Why Leaders Lie - Mearsheimer, John J_.original_ [46]
3. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, 34.
4. In an article discussing “Saddam’s alleged weapons bluff,” Slobodan Lekic writes, “Publicly Saddam denied having unconventional weapons. But from 1998 until 2002, he prevented UN inspectors from working in the country and when they finally returned in November 2002, they often complained that Iraq wasn’t fully cooperating.” Slobodan Lekic, “Aide: Saddam Did Get Rid of Iraq WMD,” Associated Press, August 2, 2003. There is no question that Saddam denied the weapons inspectors access to Iraq between 1998 and 2002, but that is not evidence of bluffing. While the inspectors did sometimes complain about not gaining quick access to certain locations after returning to Iraq, the problems were eventually resolved and the UN was confident that it could assess whether Iraq had WMD if given sufficient time to scour the country. The Bush administration, however, forced the inspectors to leave Iraq before they finished the job so that the United States could invade that country and remove Saddam from power.
5. Not everyone accepts the argument that it is right to lie to protect an innocent person, as is evident from well-known case of the “lying Baptists.” In 1804, a debate broke out in a Baptist congregation in Kentucky over whether it was permissible for a man to lie about whether he had a wife and children to marauding Indians who would probably kill them. In other words, was it right to lie to protect your family in the face of grave danger? The congregation actually split over the matter, with “truthful Baptists” on one side and “lying Baptists” on the other.
6. Lanse P. Minkler and Thomas J. Miceli, “Lying, Integrity, and Cooperation,” Review of Social Economy 62, no. 1 (March 2004): 27–50.
7. For a powerful statement against lying of almost every sort, see Sissela Bok, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life, 2nd ed. (New York: Vintage Books, 1999).
8. Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979), chap. 5.
9. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. C. B. Macpherson (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1985), 202.
10. On the pervasiveness of deception, see: Larry Alexander and Emily Sherwin, “Deception in Morality and Law,” Law and Philosophy 22, no. 5 (September 2003): 393–450; F. G. Bailey, The Prevalence of Deceit (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991); J. A. Barnes, A Pack of Lies: Towards a Sociology of Lying (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Paul Ekman, Telling Lies: Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Politics, and Marriage (New York: Norton, 1985); Michael Lewis and Carolyn Saarni, eds., Lying and Deception in Everyday Life (New York: Guilford, 1993); Clancy Martin, ed., The Philosophy of Deception (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009); David Nyberg, The Varnished Truth: Truth Telling and Deceiving in Ordinary Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993); Loyal Rue, By the Grace of Guile: The Role of Deception in Natural History and Human Affairs (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).
11. That individual would be lying, however, if he purposely left out information that was requested on the job application form. He is obligated in such cases to reveal all the relevant information. For example, in the spring of 1995, Harvard University rescinded its offer of admission to a young woman who did not report that she had been found guilty of killing her mother in 1990. Harvard officials felt that she had a responsibility to inform them of this matter in her application. Fox Butterfield, “Woman Who Killed Mother Denied Harvard Admission,” New York Times, April 8, 1995.
12. Alexander and Sherwin write, “Moral philosophers frequently distinguish between lying and deception and condemn lying as the worse offense” (“Deception in Morality and Law,” 400).
13. Eric Alterman, When Presidents Lie: A History of Official Deception and Its Consequences (New York: Viking, 2004). See also James P. Pfiffner, The Character