ETHICS

From a philosophical point of view, Ethics refers to the general body of knowledge that studies the principles that govern people when they behave in one way or another. Ethics can be divided roughly into Ethics Proper, Applied Ethics and Metaethics. Morality, on the other hand, refers to specific Theories of Ethics or sub-sections of Ethics Proper. Again, roughly speaking, we can classify Moral Theories in four classes: Objective, Subjective, Intersubjective and Nihilism. Religions, typically fall within a sub-section of the Objective class.

This is, religions are nothing more than a sub-sub-class of Ethics.

In layman's terms, Ethics attempts to answer the question: What is good and evil?

We let you know about these facts not to point out that we do know something about ethics, but to highlight and underline the fact that ethics is a very vast field of knowledge. Arguably, the largest of any philosophy. People have been studying ethics for 2000+ years and have not yet reached a unanimous conclusion. Far from that. There are today more Theories of Ethics (or Moral Theories) than at any point in time since the beginning of the human written knowledge.

This leads us to the inevitable conclusion that there is no such thing as a "Morality" or an "Ethics" in the terms that politicians use it. Morality and ethics are so diverse as humans. Again, arguably, we could analyze the moral or ethical convictions of every human being on earth and reach the conclusion that they are all different; although some are similar to others.

Every time you hear the term "Ethical" or "Moral" spoken by a politician, rest assured you are hearing a Public Relations spin, and something that serves politicians as such. Let us remark this again:

There is no such thing as a unique or standard Ethics or Morality.

On the same token and taking the risk of being obvious, we can confidently express that:

There is no such thing as a unique or standard Religion.

THE MORALITY OF POLITICIANS

Politicians are vote maximizers. As such, they lie all the time simply because they cannot represent simultaneously opposing views from voters. A politician's job is probably the only job on this planet that requires lying publicly to every potential voter or influencer of votes. A politician can never stop lying.

This presents a large problem. There are very few Moral Theories that would consider lying to everybody and all the time as something of a "good" for most people. Or at least, it is not something that most people would accept as something good for them. As such, politicians absolutely need to be seen as "Moral" yet, if they would really disclose their morality, they would lose their jobs overnight. This is something not acceptable.

To make matters worse, most people want to believe that they are moral in one sense or another. Most people are passionate about morality in one way or another. Morality is not an obscure subject that can be swept under the rug.

So what do politicians do?

They lie when it comes to Morality or Ethics. Why would they do otherwise? For them, morality or ethics is just another field of knowledge that they need to "manage" to get elected or to remain in power. Therefore, what do they do? Simple, they maintain the appearance of morality while making what most people would consider immoral or amoral decisions in the background.

GOVERNMENT MORALITY

This fact, the fact that politicians must lie all the time; the fact that they have an ultra-selfish morality that is not shared by most voters is what sets the tone for governments' morality. Government's nature has nothing to do with good or evil and everything to do with the morality of politicians. It is politicians that determine how governments behave and since true government behavior remains occult from voters' views, the true nature of politicians' morals reigns free in there.

At the most basic, governments are deceitful and secretive not because of some sort of "National Security" requirement or to protect the public from some dreadful knowledge, or to prevent "mass hysteria" or some other nonsense. Governments behave in such a manner because bureaucrats are ordered to do so. Let's repeat this again. Bureaucrats are ordered by their bosses du-jour to behave in such a manner. Bureaucrats do not care one way or another, for as long as they keep their jobs and privileges; however, politicians do care because their jobs and privileged depend on permanent and widespread lies.

This is the true origin or government morality, a type of morality that most people would disagree at the least and despise at most.

But then, if governments are designed to be deceitful (to lie), why is that people get's shocked when they discover a lie?

It's called cognitive dissonance.

When the brain receives two simultaneously opposing points of view, it cannot process them and this generates discomfort. The brain solves this discomfort by creating make-believe "answers" to the issue. For example, when we hear that the government has lied, we automatically seek a reason to dis-believe such a statement. Why? Because we cannot accept that on one hand we were told time and time again that governments can be trusted and now, we are presented with evidence that governments cannot be trusted. This unresolved issue causes large levels of discomfort that need to be resolved.

Politicians know this; this is precisely why when there is a scandal of some sort (which invariably involves lying), they struggle not to explain it away, but to provide a possible explanation and let our brain do the rest.

We are here to reassure you that governments lie by definition, default and design. Governments were built to lie to voters. This is so because governments are nothing more that gigantic machines which, in the end, respond to commands from the top: politicians; and politicians must lie. Always.

The only possible conclusion is that:

Government morality is the morality of permanent lies.

If we were to answer the original question: What is good and evil? From a government's point of view, we would conclude that good is lying to voters and evil is to tell the truth. Those are the true, basic moral philosophical principles that guide any government.

Let us remark this again. Government morality can be summarized as:

Good is lying to voters and evil is to tell them the truth.

It is not that governments are immoral or amoral, it is just that the type of morality they have is typically incompatible with most people's morality.

GOVERNMENT MORALITY IN PRACTICE

We can see this type of morality at work in the acts that governments perform. Some acts are incredibly outrageous, such as the ridiculous statements that Ministers of Economy or Central Bankers issue all the time.

• Inflation is good.
• The market is overheated.
• There is a lack of regulation.

And many other fairy tales.

People are used to these statements because they usually involve complex issues which are easy to muddle. But there are other issues that are quite front and center.

Take for example the article "Prime Minister bans Egyptian movie for risqué scenes" published by the newspaper Egypt Independent.

It would seem that the Egyptian president banned the movie "Halawet Roh" because of "culturally inappropriate sexualized scenes". The decision was sent to the Egyptian Censorship Authority for rubber-stamping.

The movie "Noah" was also censored because it "violated Islam by portraying a prophet".

The movie "The Da Vinci Code" was censored due to protests from the Orthodox Coptic Church.

Karim Saber, was sentenced to 5 years for "contempt of religion" for publishing the book "Where is Allah?"

These were all government actions, not public outcry. Then why would politicians do so?

If you consider that the Egyptian constitution declares that all Egyptian law must at least implicitly agree with Islamic law, you get the idea. In essence, people believe that politicians (i.e. their government) must be of Islamic morals, regardless of what they themselves may be. Politicians hence oblige by playing let's pretend. And so when they censor and struck-down issues that they assume people assume about how they must behave, they are simply maximizing votes by lying. Consider this; the prime minister did watch the movies that were banned and he could have commuted Karim's sentence. Yet, nobody is pointing this out. Why? Because the government acted "morally". Because to point this out would be considered "immoral" by Islamic law and, let's face it; when you are facing death for something that stupid, you do not make waves.

It is exactly the same situation as in the USSR during elections. Mysteriously enough, the communist party almost always got 99.8% of all the votes!

We see in all these acts government morality in action. They are not inconsistent with morals or ethics; they are fully consistent with government morality.

CONCLUSION

Governments have the moral principle of lying to everybody. This is not by choice but by design originating from politician's job necessities. As this morality is not something embedded in governments but it is something governments are built from, it cannot be remediated. Why do you think that every single attempt at government "transparency" failed miserably? Because it is this transparency that is being artificially bolted on an edifice of lies. It is not possible to change the nature of governments because so doing would mean complete destruction, and any organism will fight for its life.

It is pointless to demand truth from governments; they are not designed to provide it. The best that can be done is to realize this fact and let other people know. This will, in turn, accelerate their political evolution. It is the only rational option. That, or mimic "The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha" by tilting at the windmills of government edifices.

Your choice.

Note: please see the Glossary if you are unfamiliar with certain words.