The Long Goodbye: A Bad Lie

IN the first book of Plato’s Republic, the question is posed whether justice inheres in telling the truth. Socrates raises the prospect of a friend whom one knows to be not in control of himself. If he asked the whereabouts of a knife, would one really be obliged to tell him? The lesson was that it was necessary to be cautious about general rules, especially about speaking falsely. A “lie” is not every act of speaking falsely, just as a “theft” is not every taking, or borrowing, of property. The pivotal question is whether the act is done with, or without, justification. The Danes, in the 1940s, who were hiding Jews, were not obliged to speak the truth to the Gestapo at the door. But this is strikingly different from an act of speaking falsely for the sake of misleading people to the detriment of their own interests, and for the benefit of the liar.

These ancient propositions carry over into the field of statecraft as well (which was, of course, part of the point in the Republic). Franklin Roosevelt was not obliged to make known to the public—and with that, to the Nazis and the Japanese—the secret work carried on at Stagg Field. But what if a question about it had arisen under oath? It would have been quite improvident for congressmen to have raised such a question on the public record, for it is part of the function of the Executive to run certain “operations” of danger and delicacy which truly require secrecy. This was the problem that bore on my friend Elliott Abrams during the Iran-Contra crisis.

About the Author

Hadley Arkes

Hadley Arkes is the founder and director of the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights and the American Founding.

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IN the first book of Plato’s Republic, the question is posed whether justice inheres in telling the truth. Socrates raises the prospect of a friend whom one knows to be not in control of himself. If he asked the whereabouts of a knife, would one really be obliged to tell him? The lesson was that it was necessary to be cautious about general rules, especially about speaking falsely. A “lie” is not every act of speaking falsely, just as a “theft” is not every taking, or borrowing, of property. The pivotal question is whether the act is done with, or without, justification. The Danes, in the 1940s, who were hiding Jews, were not obliged to speak the truth to the Gestapo at the door. But this is strikingly different from an act of speaking falsely for the sake of misleading people to the detriment of their own interests, and for the benefit of the liar.

These ancient propositions carry over into the field of statecraft as well (which was, of course, part of the point in the Republic). Franklin Roosevelt was not obliged to make known to the public—and with that, to the Nazis and the Japanese—the secret work carried on at Stagg Field. But what if a question about it had arisen under oath? It would have been quite improvident for congressmen to have raised such a question on the public record, for it is part of the function of the Executive to run certain “operations” of danger and delicacy which truly require secrecy. This was the problem that bore on my friend Elliott Abrams during the Iran-Contra crisis.