A couple weeks ago, several friends and I held a surprise party for my fiancée’s upcoming birthday. Being one of the principal planners, while living with her in a small apartment, was difficult even though the party itself turned out to be a great time for everyone. I managed to keep it a secret, but it stressed me out during the time – I’m not used to withholding things from those closest to me. Especially not after my previous relationship of several years, with someone who was used to sniffing out the slightest deception.
I know there are other people who could have done such a thing much more easily. What I wonder is: is that a skill worth having? I’m inclined to think that it’s probably just as well not to be very good at keeping things from those close to you – it’s too easy for such a skill to lead you into all the wrong places. I suppose it’s not unlike the reasons to prohibit torture in politics, even in the ticking time bomb scenario – if the ability to do something is there, there’s too much temptation to use it wrongly.
The situation reminds me of a more general problem in a virtue-based ethics. Alasdair MacIntyre, generally following Aristotle, likes to talk about virtues as habits which allow us to succeed at practices; practices, in turn, are socially and culturally grounded crafts which have their own internal standards of excellence. But this raises what Elizabeth Frazer and Nicola Lacey – feminist critics writing in a volume called After MacIntyre – have called “the problem of evil practices.” There are some skills it is good not to acquire, some practices that it might be corrupting to be good at. Torture itself seems an example; MacIntyre makes some remarks about it on pp. 200-1 of After Virtue. The personal example is deception: I probably wouldn’t want to get better at lying and concealing even if it did mean I could throw surprise parties more easily. More generally one might want to ask: what skills, what crafts is it intrinsically bad to acquire? Not just as a matter of spending one’s precious time on those skills as opposed to more valuable ones, but bad even with unlimited time to learn them?
– Well yes, it was a surprise, that you were so good at it, that I never suspected a thing, that all along there was this good thing coming up from a benevolent deity.
She took up the feather duster and began to flick at the bookend Buddha whose polished belly held back the Grolier edition of Lampeduesa’s collected works. This was what she called the analogue of a field marshals baton which was in every private’s handbag.
– But it was a surprise, a good one : he replied, looking up up from his paper. Don’t you like surprises?
– Surprise hasn’t always been good to me, when my father left us that was a surprise.
– For your mother too?
– Yes. She kept saying ” I don’t know anything anymore”.
– Fallacy: generalisation from a single example.
He raised his two hands in the air like an Australian Football touch judge.
– Call it a marital black swan.
Here was another skull and crossbones marking an area which might contain unexploded ordinance. Is defusing sometimes refusing? He rounded his face to a non-committal fatuity.
– How is that making you feel?
– Like dusting your epaulettes.
She flicked twice over his shoulders.
– Don’t forget my medals.
What’s this from?
Amod:
From a local writer
A skill it might be wrong to have…. isn’t this the gist of a certain rather widespread critique of technology? (“You were so concerned with whether or not you could, that you didn’t stop to think if you should,” as I believe the line from Jurassic Park more or less goes). Your example makes me think that it’s also the gist of the Ring of Gyges example in Plato.
Good point, and I think you’re right. Rather than merely speaking of “skills,” one could speak of “powers” or “abilities,” since they might come through the external agency of technology rather than through self-cultivation, and the point that these could be intrinsically bad would still stick.
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A thought experiment: let’s say you are a former racist, but you have had a change of heart/conversion experience/what-have-you and are trying very hard and in good faith to change.
And let’s say that black people still make you instinctively uncomfortable, but you’re trying to get over it. One day you meet a black person who, over time, becomes your friend.
It seems like a good idea at this point to hide your discomfort, because in this case, the remnants of your racism are a greater evil that you want to suppress. Every time your new friend comes to your house, let’s say you have an almost overwhelming desire to hide your valuables. Not only should you not succumb to that desire, I would argue that you should also not announce your feelings to your friend: it’s tacky and insulting and will serve only to strain your relationship. It is very important that you act “normal” and make your friend feel comfortable and at ease. (I’m open to the possibility that maybe you should say something about the feeling once, so that she knows about the personal battle you’re fighting with your own racism; and perhaps you need to work out those feelings aloud in therapy or something; but you definitely don’t want to say “Man! I’m so nervous whenever you’re around my silverware!” at dinner each weekend.)
So this seems to be a case where misleading a friend about your feelings is actually a moral good. I can think of lots and lots of situations where misleading a stranger or an acquaintance is a moral good (you might not want your creepy boss to know you’re pregnant; you don’t want to tell your homophobic teacher that you think you might be gay), which might be why you specified “those close to you”. But I don’t think it takes much imagination to come up with reasons why concealing things is an important skill to have, one that brings good into the world.
Disclaimer: it’s been more than a decade since I’ve read MacIntyre and I vaguely remember despising his book, though I don’t remember why.
P.S. Is it possible to add a “preview” button? I’m really nervous leaving long comments like this without being able to proofread them beforehand or edit them afterward.
Yeah, your example is a very good one, I think. I would definitely think that in this case it would be worth mentioning once, but also that you would want to conceal it afterwards. Yesterday’s post leans further in this direction: even if truth has an intrinsic value, there are still cases where some truths should be ignored – or concealed, as in this case. I suppose part of the reason I wonder about the value of this skill is I’m not very good at it, and it would be very convenient for me if there was something wrong with learning the skill. Unfortunately for me, this appears not to be the case. :)
MacIntyre’s intellectual trajectory throughout his lifetime has been from a Hegelian Marxism to a relatively conservative (while still basically socialist) form of Thomist Roman Catholicism, and most of his books reflect that transition in some way or another. Wouldn’t surprise me if you found that offputting in one way or another.
Re the preview button: I can’t find a way to set WordPress to do that as it currently is, unfortunately. I’m hoping later this year to go under the hood and do a big manual revamp of the site’s theme; if I can find a way to add that function then, I will. In the meantime, if you make a mistake and you want it changed, send me an email and I can edit comments from the site admin page. (Naturally, I would never do this unless a commenter asked me to.)