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Truth, Lies, and Concealment: St. Augustine on Mendacious Political Thought

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2017

Jeremiah Russell  and
Michael Promisel
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Abstract

There is disagreement among scholars regarding the mendacity of esoteric writing. Some see it as a necessarily dishonest mode of communication; others argue it does not meet the conditions of lying; others are more nuanced in their assessment. In this article, we seek to resolve this disagreement by offering a systematic analysis of the literary practice in which we argue that there are both truthful and mendacious forms of esoteric writing. In sum, if an author conceals truths from a general audience while still being truthful on the surface of the text or makes it clear that he is being untruthful, he is not lying; yet if an author conceals truths while intentionally being untruthful on the surface, he is lying. Given the parallel ethical structure between esoteric writing and political discourse, we argue that the analysis provided in this article may illuminate the ethical choices made in both written and political statements.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 79 , Issue 3 , Summer 2017 , pp. 451 - 473
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2017 

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References

1 This essay is not concerned about whether such writing, particularly if it is mendacious, is justifiable. It only seeks to ascertain whether it is essentially lying or not. Many scholars who defend esotericism argue that untruthful forms of esoteric writing are justifiable owing to the noble aims they achieve. First, they argue, esoteric writing protects philosophers from persecution. Actually, this can apply to anyone. People who hold dissenting opinions can be imprisoned and tortured, particularly in nonliberal societies, and the ability to conceal their true beliefs can shield them from persecution. Second, scholars suggest that esoteric writing promotes philosophical education. By using various literary devices (e.g., intentional contradictions within one's work), authors can entice gifted and inquisitive minds to search for answers and think for themselves. This literary practice also protects society from instability. Philosophers often pursue certain dangerous truths and question conventional norms, including religious ones. These activities can unsettle a society, yet by appearing to “fit in” and mask their subversive teaching, philosophers can ensure that the status quo goes unchallenged (at least publicly). Yet such defenses are ultimately unpersuasive to those (albeit a minority) who hold that lying is never morally permissible regardless of the harm it avoids or the benefits it gains.

2 Melzer, Arthur, Philosophy between the Lines: The Lost History of Esoteric Writing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014), 1–2, 121CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Tanguay, Daniel, Leo Strauss: An Intellectual Biography, trans. Nadon, Christopher (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 68, 73, 97Google Scholar.

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6 Strauss, Leo, “On a Forgotten Kind of Writing,” in What Is Political Philosophy? and Other Studies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 221–22Google Scholar. In a footnote in Natural Right and History, where Strauss discusses Rousseau's esotericism, he mentions the French philosopher's ethical assessment of it: “‘Je ne suis pas tout-à-fait de cet avis, et je crois, qu'il faut laisser des osselets aux enfants.’ … Rousseau's principle was to say the truth ‘en toute chose utile’… hence one may not only suppress or disguise truths devoid of all possible utility but may even be positively deceitful about them by asserting their contraries, without thus committing the sin of lying” ( Strauss, Leo, Natural Right and History [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953], 261n20Google Scholar). Here, it is acknowledged this form of writing is a lie, albeit one that is morally justified.

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8 Zuckert, Catherine and Zuckert, Michael, The Truth about Leo Strauss: Political Philosophy and American Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 136–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For alternate readings of Strauss's esotericism, see for example Levine, Peter, Nietzsche and the Modern Crisis of the Humanities (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), 152–65Google Scholar; Peterman, Larry, “Approaching Leo Strauss: Some Comments on Thoughts on Machiavelli ,” Political Science Reviewer 16 (1986): 317–51Google Scholar; and Rosen, Stanley, Hermeneutics as Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987)Google Scholar.

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10 Smith, Steven B., Reading Leo Strauss: Politics, Philosophy, Judaism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 163–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Drury, Shadia, The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), lxCrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a persuasive response to Drury, see Zuckert and Zuckert, The Truth about Leo Strauss, 116–20.

12 It seems that there is a range of one's confidence in particular ideas that cannot be reduced to either true or false. Sometimes we mostly believe; at other times, we talk in terms of probabilities; and still, at other times, we doubt. For our purposes, the minimum threshold for truthful esoteric writing is that what is read is not false.

13 For the primary sources, see Augustine, , “Lying,” in Treatises on Various Subjects, Fathers of the Church 16, ed. Deferrari, R. J. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1965), 47–110 Google Scholar; “Against Lying,” in Treatises on Various Subjects, 113–79.

14 We are aware of only two scholars who take issue with the traditional reading of Augustine's absolute prohibition on lying. John von Heyking claims that Augustine permits, nay even requires, lying in certain circumstances (e.g., to save someone's life). See Augustine and Politics as Longing in the World (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2001), 117–18Google Scholar. David Decosimo argues that Augustine approves of state-sponsored lying in certain justified cases even though he condemns all private (or personal) instances of lying. See “Just Lies: Finding Augustine's Ethics of Public Lying in His Treatments of Lying and Killing,” Journal of Religious Ethics 38, no. 4 (2010): 661–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 He devoted particular attention to the Academics. Taken mostly from the Neoplatonist Porphyry's account, Augustine believed that these philosophers concealed their true teaching with an apparent skepticism that served to seduce young inquisitive readers to pursue the truth. They were not truly skeptics but for pedagogical reasons constantly questioned ideas and refused to offer any positive teaching, at least on the surface, in order to provoke people to search for the truth. Though he acknowledged the merit of such an approach in the right context, he worried it could turn people into actual skeptics. See “Letter to Hermogenianus (Letter 1).” See also City of God 4.27, 30, 5.9, 6.10; Of True Religion 1.1, 5.8; Against the Academics 2.29, 3.17.37–38; “Letter to Dioscorus (Letter 118)”; Confessions 5.10.19; and On Christian Doctrine 2.6 and 4.6–9. For commentary on Augustine and esotericism, see Kries, Douglas, “Augustine as Defender and Critic of Leo Strauss's Esotericism Thesis,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 83 (2009): 241–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Augustine's consideration of esotericism in scripture occurs in response to a defense of “useful lies” (mendacium officiosum) given by his contemporary St. Jerome. The disagreement was over an episode recounted in the book of Galatians and is detailed in Augustine's On Lying.

16 Howse, “Reading between the Lines,” 63.

17 Smith, Reading Leo Strauss, 163.

18 For discussions on Augustine and lying, see Griffiths, Paul, Lying: An Augustinian Theology of Duplicity (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2004)Google Scholar; Feehan, Thomas D., “Augustine's Own Examples of Lying,” Augustinian Studies 22 (1991): 165–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Feehan, , “The Morality of Lying in St. Augustine,” Augustinian Studies 21 (1990): 67–81 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Feehan, , “Augustine on Lying and Deception,” Augustinian Studies 19 (1988): 131–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Brinton, Alan, “St. Augustine and the Problem of Deception in Religious Persuasion,” Religious Studies 19, no. 4 (1983): 437–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Augustine, On Lying 4.5; Against Lying 12.26.

20 Isenberg, Arnold, “Deontology and the Ethics of Lying,” in Aesthetics and Theory of Criticism: Selected Essays of Arnold Isenberg (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), 248Google Scholar.

21 Primoratz, Igor, “Lying and the ‘Methods of Ethics,’” International Studies in Philosophy 16 (1984): 54n2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 The only exception is that lying can also occur when the statement ostensibly reports something—certain facts or citations, for example. As will be addressed below, such a report is a lie if the statement is given duplicitously with the intent to deceive.

23 A few scholars suggest that even silence, if intended to deceive, is lying. See Ekman, Paul, Telling Lies: Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Marriage, and Politics (New York: Norton, 1985), 28Google Scholar, and Scott, Gini Graham, The Truth about Lying (Lincoln, NE: ASJA Press, 2006), 4Google Scholar. If deceptive silence is considered lying, then certain forms of esoteric writing considered truthful in this article would be counted among the fraudulent. Silence to the general audience regarding certain truths is not necessarily deceptive in nature (i.e., Crosson's latent teaching). However, it certainly can be.

24 For an alternative reading, see Colish, Marcia, “St. Augustine's Rhetoric of Silence Revisited,” Augustinian Studies 9 (1978): 15–24 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 See for instance Against Lying 12.26.

26 Augustine, On Christian Doctrine 2.1–3.

27 Augustine, On Lying 3.3. See also Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II 110.1.3.

28 This is in contrast to Griffiths's reading of Augustine in which lying is restricted to verbal communication. See Lying, 33–34.

29 Augustine, On Lying 3.3.

30 Ibid.

31 Some scholars question the validity of the falsehood condition. They argue that any statement, even a truthful one, if made with the intent to deceive, is a lie. See for example Barnes, J. A., A Pack of Lies: Towards A Sociology of Lying (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 11CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Davidson, Donald, “Deception and Division,” in The Multiple Self, ed. Elster, Jon (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 88Google Scholar.

32 Griffiths does not consider the intent to deceive to be an essential part of Augustine's definition of a lie. See Lying, 27–29. Most Augustine scholars disagree, even though it is debated whether intentionality is merely an explanation of the term or a necessary part of it. For a debate on this issue, see Boyle, Joseph, “The Absolute Prohibition of Lying and the Origins of the Casuistry of Mental Reservation: Augustinian Arguments and Thomistic Developments,” American Journal of Jurisprudence 44, no. 1 (1999): 43–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Dorszynski, Julius, Catholic Teaching about the Morality of Falsehood (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1948)Google Scholar.

33 Though not explicitly found in Augustine, it is not inconsistent with his view and is a position generally agreed upon by scholars. See Chisholm, Roderick and Feehan, Thomas D., “The Intent to Deceive,” Journal of Philosophy 74 (1977): 152CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mahon, James E., “Two Definitions of Lying,” International Journal of Applied Philosophy 22 (2008): 220CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Tollefsen, Christopher O., Lying and Christian Ethics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 Levenick, Christopher, “Exceptis Igitur Iocis: Augustine on Lying, Joking, and Jesting,” Augustinian Studies 35, no. 2 (2004): 304–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 Augustine, On Lying 2.2.

36 Augustine, Soliloquies 2.9.15–18.

37 Melzer, Philosophy between the Lines, 294.

38 Augustine, “Letter to Hermogenianus (Letter 1).”

39 Augustine, Against the Academics 2.10.24.

40 We borrow this helpful analogy from Tanguay, Leo Strauss, 2–3.

41 Augustine, On Lying 13.23.

42 The bishop's silence is not deceptive because the interrogators already knew the truth—he was hiding a man. His silence did not cause them to believe to the contrary.

43 No information was conveyed through his silence. Again, the interrogators knew he was hiding a man. They were only trying to learn where he was hiding him. The bishop's silence did not reveal anything in this regard. If, however, the interrogators asked whether the man was in a certain location, silence would have signified information, namely, that he was in fact there. See On Lying 13.24.

44 In On Lying (13.23), Augustine writes of this man, “I consider as praiseworthy that man who was unwilling to tell a lie or to betray another man, and I hold that he understood the Scriptures better and fulfilled their commands more courageously” than one who lied or betrayed.

45 Genesis 20:1–18.

46 Abraham's silence about his marriage to Sarah deceived Abimelech in that it caused him to believe something false about her, namely, that she was not Abraham's wife.

47 The information conveyed by Abraham's silence was that Sarah was not his wife.

48 Augustine, Against Lying 10.23.

49 Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing, 13–15.

50 Though concealing truths can be morally permissible, there are instances where one is obliged to reveal them. These are instances where someone has a “right” to a particular truth. In these situations, one is not permitted to deceive by concealing that truth. Many of these cases occur through professional obligations. For example, if a real estate agent is aware of a serious problem with a home, there are ethical standards within that profession requiring that the agent reveal the information. There might also be examples in political life. If a politician has information that could harm citizens or jeopardize the nation's security, there may be some moral obligation to reveal those facts.

51 For clarity's sake, we are not identifying these as esoteric works but simply as works of nonfiction.

52 Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing, 13–14.

53 Augustine addresses a similar case in Against Lying. Members of a Christian sect, known as the Priscillianists, publicly professed orthodox doctrine and openly practiced Catholic liturgy, all the while secretly believing and practicing otherwise. Their founder, Priscillian, was charged with a host of different sins, from professing heresy to practicing magic. This former bishop of Avila was tried before a tribunal, convicted, and executed, along with several of his followers. To avoid further persecution, Priscillianists began practicing their useful lie. Catholics wanted to identify and admonish members of this sect but found it difficult to do so. To overcome this challenge, some Catholics suggested using the Priscillian tactic against them, which is to say, publicly professing to be other than they were. It is likely other Catholics were already doing this. Consentius, one such enquirer, wrote Augustine in hopes he would address the issue. If Christians employed lying in leading people to the faith, Augustine wrote to Consentius, the truth of that faith and the trustworthiness of its messengers would be subject to doubt.

54 Smith, “Reading between the Lines,” 63. See Kant, Lectures on Ethics, trans. Louis Infield (London: Methuen, 1930), 228. It is worth noting that this particular definition of a lie is not Kant's more mature definition or his final position on lying. In his final word on the subject, “On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropic Concerns,” Kant has no such stipulation and defines a lie as simply “an intentionally untruthful declaration to another man,” which is similar to Augustine's definition.

55 One possible exception is when one is forced against his will to sign or compose a letter assenting to a particular orthodoxy.

56 Smith, Reading Leo Strauss, 163–64. Smith quotes Harry Frankfurt's definition of a liar; see On Bullshit (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 52–61 Google ScholarPubMed.

57 On this view, the propagation does not inhibit the search for the highest truths because the average reader is not searching. They believe conventional wisdom. And the few philosophically minded people, who are searching, are not fooled by the noble lies. As Strauss notes, a philosopher “would not deceive himself about the fact that such opinions are merely ‘likely tales,’ or ‘noble lies,’ or ‘probable opinions’ and would leave it to his philosophic readers to disentangle the truth” from the conventions (Persecution and the Art of Writing, 35). This approach was necessary, it is argued, because of a tension between philosophy and society. But Christianity radically changed this tension, in Augustine's view. As Kries notes, it replaced the “steep, rough, upward path out of the cave” with a “smooth and wide Roman highway” (“Augustine as Defender and Critic,” 247). Now, those who were unwilling (or unable) to search for the highest truths had an easier path than philosophy. They had faith. And as a result, these truths could be “believed [even] if they could not grasp them with the mind” (Augustine, Of True Religion 3.3). Moreover, for Augustine, this new reality permitted, nay required, a more inclusive audience. Since there was an obligation to guide everyone toward the truth, noble lies were no longer needed. In fact, the propagation of society's “cherished illusions” would undercut such education.

58 Augustine commends this truthful form: “if some truths must be kept hidden from him because of the fact that he is not yet of our faith and a partaker of our Sacrament, he should not for that reason be told what is false” (Against Lying 6.15; cf. On Lying 10.17). Strauss suggests that at least al-Farabi thought such an option was not viable. The philosopher must appear to accept, at least provisionally, the accepted opinions of his society (Persecution and the Art of Writing, 17).

59 Again, for clarity's sake, we are not identifying these as esoteric works but simply as works of fiction.

60 Besides works of a singular genre, there are numerous texts that mix fiction and nonfiction. These move back and forth between the different genres. As long as authors make clear to the casual reader that they are transitioning to another genre, the distinctions established above hold true for each respective genre.

61 Lucian, vol. 2, trans. A. M. Harmon (London: Heinemann, 1919), 503.

62 Despite this division, some argue that Aristotle's esoteric texts—those we still possess—are themselves esoteric. Strauss, for example, makes this point in Persecution and the Art of Writing (111).

63 In Persecution and the Art of Writing (70–71), Strauss offers five other ways philosophers have intentionally contradicted themselves.

64 Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing, 36.

65 Augustine, Of True Religion 2.2.

66 Ibid., 3.3.