“Who’s Been Fooling Who?” Reflections on Truth and Deception in Politics and Their Implications for Public Administration

Published date01 November 2020
Date01 November 2020
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/0095399720907800
Subject MatterArticles
https://doi.org/10.1177/0095399720907800
Administration & Society
2020, Vol. 52(10) 1491 –1515
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0095399720907800
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Article
“Who’s Been Fooling
Who?” Reflections on
Truth and Deception
in Politics and Their
Implications for Public
Administration
Michael W. Spicer1
Abstract
This article examines the role of truth and deception in social and political life
and its implications for public administration. Because deception is a necessary
part of social and political life, the pursuit of absolute truths poses significant
dangers to political practices. However, without some commitment to
truth in social and political life, the resulting nihilism also endangers political
practices. Public administrators, in seeking truth, therefore, should pursue
a middle path between moral virtue and moral realism that preserves the
practice of politics, a middle path such as is offered in the writings of the
Founders of the Constitution.
Keywords
politics, truth, deception, public administration, Albert Camus
Demosthenes, one of the great orators and statesmen of Ancient Greece, once
observed that “a man can do you no greater injustice than tell lies. For in a
political system based on speeches, how can it be safely administered if the
1Cleveland State University, OH, USA
Corresponding Author:
Michael W. Spicer, Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs, Cleveland State
University, 2121 Euclid Ave., UR 225, Cleveland, OH 44115, USA.
Email: m.spicer@csuohio.edu
907800AASXXX10.1177/0095399720907800Administration & SocietySpicer
research-article2020
1492 Administration & Society 52(10)
speeches are not true?” (Hesk, 2000, p. 1). Demosthenes’ words still ring true
for many nowadays, especially given our current political environment.
However, the question as to whether or not there are circumstances under
which government officials may be justified in lying or deceiving their fellow
citizens is by no means a simple one and it is a question that has long preoc-
cupied philosophers and political theorists since Plato (Jay, 2010).
Generally, the answers offered to this question have fallen broadly into
one of two camps. On the one hand, as Martin Jay has observed, there are
moralists, who believe that men and women in public life should simply
follow “the same high standards they insist should be followed in private
life” and who believe that “public life must be purged as much as possible
of mendacity” (Jay, 2010, p. 16). These moralists, especially those commit-
ted to democratic values, argue that “an open society must be based on the
truth-telling of those entrusted with the power to rule” (Jay, 2010, p. 16).
On the other hand, there are those in the realist camp made famous by
Machiavelli, who argue for, as Jay puts it, a type of politics that “under-
stands that, even in democracies, power and success are still the goals to be
sought” and that at times “the struggle to achieve those ends will necessi-
tate and even justify duplicity” (p. 17). For supporters of this realist view,
“what matters most . . . are outcomes and effects, rather than abstract moral
principles,” and telling the truth is simply “one possible means to bring
about a desired and beneficial result,” one that possesses “no intrinsic supe-
riority over its rivals” (p. 17).
Although public administration writers have not paid a lot of attention to
the issue of lying or deception, among those who have, there appears to be a
similar division of thought. Certainly, there are moralists like David Hart
(1984), who argue that public administrators should never engage in “any
conscious deception,” granting only the possibility of “occasional humane
exceptions” to this rule (p. 115). However, there are also realists such as
Cynthia McSwain and Orion White (1987), who argue, among other things,
that
we all act in ways that are manipulative in the same sense that a lie is
manipulative. We all represent ourselves partially, covered over in some way,
or selectively so as to achieve a good (or bad) opinion of ourselves from others.
(p. 423)
Moreover, as they point out, “in many of its forms, lying is a valuable social
skill and a mark of grace and humanity,” something that one often terms
simply “‘tact’ or ‘diplomacy’” (p. 423). More recently, Lynn Pasquerella and
Alfred Killilea (2005), seeking to defend the concept of the so-called “just

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