When, If Ever is a Lie Morally Permissible?

Peggy Scott
Phil 6 Symbolic Logic
Summer Session B
August 21, 2001

Chapters directed to:
1,2 and 3; Pg. 39-42 Conflicts of Duty, 4,7,11
Conclusion, Augustine, Aquinas & Kant

Lying to protect the anonymity of Alcoholics Anonymous members and their families helps them join the group, recover and chart a new course for their lives. The few occasional lies necessary to keep their affiliation with the group private are morally acceptable, because society is safer if these people are in AA than if they are not in AA. Alcoholics have very little chance of staying sober without AA, and they often do terrible things to anyone in their path when they are drunk. Anonymity encourages participation in AA for both new and continuing members, and fewer would join and stay sober if they had to bear the burden of public knowledge of their condition.
As a matter of public policy, our communities are generally strong supporters of AA, providing meeting rooms, considerable goodwill and privacy for over fifty years now. AA and the public both benefit by every alcoholic who quits drinking, because a sober drunk is a safer drunk. When we look to the individual level, what's in the best interest of the public and what’s best for the sober alcoholic are often diametrically opposed. The legal, social and economic repercussions for having identified oneself as an alcoholic could be devastating to a sober alcoholic person if this information became available to people who are afraid of us, those who might profit from the knowledge and those who’d like to use it against us. Some examples:
We have plenty of sober members who would likely lose their jobs, or at least suffer dimmer career prospects if the word got out to their employer that they were AA members. The more responsible their position, the more anonymity they want to safeguard. AA members include CPA’s, priests, nuns, pilots, judges, lawyers, senators, physicians, teachers, child-care providers, ambulance drivers, etc. The community might not want to chance it if they knew that individuals in these positions of trust were potentially at risk of drinking and impaired judgment. The truth is, about 5% of employees in those positions (and all other positions) are true alcoholics and haven't stopped yet and their judgment is impaired at times. The people in AA aren’t very risky; it's the drinkers who are still drinking and appear "normal" that pose a danger. Society benefits most if we can get those still drinking to put down their beer and join us, and we can do that easier if we stay anonymous.
It's really hard to get health insurance and car insurance if the insurance company gets a whiff of an alcohol problem. Who can blame them? New livers don’t grow on trees these days, and car wrecks are costly too. We aren’t as risky as those still drinking, but as a group, we represent a higher risk than those who’ve never had substance abuse problems, because a certain percentage of us will eventually get drunk and wreck a car or cause some regrettable havoc. They would do well to avoid us. If we drink again, we might cost them a lot. Health insurance is such a vital need that if insurance companies could find out who we were, we’d all become uninsurable and then nobody would join AA going forward, so the societal risk and costs overall would rise if AA dwindled.
At some time in the future, our country could again be swept up with an alcoholic aversion similar to the Prohibition Era. AA’s wouldn’t want to have a membership list lying around, in case public opinion ever turns against us. If a drunk shot the President, for example, people might decide they should control all these "loose cannons," we wouldn’t want to be lumped together with the drinking bunch. Loose or not, who wants to be controlled? Our lives could be adversely affected. If AA’s suffered diminished circumstances, the next batch who need us would not join up. No one would join AA if his or her name had to go on a list. Untreated alcoholism would rise. When they run their car up a tree, the problem would end up right back in society’s lap.
Laws now identify criminals whose crimes were committed under the influence of alcohol. Will these criminals now be set aside for special handling? The bureaucrats learned what we knew 50 years ago; the alcohol-related crimes include not only the more benign criminals, the “loveable” drunks, but alcohol is usually involved with the worst criminals and the worst crimes happened due to a complete lack of sanity or presence of mind at the time of the crime (Charles Manson types). AA helps society by preventing relapses.
In the conclusion to her book, "Lying," Sissela Bok concludes that individuals could wring a considerable amount of deceit from their lives, and would enjoy freer, calmer lives if they did so. However, society puts so much pressure on people that it's very hard to get along in this world without lying. The institutionalized pressure to lie is so great that although many people would rather not lie, they sometimes feel they must. They experience the burden and consequences of lying, but the burden of the absolute truth could be far more to endure. She calls for the reform of our institutions, government, and our society overall, encouraging us to place a great value on trust and to change our interactions to reward truth. She concludes that our society needs to build a "foundation of respect for veracity." She gives several instances where the government could improve the lives of its people by reestablishing trust and providing rewards for truthfulness. This sounds great in theory, but in practice, all that truth would be grating, with collisions occurring between opposing interests. Alcoholics could benefit from a more honest society, but at this time, it's wise not to lead with your chin. If a doctor knows a patient loses consciousness, he is required by law to notify the state. The state, in turn, pulls the patient's driver's license. Diabetics and epileptics avoid seeking needed medical care to maintain their ability to drive, and by extension, get to work. If the doctor has mercy on a patient and doesn't report a lapse of consciousness, when an accident occurs five years later, the lawyer for the plaintiff will attack that doctor. The guilty patient won’t be the target, the patient's doctor will be. The doctor wasn't even in the car. In recent years, a trend of pulling drinkers' driver's license has expanded tremendously. If patients’ fights against alcoholism became less private, then Doctors and other service providers could become more increasingly liable for the failures of alcoholics in the future, and so alcoholic's relationship with their medical community will deteriorate or to be blunt, he might be treated like a leper. The government makes laws that trap us all into certain prescribed ways of acting without intending to cause the results it creates. Society’s need to prevent the car wreck is apparent, but doctors won’t risk their own careers on us if they could be seen to be guilty by association. Anonymity affords consistent communication between alcoholics and their doctors.
Once we join AA, we are no longer a problem. The ones who cause the problems are the ones who haven't joined yet, who are still claiming normal status. But they won't join if they have to go public, so they will go on causing those problems unless they can join in such a way that getting sober doesn't cost a risk to their stature and livelihood.
I support a utilitarian view of lies told to allow AA to function anonymously, because AA does a lot of people a lot of good. The good they do and the tragedies they prevent justify using their unorthodox method. Since they’ve had such good success with it, they should continue on their anonymous path. There are hundreds of thousands of hardworking volunteers; feeding homeless, counseling teens, visiting jails and mental institutions. They care for a population that no one else wants to serve, that everyone else has lost hope for. They bring forth thousands of successes each year, helping individuals whose lives can begin to function once more. Lies shouldn't be told that alcoholics who drink and hurt people should be able to avoid the consequences of their behavior. Still, the majority of alcoholics is not drinking and is working as a positive force, and they should be able to avoid being painted with the same brush as an alcoholic who is still drinking. Sixty years ago, when AA came into being, anonymity was a cornerstone, critical to those early pilgrims’ success. Many sufferers gained enough courage to give us a try because they could be assured of not being exposed to the community as alcoholic. Their careers and credibility would be lost if news of their drinking problem came to light. Sissela Bok asserts "Secret societies can create hothouse conditions of secrecy that intensify and accelerate change" (Bok, 55). She also quotes Carl Jung, (who was quite involved in the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous) that "secret societies were an intermediate stage on the way to assuming personal responsibility in leading one's life." (Bok, 49). Although alcoholism has been more openly accepted in recent years, AA is still almost entirely anonymous. Reasons that we still need anonymity include:
1. So that the newcomer can trust us. He is usually up to his neck in barbed wire, stumbling blocks and shame by the time he’s willing to call us, so he is most interested in keeping a low profile.
2. To avoid attracting attention from those who look down on us, due to their own beliefs. If they are not involved in our operations and undertakings, then they don’t need to know who we are. It wastes energy trying to defend ourselves. We have a tough job trying to help the new people, visiting the jails and hospitals. It’s simpler to avoid the derision and scorn that might come from temperance types, Muslims, and other tee-totalers who hold a low opinion of us because of our pasts, or perhaps our potential to revert to type.
3. The odds of “not drinking” for the group overall are quite good, but individual success varies, as each individual has to find a way to get through the day without doing the only thing he wants to do. Many fail, it depends on the individual, and luck. If one of us holds himself out to the public as a successful AA member, and then later drinks, someone who needs AA may not bother to come to AA because they’ll draw conclusions that AA doesn’t work from People Magazine. Disastrous breaches of our anonymity include Robert Downey, Jr, Elizabeth Taylor and Daryl Strawberry. We will never know if one (or many) people died that might have been saved, but they didn’t come to us because AA “didn’t work” for the public figures who drank again. AA shouldn’t have the group’s public opinion go up or down, based on whether “the famous guy” stays sober after professing his commitment to the AA way of life. It’s easier on us as a group if he just shuts up, keeps us out of the press and keeps us out of the public eye.
Anonymity affords an equal chance to anyone who wants to give it a try. Better to let the newcomer come try AA learn to fight a good fight, than to just give up without ever trying. AA is like Weight Watchers. If you do what they say, you will get skinny. They have a method that works quite well, if you are willing to do the job. The trick is being willing- that's the hard part!
In my original premise, I excused a little white lie, giving as an example a little smoothing-over lie told to in-laws to protect my privacy and my husband’s. I don’t tell anyone in my husband’s family or his friends that I am in AA, because he doesn’t want them to know. I wouldn’t mind if they knew, but he would mind terribly. His reasons are wrong, misinformed, biased and absurd. He even thinks he might lose his job if his co-workers knew; that it might appear he exercised bad judgment in choosing me. It's a dumb point of view, but that’s irrelevant, because what matters is that he deserves to be comfortable around his family and friends. He chooses to exercise his right to anonymity, I’m duty-bound to respect his desire for anonymity. He feels so strongly about it because he holds drunks in very low regard, which is still pretty common. His perceptions have little to do with reality, but the beliefs strongly persist. Drunks generate strong feelings in lots of people – those who love us and those who rely on us, and we’ve hurt a lot of people. He deserves not to be shamed by associating with me, particularly by events that occurred 15 years before he met me.
Occasionally, I get boxed in by a direct request to account for my whereabouts, so then I just say any fuzzy old thing to throw them off the track. A few close friends and family have grown increasingly curious over the years as to where it is I go when I disappear. I tell them I went to see friends, my “church group” or to a class at the library, etc. It would be much more pleasant for me to just say “I went to AA today.” This is the White Lie referred to by Bok, the little lie told to get out of a scrape. (Bok, 59) They are not important and hurt no one. Bok argues against them, but they make pleasant relations possible. When friends or in-laws ask me questions, they are just trying to make pleasant conversation by asking me where I have been; they are not probing for some big secret. They are just passing time. We have a different sense of privacy boundaries. They have known my husband longer than I have, so they are very close. I still feel guarded, because I haven't known them as long. Bok accepts this in Secrets. (Bok, Secrets, p.14)
While I attempt to justify telling this sort of lie, I don't feel good about it when I do it. If my lies were discovered, the loss of esteem and trust would cause great regret. We have shared many years of friendship. They trust me completely. They think they know me. If they ever did find out at this point, they wouldn't care that I'm in AA, but they would care that I didn't tell them. I admit to a thorough agreement with principles set out by Bok in Lying, that the risks of getting caught cause great anxiety and the consequences of lying burden the liar (Bok, 52). I don't like to lie and I cringe at the risk.
In assessing this sort of attempt to mislead, it does (barely) hold up to Book's definition of a lie: an intentionally deceptive message that is stated, when the liar believes the statement is false. It’s also not far from the everyday clumsy moment; Book's comment is “we blunder misinformed through life.”
Remember that my big deception is withholding the knowledge of this side of my life from my in-laws and friends. They would be shocked to learn that I was once a drunk, because I look so innocent. I would love to tell them war stories and share with them my passion for my work in AA. The unstated deception is huge; falsely stating where I went last night pales when compared to my deception by silence about my alcoholism and my misspent youth.
St. Augustine enumerates eight categories of lies, and ranks them by severity of the offense. He strongly opposes lying to catch heretics, and strongly protests stooping to their level. He correctly point out that if one lies to catch someone who is guilty, the liar then becomes as guilty as the one he is trying to catch. So, if both parties were equally guilty, why would a liar be in a position to punish someone else? He clearly states that we should never lie and that we should never teach others that it might sometimes be acceptable to lie. I would not pass St. Augustine’s test, but these lies would be very low on the importance scale. What does he know? He lived when the church was lying to him about whether the earth revolved around the sun. His opposition to lies is largely a political theme in his work; it's the government he objects to. If I were to rank lies, a lie to my husband would be #1, as he deserves to be able to trust completely. I wouldn’t do that. I might stall a little before I tell a truth, but he’ll be told. You owe your partner 100% honestly but how much honestly do you really owe to anybody else? St. Thomas Aquinas lived in the 1200's, a time when truth and trust were hard to come by. He sets about dividing sets of lies into categories - distinctions are made about lies that stop short of the whole truth and those that go too far; by types of intentions, by degree of sin, by the amount of pleasure enjoyed form the act of lying. He divides them into menial and mortal sins, closing by specifically condemning one who lies while trusted as a teacher. By St. Aquinas’ standards, I think it’s safe for me to look forward to going to heaven. He states, "The greater the good intended, the more is the sin of lying diminished in gravity." Aquinas says that a lie is not a mortal sin in many instances, and a little lie like my example would be a menial sin. He will let me into heaven, as long as he holds to Book's definition of a lie. He says that a lie that stops short of the truth a lie of "irony." I am guilty of omitting a big chunk of truth about myself. He sees the benefit to exploiting the gray areas of life. He dismisses useful lies as not very sinful. Henry of Navarre switched from Protestant to Catholic to become King of France. If Paris is worth a Mass, then I'll keep quiet about AA for the sake of appearances when I need to.
Leaving behind those dusty old Catholics, Immanuel Kant brings a fresh perspective from the Age of Enlightenment. Where the Catholics are very concerned about following rules they believe were set forth by God, Kant speaks from Duty - to support universal truth by our speech and actions, in order to support the presence of goodwill in the world. The commitment to right action (of not lying) is more important than any consequences that truth might bring. He has the refreshing point of view that a "man has a right to his own truthfulness." I love this in principal, but I am not entirely free, perhaps none of us is. I think that truth has less value than sobriety, and a few lies for anonymity are more acceptable than a lie without such a worthy cause. Just think of all the kids who get their child support because AA makes their Dad send it. That alone is such a positive force in the world! Powerful healing can be accomplished, and getting out of the limelight and into AA helps a lot. More than truth, sobriety sets you free! This is something that I have dared to know!
Bok points out that physicians often tell lies to patients, to make the patients comfortable, following the Hippocratic Oath: "First, Do No Harm." They are pledged to uphold their patient's privacy, even if sorely pressed. This is quite entertaining for me, because my husband is a physician. He is quite comfortable looking his own sister in the eye and directly lying about where I have been. I have often wondered why he had this bald spot on his morals, and it's quite apparent now that he believes that protecting my privacy is his utmost duty. He believes I would be harmed if his sister knew, because she would think less of me. It’s not important to me what the people in my husband's circle think about me. What my husband thinks they think is important, because it matters to him and he cares a great deal for his friends and family. Frankly, I think that without the anonymity provision of the program of AA, I doubt that he could have brought himself to marry me. Since I want him, I find it convenient to remain more anonymous than many and am happy to have our traditions to hide behind. That’s what anonymity is for.

Works Cited:

Bok, Sissela. Secrets. New York, NY: Vintage Books (1984), p. 55.
Bok, Sissela. Lying. New York, NY: Vintage Books (1999), p. 56.