The Tiger or the Tiger?

The only moral questions are the difficult ones. If the answer is obvious, it probably has little to do with ethics. After all, ethics is not designed to be exact - its meant to question your sensibilities.

You can learn some fascinating things about propaganda if you know where to look. The word gets a bad connotation, but it spreads from advertising to everyday conversation to mass-population mind control with ease. This also makes it difficult to pinpoint when its being used. And of course there are dozens of successful techniques to veer the human mind in the direction you'd like it to go.

One of my favorite stories about advertising propaganda involves Tylenol who branded a catchphrase - "Nothing is stronger than Tylenol". This, of course, is completely true because nothing is stronger than Tylenol. Nothing is weaker than Tylenol either. Since Tylenol is acetaminophen and nothing more, and since several other brand name pain relievers use the same base, everything is just about equal. But by creating a brand image of strength, people still think that Tylenol is a better pain reliever than another brand when they exactly identical products. It's not a lie. It's just misleading.

Which leads to the question of the moral compass. Let's say it's 1939, and the Nazis are rounding up Jews to send to death camps. You're hiding several in your basement, and when the Gestapo makes a pit stop at your house, they ask if you're hiding anyone. Answering 'no' is a lie. Answering 'yes' would get several people killed.

I doubt seriously that anyone sees any moral qualm with lying in this circumstance. This is an easy one - not a true moral question. Res Ipsa Loquitor (right, Hunter?).

Now, let's say that you're working at a store selling stereos and the owner wants you to pitch them by exclaiming that no other stereo brand has more decibel output. Imagine that this is not a lie, but is misleading in the same way that Tylenol is misleading. Let's say the stereos you're selling are decent, but your pitch makes them sound stronger than things that they are equal to. Let's say there's commission involved.

Is there a moral problem with knowingly misleading a stranger for personal gain? What if your manager wanted you to lie about the quality outright? Is it a small enough transgression that it won't matter?

Of course, the famous example of moral effrontery comes from Socrates' story of Gyges' Ring. The ring is an object that allows its wearer to be invisible (Tolkein mirrors this concept in The Lord of the Rings. Invisibility grants incredible power). In Socrates' myth, a shepherd finds the ring and uses it to seduce the Queen of the land and murder/dethrone the king - becoming ruler himself. The question of the ring (or of invisibility) is what you would do with it. Petty theft? Rise to power? Help humanity?

How would you act if you could walk around undetected?

This speaks again to the intangible feeling, the intrinsic value of doing the right thing. The corrupt man will strive for worldly gains and feel empty for doing it so deceptively while the virtuous man will shun immoral uses of the ring in exchange for personal well-being and a state of peace.

And what happens when the virtuous man is confronted with making a choice between two immoral actions? A moral question finally arises. What if the two actions are equitable, what if the ignoble act is as major as the positive outcome it might elicit? What if there is no right path? Once again, our society has flattened these situations into aphorism - being stuck between a rock and a hard place, choosing the lesser of two evils.

But how often do we really think, truly sacrifice to find that third road that might be a bit more narrow but worth the trek?