BOB ABERNETHY: Now, our Perspectives on public officials and the ethics of lying. First, consider the nation's capitol, named for George Washington, and its best known monuments honoring men of virtue and honesty. The Washington Monument, standing tall like the man who couldn't tell a lie. The august Lincoln Memorial -- presiding over it, Abraham Lincoln, honest Abe. This is how we want our heroic leaders to be remembered. But the reality is often something else. And there's considerable skepticism today about politicians and their ability to be completely truthful. We sampled some opinion recently on the streets of Washington.Unidentified Woman #1: When you're lying, it is justifiable if you're protecting somebody and if you're doing more good than harm.
Unidentified Man #1: I think they should be telling the truth except when it becomes a matter of national strategy, you know, when you're dealing with diplomatic situations. I think the end -- in that case, perhaps the end justifies the means.
Unidentified Man #2: We should hold our public officials to tell the truth all the times, because we look to them for guidance, for a sense of direction in whatever position that they're holding. And if they get caught up in lies, who are we to believe at that point?Unidentified Woman #2: I think a lot of times Republican officials -- I think their lies usually aren't in our best interest. Usually their lies are to protect people whose major interest is money.
Unidentified Man #3: I think it's within all of our human nature to lie. We're all going to try to do what it takes to have the strongest position in the situation.
Unidentified Man #4: Well, we should hold the president to a different standard, simply because his lies can hurt so many people.
ABERNETHY: So what are the ethics of lying, especially for an elected official? How much truth can public officials be expected to tell? Sissela Bok is a ethicist, a fellow at Harvard University, and the author of the book, LYING. William Hudnut is a Presbyterian minister, a former member of Congress, and, for 16 years, the mayor of Indianapolis.We don't know exactly what happened in the Lewinsky case, but I think many of us would at least sympathize with the headline this week in THE WASHINGTON POST which read "Avalanche of Lies."
Dr. Bok in Boston, as you look at all that happened, the investigations, the allegations, what concerns you?
Dr. SISSELA BOK (Ethicist, Harvard University): I'm concerned in the long run about what's happening to public officials in this country and very much to the public also. For the moment, I think we in the public, many of us anyway, are rightly holding off, and we don't want to say who we believe is lying and who is telling the truth. But the most troubling matter now, I think -- the most troubling development is that so many other people are being drawn into circumstances they would never want to be in. And the amount of lying that we sense is going on, but we don't exactly know who's telling it, is involving more and more people, and more and more facts quite apart from private matters.ABERNETHY: Mr. Hudnut, you've been there; you've faced these pressures. When can a public official lie?
WILLIAM HUDNUT (Former Mayor and Congressman): Well, I think the point has to be made that honesty is the best policy -- maybe sometimes with national security issues. I think you have three choices if you're asked a tough question, an embarrassing question, a question that will expose something that you might call a skeleton in your closet. One, you can tell the absolute truth; two, you can lie; or three, you can fudge. Not in the wrong sense of the word. That has to do, for example, with my personal life, and I don't choose to go into it.
Mr. HUDNUT: I think that the public is relatively forgiving of most people in public life, because, after all, you know, all have fallen short of the glory of God. We've all sinned. We all have made mistakes. We all have skeletons in our closet. The only difference is that people in the private sector aren't quizzed by the press every day on those skeletons and in public life, if you come forth -- I was here in Congress during the Watergate, for example. And if Nixon had come forth and just said, "We blew it. We made a terrible mistake and I'm sorry, and we'll get rid of the people who did it and go on from there," he would have probably emerged safely on the other end of his four-year term, rather than being almost impeached. The health of our democracy depends upon the openness and truthfulness of public officials. And if you tell the truth, I think people respect you a lot more than if they think you're lying.
Dr. BOK: It certainly does, and I think for now, we in the public are sitting back, and we're looking at this, we don't know how it's all going to turn out, but we're very troubled to see the accusations, the counteraccusations -- the accusations of lying and the sense that some people indeed are lying, maybe on all sides. So that is troubling. I also think that the public -- it's true that the public can be quite forgiving about a particular lie that has slipped out. We can all empathize with that. We all know how easy it is to slip, sometimes out of self-protection, into a lie. But what's very, very different is when you begin to get a sense that a person is lying as a matter of policy and continuing to lie, and drawing others into the lie. That becomes living a lie, which I think is very much more problematic in democracy.
ABERNETHY: Would both of you agree, then, if it had been at all possible -- maybe still -- if it's at all possible, from the point of view of the various investigations under way -- would you agree that the President of the United States should now come forward and say, as you said, "I made a mistake. Please forgive me?"
