Copy to word processor document to read and print.

Lying to Enemies
Sissela Bok, Lying Chapter 10
Contemporary Moral Problems
Professor Douglas Olena
Chapter Preface
„I discovered in the earliest stages that pursuit of truth did not permit violence being inflicted on one¼s opponent. but that he must be weaned from error by patience and sympathy.¾ ‚ Gandhi
Chapter Outline
Giving Enemies Their Due
Countering Harm
Rules of the Game
Giving Enemies Their Due
135 Lying to enemies serves two purposes. 
First, it can divert their maneuvers. If the lie succeeds in making them think one is too strong to be defeated, or so paltry and unattractive as not to be worth attacking, it may even keep them from attacking altogether.
Second, lying can help in the strategy to defeat the enemy.
Giving Enemies Their Due
135 „Lying to enemies is closely related to the lies for survival and in great crises.¾
Such lies appeal, first, to a sense of fairness through retribution.
And „the defense from harm is invoked in all adversary relationships.¾
Giving Enemies Their Due
136 Preview:
	„In this chapter, I want to look more carefully at the two main principles appealed to in lying to enemies:
		Fairness
		The avoidance of harm
Giving Enemies Their Due
136 Fairness:
	„People should receive the treatment that their behavior merits.¾
	„Enemies, through their own unfairness, their aggressive acts, or intentions, have forfeited the ordinary right of being dealt with fairly.¾
	„The idea of turning the other cheek to an enemy is profoundly alien to such intuitive morality.¾
Giving Enemies Their Due
137 Machiavelli justified lies to enemies first, because of a belief „that men are likely to act badly, to pose threats which make it all right to lie to them in return.¾
Second, because some are believed to be bad that they are „less worthy of truthfulness.¾
138 „Thirdä the adversary is often thought to be outside the åsocial contract¼ä in any one society.¾
Giving Enemies Their Due
138 Using the publicity of reasonable persons, this prejudice toward the adversary seems hollow.
139 „For the harm from lies to enemies is peculiarly likely to spread because of this very casual way in which enemy-hood is so often bestowed.¾
Machiavelli allows lies not only as retribution but preemptively.
„No evidence of present hostility is needed; predictions of future breaches of faith will serve as well.¾
Giving Enemies Their Due
139 „Most claims that lies to enemies are justified would not, then stand up in the face of reasonable scrutiny.¾
140 Bok asks the question whether it is necessary to add to the justification of lies in crises which certainly the overtly hostile or obviously threatening adversary creates.
„Need there be less of a crisis, or a less immediate one, for lies to be justified where enemies are concerned?¾
Countering Harm
141 If it were justifiable to lie to torturers, „could the same not be true about lies to prevent those conditions from arising?¾
„Even though appeals to retribution and fairness do not excuse lies to enemies, therefore, appeals to self-defense and to the prevention of harm may well do so.¾
„Honesty ought not to allow the creation of an emergency by the enemy, when deception can forestall or avert it.¾
Countering Harm
142 „Governments build up enormous, self-perpetuating machineries of deception in adversary contexts. And when a government is known to practice deception, the results are self-defeating and erosive.¾
143 When major social problems require joint effort with the government and the government is not trustworthy, thenä
„Bona fide efforts in the joint interest are thus undercut by the cynicism and sense of powerlessness which result from the knowledge of large-scale deception.¾
Countering Harm
143 „Could the test of publicity weed out all the spurious or biased excuses, and all those where lies might backfire or cause harm to general trust, while preserving certain conditions where lies to enemies are justified?¾ 
„What features of hostile relationships would mark these circumstances?¾
Rules of the Game
143 „A public test would look, first of all, for alternatives.¾
Honesty is always preferable to deceit.
144 „Secondly, encounters with enemies where there is a clear element of crisis must allow for deception, though with the same caution as in all other crises.
„Whenever it is right to resist an assault or a threat by force, it must then be allowable to do so by guile.¾
Rules of the Game
144 „Finallyä a special case might be made for deception in lawful, declared hostilities, as against tax-evaders or counterfeiters, or between openly warring parties.¾
145 „If we want to produce excuses for lying to someone, these excuses should be capable of persuading reasonable persons, not merely some public locked in hostility to a particular group.¾
Rules of the Game
145 „When in doubt, tell the truth. It will confound your enemies and astound your friends.¾  ‚Mark Twain