LYING AND HYPOCRISY IN MORALITY AND POLITICS

Abstract

Hypocrisy is necessary in politics, especially in democracies, but whilehypocrisy can facilitate democratic cooperation, lying tends to undermine it. Thereare two basic alternative possibilities for how to think about political ethics. Thefirst begins with universal moral principles that are then applied to politics as wellas to other areas of life. In the second approach, instead, each activity or type ofrelationship has its own moral requirements. What is it about politics that makeshypocrisy and lying either morally legitimate or morally illegitimate? For the firstapproach, lying and hypocrisy are vices, whereas for the second, they may beconsidered as virtuous under certain circumstances. Hypocrisy is necessarybecause political relationships are relationships of dependence among peoplewhose interests do not exactly coincide. To secure supporters and coalition partnersrequires a certain amount of pretense. The case of lying, however, is quite differentdue to three additional characteristics of political relationships: cooperation overtime requires trust; accountability requires transparency; and consensus requiresa shared sense of reality. Lying undermines all three. Thus, truthfulness is amongthe political virtues even if exceptions sometimes must be made. Today, “post-truth”politics (“New Lying”), threatens to create a dangerous indifference to the truth anda cynical, wholesale acceptance of political lying.