Honesty is the best policy! That moral theme was dinned into me from the beginning of school attendance. From an even earlier age, from the time I was a babe in arms, the sinfulness of telling lies became an even more powerful reason for the primary importance of telling the truth. My parents were strong evangelical Christians and believed literally in the written words of the Bible, though now as I read the Ten Commandments I see only a prohibition against bearing false testimony against your neighbour. There is not a commandment saying, “Thou shalt not lie.”
I always believed in the importance, and yes, the practical benefits of truth telling, and I still do. My constant policy since I was very young has been full disclosure and truth telling and accepting responsibility for my own failings. In spite of that I am sure there were times as a child or even in later years, when I evaded the truth out of weakness and fear of punishment or other undesirable consequences. Telling lies did when I was a child, and in the end always does, I think, invite punishment if discovered.
It is impossible, I think, to have a properly functioning family or community if we cannot trust the word of our relatives, our neighbours, our business associates, our politicians—everyone we constantly have dealings with. Perhaps that is why our community, world-wide, in early times, in great Empires, and today, does not function properly.
So it is moral truth I am here concerned with. If any fundamental rules of ethics existed for any civilized society apart from the rules established by various religions, the first among them should be: Always tell the truth!
Surely we must begin development of such a rule by teaching children at an early age that it is in their self-interest to avoid the endless entanglements falsehoods inevitably cause. One of the better ways to motivate such behaviour is by example. Children must be able to trust the word of their care-giving adults. A sure way to undermine that trust, it seems to me, is to threaten children with consequences that never occur. I have seen such idle control mechanisms often used in families, and I have been guilty of them myself, but surely such idle threats are themselves a type of lying, and give children a bad example. I must say it is easier to criticize such behaviour by other parents than to avoid it personally.
For nearly twenty-five years I was a member of the Chilliwack Rotary Club. Rotary International is a worldwide service club of business and professional people. Rotary’s motto was Service Above Self and members were instilled with the principles of Rotary International. Club founders believed that not only was it the duty of community leaders like Rotarians, to serve their communities, locally, nationally and internationally, it was also good business. A major guide to help members achieve even greater success in both service and business was Rotary’s Four Way Test. It was required reading and periodically members unexpectedly had to recite the four questions of the test at club meetings. New members received a copy of the test printed on a small plastic desk stand, along with their nametags and other paraphernalia. Mine still graces a shelf in my library after these many years away from Rotary. One side of the stand lists the test questions: Is it the TRUTH? Is it FAIR to all concerned? Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS? Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?
In debates about the possibility of strictly applying these standards questions of justice, friendship and benefit were less difficult than the question of insisting on absolute truth. Furthermore, it was not always that easy to decide whether or not it was the truth in specific situations.
For example, application of the Four-Way Test in our justice system is always a problem. Take the very simple situation of a person charged with a crime. In the common law an accused is always innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. In the result, many accused persons entering a plea in our criminal courts, say they are not guilty, even if they are.
Without going into the legal niceties of that procedure, the chances are that in a large majority of cases brought before a judge, the “not guilty” plea is a lie. Accused, defence lawyer, prosecutor and judge all know the plea is most likely to be a lie, but if any one of them even suggested such a thing, the man would be deprived of what is called “due process.” Everyone knows the procedure fails that Four-Way Test yet in the interest of preserving the safeguards developed against abuses once rampant in the various systems of criminal justice, we bend over backwards in favour of a person accused of crime. Just think of the cost to our justice system of every accused person insisting that every element of the alleged crime be proven. Yet in these days of almost automatic legal aid for every accused person, the alleged criminal incurs no cost by taking advantage of every possible element of that due process. And believe me, today many an accused is more knowledgeable and experienced in exercising his right to counsel and due process than some of the junior legal aid counsel who represent him in court.
In the days of my own criminal law practice I sometimes advised an accused that the weight of the case against him made it unlikely that the cost of a full defence could be justified, suggesting a guilty plea and argument to mitigate penalties could be beneficial in a properly charged offence even though judges are also unpredictable. I felt waiver of full process was not the same as waiver of due process. That process was usually closer to the truth and in the best interest of all concerned including the accused, as a fairer sentence usually ensued. It provided the justice the accused deserved, speeded up the process, saved everyone money and came closer to meeting the Four-Way Test in almost all cases.
In another area, marital infidelity or other breaches of accepted sexual morality often result in offences against the truth. Absolute truth and trustworthiness between spouses is essential to a successful family relationship, yet I am somewhat ambivalent about the wisdom of full disclosure to spouses of even the most innocent flirtation by the other. Spouses of both genders today often lead separate lives in business or profession for substantial portions of each day. In those other lives, uniquely close relationships between associates in those other worlds are easily formed. Sometimes they inadvertently result in “feelings” that could be thought of as treasonous to the spousal relationship. What is the essential truth in that situation? If the so-called guilty spouse blabs every detail of his other world to his family partner, that partner may conclude a hurtful breach of faith has happened. Consequences unintended by anyone could result. They could be terminal to an otherwise solid family relationship and ruin the lives of spouses, children, parents and friends. Does truth and trust always require full disclosure to be fair in that situation? I wonder.
I am left then, with a need to live by the truth when the avoidance of truth becomes ever more common in an increasingly secular society. In the rural and small town communities of the nineteenth and earlier twentieth Centuries, old Western religious values made it more difficult to conceal falsehoods. Major agreements could be sealed with a handshake, for a breach would easily become known and bring down the wrath of the community on the offender. Since then those earlier groupings have dispersed into an increasingly urbanized and fragmented society. Religious sanctions can no longer be taught to children in schools for fear of offending one or other of the many diverse religions to be found in our cities. The rearing and training of the next generation is left more and more to strangers, government support workers, television and the computer. Where then will we find the community to provide the essential ethical values without which a civilization cannot endure?
American and Canadian politicians and government agencies give a great deal of lip service to the question of values. Unfortunately there seems to be little consensus in our diverse cultural structure about what those values ought to be. In 1915, in the midst of the First World War, Sigmund Freud published his Thoughts On War And Death. I agree with the statement he made in that paper, when he said: “… our conscience is not the infallible judge that ethical teachers are wont to declare it, but in its origins is [dread of the community] and nothing else. When the community has no rebuke to make, there is an end of all suppression of the baser passions, and men perpetrate deeds of cruelty, fraud, treachery, and barbarity so incompatible with their civilization that one would have held them to be impossible.”
The answer to our conundrum may well lie in the development of a new supplemental secular religion of humanity. Good deeds and positive values are not restricted to the practitioners of traditional religions. Despite often-conflicting passions among our diverse religions, I have noted there is general agreement among them on core ethical values including truth and honesty. I think every major religion subscribes to some version of what Christians call the Golden Rule.
In the twenty-first century, perhaps well-intentioned urban secularists will commune with the diverse cultural traditions in North America and come up with a compendium of such core values. Once such a standard is generally taught and accepted in every social grouping, our diverse cultural community would have a new common standard; it might again have “a rebuke to make” and thereby “suppress the baser passions” of its population even without the intervention of the politicians and their legislation. The time may be here for a new set of Ten Commandments.
I always believed in the importance, and yes, the practical benefits of truth telling, and I still do. My constant policy since I was very young has been full disclosure and truth telling and accepting responsibility for my own failings. In spite of that I am sure there were times as a child or even in later years, when I evaded the truth out of weakness and fear of punishment or other undesirable consequences. Telling lies did when I was a child, and in the end always does, I think, invite punishment if discovered.
It is impossible, I think, to have a properly functioning family or community if we cannot trust the word of our relatives, our neighbours, our business associates, our politicians—everyone we constantly have dealings with. Perhaps that is why our community, world-wide, in early times, in great Empires, and today, does not function properly.
So it is moral truth I am here concerned with. If any fundamental rules of ethics existed for any civilized society apart from the rules established by various religions, the first among them should be: Always tell the truth!
Surely we must begin development of such a rule by teaching children at an early age that it is in their self-interest to avoid the endless entanglements falsehoods inevitably cause. One of the better ways to motivate such behaviour is by example. Children must be able to trust the word of their care-giving adults. A sure way to undermine that trust, it seems to me, is to threaten children with consequences that never occur. I have seen such idle control mechanisms often used in families, and I have been guilty of them myself, but surely such idle threats are themselves a type of lying, and give children a bad example. I must say it is easier to criticize such behaviour by other parents than to avoid it personally.
For nearly twenty-five years I was a member of the Chilliwack Rotary Club. Rotary International is a worldwide service club of business and professional people. Rotary’s motto was Service Above Self and members were instilled with the principles of Rotary International. Club founders believed that not only was it the duty of community leaders like Rotarians, to serve their communities, locally, nationally and internationally, it was also good business. A major guide to help members achieve even greater success in both service and business was Rotary’s Four Way Test. It was required reading and periodically members unexpectedly had to recite the four questions of the test at club meetings. New members received a copy of the test printed on a small plastic desk stand, along with their nametags and other paraphernalia. Mine still graces a shelf in my library after these many years away from Rotary. One side of the stand lists the test questions: Is it the TRUTH? Is it FAIR to all concerned? Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS? Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?
In debates about the possibility of strictly applying these standards questions of justice, friendship and benefit were less difficult than the question of insisting on absolute truth. Furthermore, it was not always that easy to decide whether or not it was the truth in specific situations.
For example, application of the Four-Way Test in our justice system is always a problem. Take the very simple situation of a person charged with a crime. In the common law an accused is always innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. In the result, many accused persons entering a plea in our criminal courts, say they are not guilty, even if they are.
Without going into the legal niceties of that procedure, the chances are that in a large majority of cases brought before a judge, the “not guilty” plea is a lie. Accused, defence lawyer, prosecutor and judge all know the plea is most likely to be a lie, but if any one of them even suggested such a thing, the man would be deprived of what is called “due process.” Everyone knows the procedure fails that Four-Way Test yet in the interest of preserving the safeguards developed against abuses once rampant in the various systems of criminal justice, we bend over backwards in favour of a person accused of crime. Just think of the cost to our justice system of every accused person insisting that every element of the alleged crime be proven. Yet in these days of almost automatic legal aid for every accused person, the alleged criminal incurs no cost by taking advantage of every possible element of that due process. And believe me, today many an accused is more knowledgeable and experienced in exercising his right to counsel and due process than some of the junior legal aid counsel who represent him in court.
In the days of my own criminal law practice I sometimes advised an accused that the weight of the case against him made it unlikely that the cost of a full defence could be justified, suggesting a guilty plea and argument to mitigate penalties could be beneficial in a properly charged offence even though judges are also unpredictable. I felt waiver of full process was not the same as waiver of due process. That process was usually closer to the truth and in the best interest of all concerned including the accused, as a fairer sentence usually ensued. It provided the justice the accused deserved, speeded up the process, saved everyone money and came closer to meeting the Four-Way Test in almost all cases.
In another area, marital infidelity or other breaches of accepted sexual morality often result in offences against the truth. Absolute truth and trustworthiness between spouses is essential to a successful family relationship, yet I am somewhat ambivalent about the wisdom of full disclosure to spouses of even the most innocent flirtation by the other. Spouses of both genders today often lead separate lives in business or profession for substantial portions of each day. In those other lives, uniquely close relationships between associates in those other worlds are easily formed. Sometimes they inadvertently result in “feelings” that could be thought of as treasonous to the spousal relationship. What is the essential truth in that situation? If the so-called guilty spouse blabs every detail of his other world to his family partner, that partner may conclude a hurtful breach of faith has happened. Consequences unintended by anyone could result. They could be terminal to an otherwise solid family relationship and ruin the lives of spouses, children, parents and friends. Does truth and trust always require full disclosure to be fair in that situation? I wonder.
I am left then, with a need to live by the truth when the avoidance of truth becomes ever more common in an increasingly secular society. In the rural and small town communities of the nineteenth and earlier twentieth Centuries, old Western religious values made it more difficult to conceal falsehoods. Major agreements could be sealed with a handshake, for a breach would easily become known and bring down the wrath of the community on the offender. Since then those earlier groupings have dispersed into an increasingly urbanized and fragmented society. Religious sanctions can no longer be taught to children in schools for fear of offending one or other of the many diverse religions to be found in our cities. The rearing and training of the next generation is left more and more to strangers, government support workers, television and the computer. Where then will we find the community to provide the essential ethical values without which a civilization cannot endure?
American and Canadian politicians and government agencies give a great deal of lip service to the question of values. Unfortunately there seems to be little consensus in our diverse cultural structure about what those values ought to be. In 1915, in the midst of the First World War, Sigmund Freud published his Thoughts On War And Death. I agree with the statement he made in that paper, when he said: “… our conscience is not the infallible judge that ethical teachers are wont to declare it, but in its origins is [dread of the community] and nothing else. When the community has no rebuke to make, there is an end of all suppression of the baser passions, and men perpetrate deeds of cruelty, fraud, treachery, and barbarity so incompatible with their civilization that one would have held them to be impossible.”
The answer to our conundrum may well lie in the development of a new supplemental secular religion of humanity. Good deeds and positive values are not restricted to the practitioners of traditional religions. Despite often-conflicting passions among our diverse religions, I have noted there is general agreement among them on core ethical values including truth and honesty. I think every major religion subscribes to some version of what Christians call the Golden Rule.
In the twenty-first century, perhaps well-intentioned urban secularists will commune with the diverse cultural traditions in North America and come up with a compendium of such core values. Once such a standard is generally taught and accepted in every social grouping, our diverse cultural community would have a new common standard; it might again have “a rebuke to make” and thereby “suppress the baser passions” of its population even without the intervention of the politicians and their legislation. The time may be here for a new set of Ten Commandments.
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