The veil of philanthropy: Kant on the political benefits of dissimulation and simulation
| Author | Jeffrey Church |
| Date | 01 January 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1474885117751764 |
| Published date | 01 January 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
EJPT
Article
The veil of philanthropy:
Kant on the political
benefits of dissimulation
and simulation
Jeffrey Church
University of Houston, USA
Abstract
Kant has traditionally been read as an excessively moralistic critic of lying in his ethics
and politics. In response, recent scholars have noted that for Kant we have an ethical
duty not to be completely candid, but rather we should practice reticence and simulate
virtues even when we do not have them. This article argues that Kant extends the value
of dissimulation and simulation beyond the interpersonal to society and politics.
By examining three examples—politeness and decorum in society, and the veiled rela-
tionships between the rich and the poor and between government and the people in
politics—this article further challenges the received reading of Kant as a defender of
truth at all costs and reveals him to be much more attentive to the need for pretense,
reserve, and appearance than is commonly understood.
Keywords
Immanuel Kant, lying, manners, transparency
Immanuel Kant’s view of lying has long been infamous. In his writings, he claims
that we have an unconditional duty to tell the truth. We should even tell the truth
to a murderer who asks us the location of his victim, Kant concludes in his essay
‘‘On the Supposed Right to Lie.’’ Kant’s critics have long taken these claims as
evidence of Kant’s almost inhuman legalistic abstraction from circumstance and
contingency, and of the failures of a deontological moral and political theory more
generally. Kant has thus come to be regarded as a philosophical version of
Moliere’s Alceste, duty-bound to never tell a lie, no matter the consequences.
Indeed, Kant seems particularly suited to our contemporary era of full transpar-
ency, in which everything in our social and political lives ought to be put on full
display.
European Journal of Political Theory
2021, Vol. 20(1) 27–44
!The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/1474885117751764
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Corresponding author:
Jeffrey Church, University of Houston, 447 Phillip G. Hoffman Hall, Houston, TX 77204, USA.
Email: jchurch@uh.edu
There have been many different responses to these charges from Kant scholars.
1
This article builds on a particular response, namely, that Kant’s categorical rejection
of lying does not imply that we ought to be perfectly candid all the time (Anderson-
Gold, 2010; Mahon 2003, 2006; Stohr, 2014). On the contrary, we have a duty to
practice reticence, that is, ‘‘holding back’’ the whole truth, or keeping ‘‘our shutters
closed’’ (LE 27:444–445).
2
By throwing the ‘‘veil of philanthropy’’ over the bad
intentions and deeds of ourselves and others, we can keep ourselves from despairing
at the prospects for the moral maturity of humanity (MM 6:466).
However, these scholars have thus far focused on the personal and interpersonal
benefits of dissimulation and simulation in Kant. I examine how Kant applies
‘‘dissimulatio’’ and ‘‘simulatio’’ to society and politics. By taking up three examples
in Kant—manners, the relationship between the rich and the poor, and the rela-
tionship between government and the people—I illustrate the social and political
benefits of dissimulation and simulation for Kant. This analysis is significant
because Kant’s social and political theory still has the reputation of insisting on
full transparency. I argue that this received view is wrong. This analysis is also sig-
nificant beyond Kant studies. I will suggest in the conclusion that Kant’s political
theory is more useful to contemporary questions of transparency than previously
understood, in that it allows us to distinguish between those forms of transparency
which are morally and politically beneficial, and those which are corrupting.
Dissimulation and simulation
Kant draws an important distinction between lying on the one hand and dissimula-
tion and simulation on the other hand in his lectures on ethics in the 1780s and
1790s.
3
This distinction then appears in important publishe d passages in the
Metaphysics of Morals and Anthropology. Lying, according to Kant, consists in a
‘‘deliberate untruth’’ (LE 27:701), the intention to cause someone else to judge some-
thing I believe to be untrue as the truth. As Mahon (2009: 207) describes it, a lie for
Kant involves:(a) making a statement, (b) that is‘‘believed to be false by’’ the utterer
(Mahon, 2009: 205), and (c) where it is ‘‘intended that the untruthful statement be
believed to be true’’. Thus, if we affect an i ronic posture or make a joke, we do not
intend the statement to be believed as true, so we cannot be said to lie.
For Kant, dissimulation and simulation differ from lying. First, Kant states that
‘‘dissimulatio’’ consists in ‘‘reserve’’ or ‘‘concealment’’ of what is true, that we do
not fully ‘‘express [our] mind’’ (LE 27:444–445, 27:699). Thus while dissimulating
we do not say anything we believe to be false, but rather we withhold the truth. As
Mahon (2003: 120) develops the point, dissimulation involves ‘‘deceptive reticence
and deceptive evasion’’, as we may dissimulate either by holding back or through
misdirection. Interestingly, Kant notes that ‘‘silence’’ in conversation is a very bad
way to carry out this concealment. If someone asks us our political opinions about
a particular candidate, and we are silent, we fail to carry out our end of concealing
our view, since we will ‘‘incur suspicion’’ and others will infer our beliefs from our
previous expressions and actions. It is better to ‘‘speak and pass judgment on
everything, save that on which we wish to keep our counsel’’ (LE 27:445).
28 European Journal of Political Theory 20(1)
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