

turn to this question.

4. The Projectivist's Moral Practices

Now I want to introduce a third convenient fiction, not as

fantastic as the ones favored by Plato and the Buddhists, but

pervasive enough to deserve our attention. Imagine that the

fears of the moral skeptics are justified, and that the

amoralist, who stands to morality as the atheist stands to

religion, is right. We make moral judgments with confidence

and great frequency, but, according to a skeptical tradition

that includes Hume, John Mackie, and Simon Blackburn, those

moral judgments are not related to the world in the way that

our claims about trees and tables are; rather, our "moral

distinctions" originate from within and are "projected" onto

an otherwise value-free world.

Hume said that while reason gives "knowledge of truth and

falsehood," sentiment is the origin of the distinctions of

morality. Reason "discovers objects as they really stand in

nature, without addition or diminution," but sentiment "has a

productive faculty, and gilding or staining all natural

objects with the colours, borrowed from internal sentiment,

raises in a manner a new creation."[17] He illustrates the

point by inviting us to consider a vicious act of "wilful

murder." If you examine it closely, he says, you will find

motives, volitions, and thoughts, but you will not find the

vice till you look within "and find a sentiment of

disapprobation, which arises in you, towards this

action."[18] Vice and virtue, like sounds, heat, and cold,

"are not qualities in objects, but perceptions in the

mind."[19] The error of the moral realist is to assume that

they are, in the words of Mackie, part of the fabric of the

world.

Mackie interpreted Hume's claim about how we gild and stain

objects as an endorsement of "projectivism," and, like Hume,

he embraced this form of antirealism. He held, in opposition

to noncognitivists, that moral judgments have a truth-value,

and, in opposition to moral realists and ethical naturalists,

he claimed that every single one of them is false. Moral

judgments are false because they all involve the mistaken

claim, or assumption, or presupposition that there are

"objectively prescriptive" moral properties or facts,

intrinsic values, or binding categorical imperatives. Like

Hume, Mackie believed that this assumption of moral realism

is embedded in our language. "Ordinary moral judgments," he

said, "include a claim to objectivity, an assumption that

there are objective values."[20]People who use evaluative

language may not comprehend what this assumption involves, or

how peculiar it is, but if Mackie is right, that is what they

assume--and they are wrong every time. That is why Mackie's

antirealism is described as an "error theory."

Now, if we accept Humean projectivism and an error theory, as

Mackie does, we cannot avoid the question of what to do with

our error-infested moral language. Shall we continue to use

it as a convenient fiction, or give it up and look for other

ways to get people to behave?

Mackie chooses to use it, as the subtitle of his book,

Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, and his attempt to

"construct a practical morality" indicate. He says that

morality is needed to counteract self-love and confined

generosity,[21] and he adds that the notion of a right is

"valuable and indeed vital."[22] He knows that talk about

rights and duties is either talk about an institution or talk

within an institution, but does not give much attention to

the fact that "talk within an institution" is often done by

people who are not aware that their words apply only within

that institution.

Perhaps Mackie thinks that he, and those who have grasped the

truth of the error theory, can use moral language in some

purged and non-erroneous way, but this is not so clear. If

moral philosophers use the same words ordinary people do,

they must use them with the same meaning, at least when they

are addressing the general public; if they know there are no

moral properties, then when they say things that imply that

there are moral properties they are saying and implying

things they know to be false.

Simon Blackburn has defended a position regarding the truth

of moral utterances that he calls "quasi-realist

projectivism."[23] As a projectivist, he agrees with Hume and

Mackie that "we have sentiments and other reactions, caused

by natural features of things, and that we 'gild or stain'

the world by describing it as if it contained features

answering to these sentiments."[24] This seems to place him

squarely within the antirealist camp; but, unlike Mackie,

Blackburn insists that we can, without error or falsehood,

speak and operate as if moral realism is true. Quasi-realism,

then, is projectivism without the error theory. explain how

error and falsehood can be avoided in these circumstances. In

Hume's Moral Theory, Mackie observes that Blackburn hopes to

escape error by challenging "the view that a claim to

objectivity is implicit in our ordinary ways of speaking."

Mackie, however, assures us that "direct attention to

traditional ways of thinking about morality... will still

detect such a claim."[25]

This issue about the ordinary use of moral language obviously

cannot be settled here. Perhaps neither Blackburn nor Mackie

can be conclusively identified as unequivocal advocates of

widespread deception. In that case it would be simple enough

to say that the position we really want to talk about is the

one that combines antirealism, projectivism, and the error

theory, and yet still insists, as Blackburn does, that the

idea that some things are objectively wrong, though a

projection of our feelings, is "something we need to

cultivate to the right degree and in the right place to avoid

the (moral) defect of indifference to things that merit

passion."[26]

5. Three Questions

There are three questions to ask Plato's rulers, Buddhists,

and projectivists who advocate the use of morality as a false

but expedient device: (a) What is the likelihood that the lie

(or deception) will be believed? (b) What is the motive in

telling (or perpetrating) this particular lie (or deception)?

(c) What are the positive and the negative effects of the lie

(or deception) being believed or not believed?

A. Credibility. I think we can agree that Socrates' story

never had a chance. It would not be easy to convince a child

that all of his or her early experiences were only a dream,

and it would be even harder to support the "noble lie," as

Socrates' fellow citizens learned for themselves that

children do not spring from the earth.

The Buddhist devices, on the other hand, do not go counter to

our daily experience; they just occupy a space beyond

experience. No current experience can confirm or disconfirm a

statement about former lives or future punishments, and the

concept of karma offers an explanation for all of life's

mysterious events. Indeed, inequality and both good and bad

fortune can be seen as evidence for the karma theory.

It is hard to believe that our childhood was a misleading

dream, easier to believe in karma and reincarnation, and hard

not to believe in the objectivity of morality. This last

deception (if it can be called that)is not one perpetrated on

a gullible public by some philosopher-king or bodhisattva; it

is one that people perpetrate upon themselves. The only

people who can be charged with duplicity here are those

projectivists who see through the illusion, and then decide

to continue using moral language on the grounds that the rest

of us will be better off if we continue to believe in

objective values and obligations.

B. Motives. What motivated Plato to recommend his fiction

about birth, and all the other deceptions Socrates mentions,

was a mistrust of ordinary people and an inflated opinion of

the ability of the "wise" to make good decisions. Beyond

this, it must also be recorded that Plato and his

aristocratic audiences were interested in promoting a form of

government in which the "best" (among whom they numbered

themselves) were given positions of power.

Buddhists were motivated by compassion more frequently than

by political ambition, and their expedient devices were

introduced to help others avoid suffering and reach

enlightenment. They believed themselves to be in possession

of a teaching that was too deep and demanding for people

scarred by ignorance and bad mental habits, and so they

devised ways to attract adherents and to help beginners

develop focused and tranquil minds. People were told, for

example, that if they would call out the name of a

bodhisattva ceaselessly, then that bodhisattva would help

them calm their minds. It probably never occurred to the

novices that it is impossible to worry about anything when

the mind is busy repeating some series of sounds. Minds were

calmed, so even if the stories of bodhisattvas are only

expedient devices, their use was thought justified by the

results.

Hume argued that justice is one of those "artificial" virtues

that produces "pleasure and approbation by means of an

artifice or contrivance."[27] We invent it to protect

ourselves "from the selfishness and confin'd generosity of

men, along with the scanty provision nature has made for

[our] wants."[28] Mackie agrees with Hume about the "object

of morality," and says that "it is necessary for the

well-being of people in general that they should act to some

extent in ways that they cannot see to be (egoistically)

prudential and also in ways that in fact are not prudential.

Morality has the function of checking what would be the

natural result of prudence alone."[29] Morality, he says, "is

not to be discovered but to be made,"[30] and, at least in

part, remade? But if we remake it by leaving out the

objective prescriptivity, we will have reduced what is left

to something with the force of a request or a suggestion--and

that will be of little use in checking prudence or any other

strong impulse?

Mackie and Blackburn are projectivists who differ about the

error theory. But whether moral claims involve a systematic

error or not, both insist that we are better off with

morality than without it.[33] Blackburn, in particular, wants

us to continue speaking as moral realists do because, as he

says, without a belief in objective values and obligations

people "are more likely to do the most awful things."[34]

We can agree that the Buddhists, those projectivists who want

us to speak (and think) as moral realists, and probably even

Plato, have only the best motives. Nevertheless we also know

that deception and the false beliefs that result can hurt us

even when the intentions of the deceiver are good, so it is

possible, even likely, that widespread acceptance of

substantial false beliefs will have unanticipated bad

results. When we look at deceptive practices from the

"perspective of the liar," as Sissela Bok terms it, we focus

on our own projections of the advantages of the deception,

and ignore potential disadvantages. We also tend to neglect

nonmendacious ways of arriving at the desired result?

C. Results. Because we cannot know the future, it is always

possible to debate the prospective results of some course of

action. We never have certain knowledge of the advantages and

disadvantages of telling some lie, or of participating in

some deceptive behavior or practice. Nevertheless, we are all

reasonably skilled at making predictions, and while some of

our predictions are bound to be mistaken, others have a good

chance of being right, and it would be disastrous to ignore

them.

It would not be rash to predict that a massive fabrication

like the "myth of the metals" would do serious damage if

injected into a person's or a society's cognitive system and

accepted as true. We never believe single, isolated facts;

rather we subscribe to complex, interrelated networks of

mutually supporting beliefs. In order to sustain the belief

that we were formed in the earth like potatoes, we would have

to find some way to neutralize the many facts that don't fit

with that fanciful claim. For every fact denied, a great

number of related facts would have to be deleted and other

supporting falsehoods produced.

If the members of any society should come to believe

Socrates' fable, or any similarly fabricated radical fiction,

the result would be a very confused group of people, unsure

of what to believe, and unable to trust their normal

belief-producing mechanisms. It is not wise to risk having a

society of epistemological wrecks in order to achieve some

projected good through massive deception. Usually the

situation is neither as dire nor as predictable as those who

would save the day with a lie believe. Too often what is

saved is not the day, but the lavish life-styles of those who

have discovered the need to deceive.

Throwing off lies and facing the truth is a sign of

epistemological health, in a community or in an individual.

The self-confidence gained from having seen through a

deception, and initiatives taken in response to the actual

situation, are likely to serve the citizens of a state far

better than any proposed deception would have done.

What now of the Buddhist devices? At least they do not begin,

as Plato's fable did, by asking us to reject what we have

seen and learned about our everyday world. The Buddhists (and

other religious moralists) try to secure improvements in our

behavior and in the quality of our lives by appealing to

alleged facts about former and future lives, about heaven and

hell, and about fantastically powerful beings.

In his introduction to Tsong-ka-pa's Illumination oft he

Thought, itself a commentary on Chandrakirti's Supplement to

the Middle Way, Kensur Lekden, a Tantric abbot from Tibet,

makes use of an expedient device in his discussion of

compassion. He concludes from three assumptions--infinite

time, a finite number of souls, and reincarnation--that in

some former existence every present enemy was a friend, a

loved one, perhaps even a mother. Consequently, he reasons,

it is appropriate to love everyone as if they were our

closest relative because they are, or at least were in some

former existence?

Before attempting to promote some such story as a convenient

fiction, we should ask if it is really likely to have the

effect predicted. If sincerely believed, the three

assumptions above probably would have some positive

effect--though perhaps not as much as a rational person might

expect. It is also possible that the same improvement might

be achieved by other less speculative means. Surely we do not

have to believe that someone was our mother or our friend in

a past life in order to feel compassion for her or him. If it

should turn out that my only reason for treating people well

is some such false (or at least unstable) belief, what

happens when I abandon that belief?

The Buddhist devices are not necessary for moral reform or

personal growth, though sometimes they are helpful. But if

they are imaginative fabrications, we can ask if they are,

like a belief in Socrates' myth, harmful. Well, they do hold

some potential for harm. Any time we do not see things as

they are, we are to some extent made incapable of appropriate

behavior. Further, if fanciful doctrines are widely believed,

people will become confused about what it takes to have a

true belief, and will be encouraged to indulge in many

spurious modes of cognition. A belief in karma and

reincarnation, or in heaven and hell, may make us feel better

about reality if our current life isn't turning out well; but

by the same token, it may rob us of a chance to practice

courage, and may actually discourage us from improving our

lives by making us believe either that we deserve what we are

getting, or that justice will be achieved in the fullness of

time.

Finally, what of objectivist moral language? If we agree that

intrinsic value and objective moral obligation are

projections of our feelings, and not to be found in the

world, we would be smart to evaluate the effects of beliefs

and practices based on a belief in moral realism.

Moral arguments are widely conceded to be unresolvable, and

moral language to be manifestly unclear, emotively loaded,

and theory-laden. There is every reason to think its

continued use will result in more inconclusive debates, moral

impasses, and stalled reforms. Since even the worst behavior

can be wrapped in moral terms, no atrocity or abuse need lack

superficial moral backing, and if its defenders are clever

and skilled, moral criticism can be held off indefinitely.

Indeed, a belief in objective value has always been called

upon to justify slavery, terrorism, genocide, exploitation,

and other atrocities. As long as morality is seen as

objective, we will be encouraged to hope that we can convince

others to accept what we think we know to be the obvious

moral truth. This keeps the arguments going and the

philosophers in business. It also prevents us from coming to

grips with the potentially irreconcilable character of our

positions and the need for compromise and tolerance.

It is true that if we abandon the habit of speaking as the

moral realist does, we will no longer be able to say that

slavery and cruelty are morally wrong, but how important is

it to be able to say that? What is important is the

elimination of slavery and cruelty; the vapid pronouncement

that they are morally wrong pales when compared to a sincere

and deeply felt aversion to them, and we can have that

without holding false beliefs about moral objectivity.

Just as the belief in reincarnation and supernatural beings

scrambles our epistemology by making us think we have access

to knowledge of an unusual kind, so does the belief in

objective moral truth. If there are no moral truths, then all

the epistemology designed to account for moral knowledge is a

waste of time and a source of confusion. What if we could

drop moral language and the deceptive practices of the

quasi-realist? What if we could just face the truth of

antirealism, acknowledging that morality arises in the way

Hume says, and that there is no intrinsic value, no objective

moral obligation, and no moral or human rights beyond

conventional practice-bound institutional ones? I do not

share Blackburn's fear that we would run morally amok if this

became common knowledge. After all, if moral beliefs are

projections of our feelings, we still have the feelings to

motivate us--so where is the problem?

While belief in the objectivity of morality may not be as

harmful as a belief in Plato's fable, it has its dangers. It

sets us up for interminable debates, and distracts us from

the task of gaining and developing two things necessary for

solving the problem of coexisting with others--knowledge and

compassion. Not only are fables about human history, human

nature, and moral objectivity unnecessary for the generation

of compassion; I would argue that what generates compassion

more quickly than anything else is unadulterated acquaintance

with people as they are, with their feelings, hopes, dreams,

intentions, and fears. If we can manage to stay in touch with

that, and successfully encourage others to do the same, we

can forget about Platonic lies, former lives, and myths of

intrinsic value and objective duty. Informed compassion is a

better, more faithful, and more reliable check on egoism than

morality or deceit could ever hope to be.

6. Whom Can You Trust?

We have no way of knowing what was really believed by those

who taught what even others of their time saw as false

doctrines. Perhaps many more of the claims of the ancient

sages were deliberate deceptions than we think. If so, the

ancient sages would not have been likely to tell us--a fact

that might lead us to wonder if we can trust anyone who

claims to be teaching some important truth that we cannot

readily verify for ourselves.

If we think of ourselves as in a position to institute or

support some convenient fiction, we can see that there are

(at least) three circumstances in which we would be inclined

not to do so. (1) We might have a positive reason to avoid

them. Perhaps we think they do more harm than good, or we

have (as a condition of being given membership or power)

agreed to avoid their use. (2) We could just be empty of any

desire to influence the behavior of others, in which case we

would be neither motivated nor inclined to exploit convenient

fictions. (3) Finally, we might have amassed so much power

over others that we have no need to bother with deception.

These three possibilities can be illustrated by the Jains,

the Daoists, and the Legalists.

A. The Jains. Jains have always been given high marks for

truthfulness, and, at the same time, they embrace one of

the most elaborately described nonempirical cosmologies in

the universe,[37] one that might strike someone outside

the Jain tradition as an obvious fabrication. What should

we believe about what they believe?

In The Jaina Path of Purification, Padmanabh S. Jaini

mentions the story of the Jain asked about the whereabouts of

a deer by a hunter, and, after supporting a deer-saving lie,

he notes that "the Jaina teachers have taken the exigencies

of worldly existence into account, functionally defining

asatya for the layman as a lie for one's own sake." With

monks, however, "no such expedient solution is

available."[38] So, it appears, the monks have vowed to avoid

lies even to help others, and this would surely mean that

they would be unlikely to engage in deliberate global

deception.

But what about the "incredible" teachings? Jaini says that

someone who has perfected nihsankita, freedom from doubt, is

"free of skepticism and perplexity regarding the teachings of

the Jina. He accepts these teachings without reservation,

partly because of his own glimpse into reality and partly

because he realizes that a Jina, totally omniscient and free

of all passions, can preach nothing but the absolute

truth."[39] So, whatever we ourselves believe about the Jain

picture of the universe, we should probably believe that the

advanced Jain who teaches it also believes it. Now, if we

could only be confident that the concept of an "omniscient

passionless Jina" is not itself a convenient fiction.

I do not understand precisely why a passionless omniscient

Jina is incapable of deception, but the reason ordinary Jains

avoid lies is similar to the reason they avoid harm. Jains

take the concept of karma so seriously that we can doubt if

they even entertain the possibility that it might be a

convenient fiction. As a result of this karmaphobia, they are

relentlessly careful to avoid doing even the least harm

(himsa) to any of the billions of living beings. For this

reason, perhaps, satya (truthfulness) is second only to

ahirnsa in the Jain table of virtues. Someone who inflicts a

deliberate deception upon a large number of beings becomes

responsible for all the harm that results when the afflicted

people act in ignorance. This may be why many Jains consider

statecraft, like farming, to be a less than desirable

occupation.

B. The Daoists. Of the places in the Dao De Jing where

truthfulness comes up, two seem to promote it. In number 8

the best man is said to love faithfulness in words, and in

number 17 the "great rulers" are said to value their words

highly? Others passages, however, have been seen as

recommending deception. In number 3 the sage is said to

keep the hearts (minds) of his people empty and their

bellies full, and in number 65 it is said that in ancient

times the sage "did not seek to enlighten the people, but

to make them ignorant," and that "people are difficult to

govern because they have too much knowledge." Further,

number 36 is always cited as promoting a doctrine of

deceit:

In order to contract, it is necessary first to expand.

In order to weaken, it is necessary first to strengthen.

In order to destroy, it is necessary first to promote.

In order to grasp, it is necessary first to give.

Wing-tsit Chan, the translator, notes that "Ch'eng I condemns

these methods as outright deceit," and relates how "Chu Hsi,

citing the same saying, attacks Lao Tzu as irresponsible and

taking advantage of others." But Chan rejects the teachings

of these "Confucianists/' and concludes that "to think that

Taoism teaches treachery is nearly impossible."[41 ] I agree,

and would add that it is far from obvious that numbers 3, 65,

or 36 must be read as advocating wholesale deception. Someone

who expands is not saying or implying that he is never going

to contract, and empty minds are not filled with false

information.

The best support for the claim that the Daoist would not

exploit convenient fictions comes from number 49:

The sage has no fixed (personal)ideas. He regards the

people's ideas as his own.... I am honest to those who

are honest, And I am also honest to those who are not

honest. Thus honesty is attained. The sage, in the

governance of his empire, has no subjective viewpoint.

His mind forms a harmonious whole with that of his

people. They all lend their eyes and ears, and he treats

them all as infants.

This is a strong endorsement of truthfulness and the lack of

duplicity in government. If the Daoist governing an empire

has no "subjective viewpoint, " then, unlike traditional

leaders, he has no personal program to impose on the people.

He will simply be the embodiment of the "general will," in

which case there will be no logical space for duplicity.

C. The Legalists. The Legalists were so concerned with the

impersonal operation of the machine of the state that they

would not have wanted to gum up the works with false

beliefs. They would not even bother, as Mo Zi did, to

frighten the people with tales of gods, ghosts, and the

anger of Heaven[42] The Legalist ruler simply sets out the

laws and the schedule of reward and punishment, and then

lets things happen according to the book. According to Han

Fei Zi, the ruler controls the people by the laws, and he

controls his ministers by means of the two handles of

punishment and reward.[43] If the ruler has a monopoly on

the means of coercion, then deception isn't worth the

effort.

This is not to say that the Legalists were free of all

duplicity. Deception and falsehood were used to manipulate

and conquer other states. Moreover, Han Fei Zi urged the

ruler not to reveal his will and preferences to his ministers

or his people, lest they "put on the mask that pleases

him."[44]

The Daoist runs the state with nonaction by having no mind of

his own, and the Legalist runs it with nonaction by starting

the machinery of the laws and then allowing things to

function automatically. The (ideal) Daoist has no motive for

promoting convenient fictions, and the Legalist (ideally) has

no need to do so. The Jain, by way of contrast, has a strong

motive not to deceive, and, perhaps for that very reason, a

strong motive not to try to run the state.

7. Convenient Fictions Today

The distinction between a lie and a "nonmendacious" deception

is not as sharp as people often suppose. The focus of this

essay has never been on lying alone, but rather on the

deliberate and large-scale promotion and exploitation of

false beliefs. The Daoist ruler might have had some hope of

keeping the people ignorant, and the Legalist of remaining

mysterious and hidden, even from his ministers, but such

policies are more difficult to carry out now than they were

in the days of the First Emperor of China. Thanks to computer

networks, shortwave radios, investigative reporters, CNN,

tabloid TV, fax machines, and camcorders, it is hard to

remain ignorant, and hard to keep secret anything someone

wants to know.

The technology of duplicity has almost kept pace with the

technology of discovery, but what makes duplicity more

difficult than discovery is the interconnectedness of beliefs

and of people. A noble whopper is connected by consistency

requirements to a vast number of other beliefs that will have

to be readjusted if the lie is to be accepted. Every

commonsense belief that doesn't fit is a thorn in the side of

the fiction, as is every nonbeliever who insists on sticking

with common sense, or Richard Garner with a different

fiction. The technology of revelation (and the freedom to use

it) allows everyone who hears the lie also to hear, and

sometimes even to see, the truth.

Convenient fictions that introduce devils and hells, karma

and reincarnation, and the stern voice of duty (beings and

processes that cannot be observed at work) are more difficult

to maintain now because we have a better understanding of

natural phenomena, including ourselves, than we did when the

fictions were first introduced. We are no longer forced to

settle for what may have been the best available explanation

several thousand years ago.

There are, of course, billions of people whose choices are

influenced by beliefs that are literally false. Some of those

who teach and exploit these false doctrines sincerely believe

them. But in other cases, the false beliefs are promoted by

cynical leaders who do not subscribe to them. It is not a

sure thing, but I am willing to predict that in the

twenty-first century it will be more difficult for

authoritarian and paternalistic leaders to administer "the

medicine of deception" to people, who (with some regrettable

exceptions) seem to be in the process of deciding that the

medicine they really need is the truth.

Truth is vital in a democracy, and if indeed the world is

heading in that direction we should try to flush out as many

convenient fictions from our systems as we can. It is

important for the citizens of a democracy to know the costs

of the alternatives and to hear the other hard truths

politicians like to conceal. It is not the task of the

philosopher to stand in the way of someone looking for

information, or to hamper that vital activity by withholding

criticism of outdated myths or creating new ones.

Even a truth-loving philosopher may decide to save a life or

a feeling by telling a lie, and there is certainly no need to

be militant about debunking every "superstition," but it has

always been the task of the philosopher to discover and share

the truth. In this case, the truth is that we are deceiving

ourselves if we think that some cherished end can be gained

and sustained by systematic deception, or that there are no

bad side effects when some presumptuous elite manipulates

everyone else by promoting a version of events they know to

be inaccurate.

NOTES

I would like to thank the instructors and participants of the

1989 NEH Summer Institute on Nagarjuna and Buddhist Thought

for making me think hard about the Buddhist notion of

convenient means. I am grateful also to Richard Bjornson at

Ohio State and to the anonymous reviewers for this Journal,

whose comments forced me to write a better essay. I think of

this work as an initial attempt to stake out my "pro-truth"

position, but by no means do I suppose that it is the whole

truth about well-meant falsehoods.

1. I did not say 'by those who believe they are false'

because I am confident that in the three cases I am going

to discuss, the beliefs in question are not true.

Obviously that is not the issue here. I should also

mention that l will avoid loose-ends complications such

as people who teach truths they believe to be false or

falsehoods they believe to be true.

2. The Republic of Plato, trans. F. M. Cornford (London:

Oxford University Press, 1941), p. 74.

3. Ibid. See also, of course, the exchange with Cephalus

about the madman with the knife (p. 7). Here the question

is whether or not to tell a lie to save a life--not a

difficult question unless you have for some reason

unwisely adopted an absolute prohibition on lies. A

similar story turns up in the Mahabharata and in Jain

literature, though in the Jain version of the story the

lie is elicited by a hunter chasing a deer rather than a

robber searching for his victims or a madman searching

for a murder instrument (Padmanabh S. Jaini, The Jaina

Path of Purification [Berkeley: University of California

Press, 1979], p. 174). The Jain may have taken a vow of

truthfulness, but in the case in question, he will

protect the deer with a lie or with silence. Kant raises

the issue and argues that it is wrong to lie even to save

someone from being murdered. "To be truthful (honest) in

all declarations, " he says, "is a sacred and absolutely

commanding decree of reason, limited by no expediency"

("On a Supposed Right to Lie from Altruistic Motives," in

Critique of Practical Reason and other Writings in Moral

Philosophy, trans. Lewis W. Beck [New York: Garland

Publishing Company, 1976], p. 348). These occasional lies

for the sake of others, or even for our own sake, pale to

insignificance when compared with the lies on which we

are focusing--the well-intentioned but massive

fabrications devised to affect the thoughts and actions

of everyone.

4. Ibid., p. 78.

5. Ibid., p. 158.

6. Ibid., p. 159.

7. Ibid., p. 68.

8. Ibid., p. 106. Why did Plato refrain from accepting what

seems to be the actual import of this myth--namely, that

it is not all citizens who are brothers and sisters, but

all people?

9. Ibid., pp. 106-107. Richard Garner

10. Ibid., p. 106, n. 1. See also his remarks about the

Greek term 'psuedos' on p. 68. In Jowett's translation it

is called a "needful falsehood," and in Rouse's a

"necessary lie."

11. A Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy, ed. Sarvepalli

Radhakrishnan and Charles A. Moore (Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1957), p. 19.

12. Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma (The

Lotus Sutra), trans. Leon Hurvitz (New York: Columbia

University Press, 1976). The Lotus Sutra goes on at

length about various hells and disagreeable

reincarnations that are reserved for people who malign

and disbelieve it (see chap. 3, "Parable," pp. 77 ff).

13. Ibid., chap. 2, "Expedient Devices," p. 25.

14. Ibid., p. xx.

15. Ibid., chap. 3, p. 60.

16. The father did in fact lie, but that may be the least

interesting aspect of his behavior. It is never stated,

but it is made abundantly clear, that this lord set

himself up for the situation that forced the lie. Why did

he store his "beloved" children in a dilapidated fire

trap? Why did he allow them to become addicted to toys?

Most importantly, what sort of training did he give them

that they responded to a promise of toys but wouldn't

even listen when he warned them of a real danger? The

moral I get from the story, and it is a very important

one, is that if we allow things to develop in certain

directions, we are sure to find ourselves in situations

where we can avert an undesirable outcome only by doing

something we would not normally allow ourselves to

do--like lying or deceiving someone who is close to us.

17. David Hume, Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals,

ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford: The Clarendon Press,

1902), p. 294 (Appendix 1).

18. David Hume, 4 Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L. A.

Selby-Bigge (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1888), III.

1.i, pp. 468-469.

19. Ibid., p. 469.

20. J. L. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong

(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977), p. 35.

21. Ibid., p. 170.

22. Ibid., p. 173.

23. Simon Blackburn, Spreading the Word(Oxford: The

Clarendon Press, 1984), and "Errors and the Phenomenology

of Value, " in Morality and Objectivity, ed. T. Honderich

(Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985).

24. Blackburn,"Errors and the Phenomenology of Value," p. 5.

25. J. L. Mackie, Hume's Moral Theory (London: Routledge &

Kegan Paul, 1980), p. 75.

26. Blackburn, "Errors and the Phenomenology of Value," p.

6. Blackburn's position is difficult to pin down. At

times he seems to be rejecting the error theory as such,

and at other times he seems to allow that people do have

false beliefs about moral objectivity (a "false theory,"

he says) but that "it does not follow that the error

infects the practice of moralizing, nor the concepts used

in ways defined by that practice" (p. 3). He does not

explain how a false theory about what you are doing can

be insulated from your practice and your concepts.

27. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, 111.2.ii, p. 477.

28. Ibid., p. 495.

29. Mackie, Ethics, p. 190.

30. Ibid., p. 106.

31. Ibid., p. 123.

32. See Richard T. Garner, "On the Genuine Queerness of

Moral Properties and Facts," The Australasian Journal of

Philosophy 68, no. 2 (June 1990): 137-146.

33. Blackburn,"Errors and the Phenomenology of Value,"p.11.

34. Ibid., p. 8.

35. Sissela Bok, Lying (New York, Vintage Books, 1979), pp.

21 ff.

36. Jeffrey Hopkins, Compassion in Tibetan Buddhism

(Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications, 1980), pp.

77-78. In his comment on Chandrakirti, Tsong-ka-pa says

this:

Chandrakirti says in his commentary to Aryadeva's Four

Hundred, that if sentient beings are considered to have

been friends much as parents--from beginningless time,

then one can bear to plunge into cyclic existence for

their sake (p. 119).

37. Jagmanderlal Jaini, Outlines of Jainism (Cambridge: The

University Press, 1916), pp. 119-125.

38. Padmanabh S. Jaini, The Jaina Path of Purification, p.

174.

39. Ibid., p. 151.

40. Wing-tsit Chan, The Way of Lao Tzu (New York:

Bobbs-Merrill, 1963).

41. Ibid., p. 164.

42. See Mo Zi's chapter on "The Will of Heaven" and the

chapter on "Explaining Ghosts," where he says that "if we

could only make all the people in the world believe that

the ghosts and spirits have the Richard Garner power to

reward the worthy and punish the wicked, then how could

there be any disorder in the world" (Basic Writings of Mo

Tzu, Hsun Tzu, and Han Fei Tzu, trans. Burton Watson [New

York & London: Columbia University Press, 1967], pt. I,

p. 94).

43. Ibid., pt. III, p. 30.

44. Ibid., p. 16.