Clearly, being open and honest with significant persons on a daily basis DOES serve the interests of the vast majority of people. Given the dynamics of interpersonal relationship, one would expect that a habit of deception and obfuscation would normally be detrimental to the interests of those involved. On the other hand, one expects in a courtroom (where the interests of contestants are diametrically opposed), that deception and prevarication would often be the norm. Add to that the fact that you are mixing lawyers, police, and criminals in one room! Not a great mix for truth in my opinion!
I don't know why you use the word "contemptible" for those who find lying under oath conducive to their goals. It is human nature for people to seek the realization of their own goals rather than the goals of another. The lawyers and the witnesses are there to give the judge their own respective and conflicting pictures of "truth". Does anyone really believe the client will respond that he had 36 drinks? Or does one expect the cop to say that actually the client did not stagger and his words were not slurred. Or if he staggered because he stumbled on something on the ground, that is conveniently left out. Once a man has been arrested his words WERE slurred and his eyes WERE bloodshot and he DID stagger and he DID require assistance to the police car. And it doesn't matter whether he had 0, 1, or 60 drinks.
So, although I agree with you that telling the truth in the normal course of social interaction is beneficial and serves the interests of people, I recognize this as a practical matter and find no reason to use adjectives such as "contemptible" to describe the same people when they find that a lie serves their goal of a beneficial consequence. An honest effort to do good would necessitate deception from time to time and I know of nobody who is incapable of making rational choices for the good of their family or society when they feel that a lie will serve such a purpose.
Another aspect lies in the fact that people can and do mislead and misdirect without violating the technical lie. Lawyers ask questions which present their picture to the judge while ignoring the questions or the evidence which presents an undesirable picture. Silence also is a huge lie and people lie in this fashion on a daily basis. The wife does not get told that he stopped for a couple of drinks with so and so. He knows it is important information to her from past experience, but unless she questions him directly he may decide to mislead her with silence because he views peaceful harmony as a "good". One could find these endless deceptions and misdirections contemptible but I personally do not find them so (and I am not, btw, alleging that you do). You did allege that lying under oath was contemptible in the absence of certain overriding factors, but I don't know if you consider such factors from a subjective perspective, or that it would need to meet certain criteria determined by a panel of wise men. And as every silence and every deception is analyzed by the philosopher king and his advisors, at what point does an action LEAP from understandable to contemptible?
OJ's lawyers and witnesses tried their very best to DECEIVE the jury and to misdirect and misinterpret the evidence. And vice versa. I don't know if you would find all those people contemptible or not because I don't know what your specific criteria are under the aegis of "overriding factor". But in a courtroom there are generally two opposed sides, both of whom attempt to deceive the judge or jury in both small and large details. So while we may expect that truth generally serves the interests of people in the normal course of interrelationship...one hardly expects to find much truth in a courtroom. Even when answers are technically "correct", they are guaged and couched to deceive and to "weight" the scales to a particular side. |
