Sure I Deceived You, but What about Me?

This isn’t the only time this type of situation crops up in Philip K. Dick’s work—an outside element manipulating, controlling, and directing a person, often through some form of deception. Two examples we can look at are A Scanner Darkly (both book and movie) and Total Recall (based on the story, “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale”).

Bob Arctor (in A Scanner Darkly) is in law enforcement conducting clandestine evidence collection, Quail (in “Wholesale”) is in covert action, and Quaid (in Total Recall) is involved in human intelligence (HUMINT) operations and covert action. Each of these have different desired outcomes: for law enforcement it’s to make an arrest, for covert action it’s to have something happen without people being able to attribute it to a true sponsor (and in both Total Recall and its original story, these actions appear to involve lots of shooting and explosions), and for HUMINT the goal is about getting information that would otherwise not be available.

Yes, there are different goals and different terminology, but both undercover police work and government intelligence work are forms of spying. We see a common thread: one party attempting to manipulate another—or perhaps even to dominate the other, as this is often described in real-world study and training, as James McCargar does in A Short Course in the Secret War.

So how does one person manipulate another? Well, by finding weaknesses and linking desired behaviors to weakness incentives.

Finding a Lever for Manipulation

The acronym often associated with identifying and incentivizing weaknesses for manipulation within the study and training circles for spying is MISE: Money, Ideology, Sex and Ego. Sometimes the less salacious version MICE, where C becomes Compromise, is used, but let’s be salacious!

Perhaps the individual you wish to manipulate is in some cash-flow straits—you could provide some relief. Or you are aware of some sexual peccadilloes that they would rather remain unknown to family and friends—you could offer ways that they could keep this secret. Or perhaps the person just has a huge ego that you could build up to get your desired result or crush to push them back into line if they start to get out of hand.

Let’s dig into an example with “Fred,” Bob Arctor’s persona within the police department to highlight this in action. “Fred’s” assignment is to establish relationships with various drug users and dealers in order to gain their trust and elicit further information about the distribution system. This will allow him to establish additional relationships with those more-connected drug dealers which he can then use to elicit further information about even higher level drug dealers, all the while sending this information to the LA County Police Department to assist in their greater understanding of the drug network and gain sufficient evidence for criminal prosecutions. The method for “Fred” to do this is to establish a relationship, primarily based on the exchange of money for drugs with someone under false pretenses (namely, that “Fred” isn’t a cop) and slowly build trust through drug use and ever increasing purchases of drugs.

A situation eventually emerges where the manipulated individual can no longer meet “Fred’s” commercial exchange requirements but a level of trust has been established. So they must assist “Fred” in establishing another relationship with someone with whom they have established trust. This is a deliberately engineered situation where “Fred” is causing the manipulated half of the relationship to unwittingly betray the trust of another for “Fred’s” benefit. His new buddy (or girlfriend) is a means to an end which likely will be just another means to a different end.

Although the circumstances and desired outcomes are different, the same thing applies to Lori, Harry and Hauser, among others, against Quaid in Total Recall. Each of these individuals has created a relationship to achieve a specific end, which sometimes appear to be at cross-purposes. But the method they use remains the same regardless of goal—establish a relationship with Quaid in order to manipulate him. Quaid becomes nothing more than a means: for Lori and Harry to monitor and prevent his return to Mars; for Hauser to find the identity and location of the rebel leadership.

Categorically, We Have an Imperative Problem

Whether we’re talking about “Fred,” Lori, Harry, Hauser, or a variety of other characters in these works the problem is that all are using someone else as a means to their end, principally Bob Arctor and Quaid. This is a moral problem because treating an individual merely as a means becomes a huge violation of the second formulation of Kant’s “categorical imperative,” which claims that people are valuable as ends in themselves and shouldn’t be treated merely as a means. Or, in other words, people deserve respect, and you shouldn’t use them as merely a tool but recognize their intrinsic value as a human.

This manipulative behavior is devaluing the humanity of the manipulated individuals. In each given situation, the true amount of devaluation may be variable—it all depends on exactly how much of a means the individual is considered to be. Benny, the mutant taxi driver, only slightly devalues Quaid by following him around and tracking his movements (setting aside trying to crush him with a massive drilling machine). “Fred,” on the other hand, is entirely devalued by federal drug agents as they sacrifice his entire psyche. But a Kantian perspective doesn’t allow for any consideration of minor or major devaluation context—it simply can’t occur. Should the devaluation dilemma be avoided altogether by not spying?

There have been real-world discussions of limiting such activity due in part to this problem of devaluing the humanity of individuals. In the history of this debate in an American context, the largest open discussion of this occurred in the mid-1970s with the Pike and Church Committees which examined inappropriate intelligence activities by a wide variety of US government elements. These committees highlighted a whole slew of ethical dilemmas and some, such as J.E. Drexel Godfrey writing in Foreign Affairs, made a case for spying using primarily technological means rather than through human manipulation.

There are also those, such as John Langan (in Jan Goldman’s Ethics of Spying compilation) who argue against Mr. Godfrey. The primary line of argument is utilitarian: there are some situations where technological means cannot divulge the information or achieve the end which is sought, or where using humans may be the least intrusive mechanism for achieving the end. This all rests on the assertion that the safety of the larger society requires whatever is the end in question, and so the devaluing of a few is acceptable.

Utilitarian Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Coveralls

A Scanner Darkly provides an excellent jumping-off point for this utilitarian argument. As the novel progresses, we find out a few sketchy things about New Path, such as that they own large portions of land that neither federal, state, nor local governments have the capability to examine or inspect through technical means. And it appears that nothing has been gained by human spying efforts by various law enforcement elements to infiltrate or otherwise determine the business model and practices of New Path. The utilitarian line of argument seems to hold some water. This gains even more traction when placed in the context of the horrifying effects of a Substance D addiction, the ever-increasing population using and addicted to that drug, and the social need to somehow address the problem.

It could seem acceptable in such a situation to attempt to maximize the positive outcomes for as many people as possible at the expense of a few. Enter Bob Arctor. Unknown to him, as either “Fred” or Bob Arctor, he has been selected by federal agents to be one of these sacrificed few—manipulated into an ever-increasing addiction to Substance D to the point of mental breakdown while having the stimulus of little flowers reinforced into his subconscious for an eventual penetration of New Path’s work farms assisted by a small network of recruited spies aware of portions of the plan. Not only is Bob just another means to the end being sought by law enforcement; it seems he will likely never recover enough to truly be an end himself again—to be an able-minded and self-determining person.

This is a pretty harsh conclusion for Bob Arctor, and there’s no denying that he was damaged through this spying—the use of Substance D, compounded with the deceptions he was perpetrating on those he was seeking to gain information from, and his unwitting use by others to be placed in a position to access additional information. But the potential outcome hinted at the conclusion of the story is that the source of Substance D, New Path, could be eliminated, preventing continuing addiction to the drug. The Kantian rebuttal to all this is that the actions which made Bob to be acted upon should never have occurred, even were society to collapse because the actions were not taken.

We see the damage to the manipulated, but there are some other considerations too. We might feel sorry for Bob Arctor, but Quail was a professional assassin. We might not have as much concern that he was deceived by the Imperial Police and himself in order to cover up his various shooty-explody adventures. And Quaid (well, Hauser) doesn’t appear to be such a nice guy so maybe the deception might have inadvertently turned Quaid into a better person. Stranger things have happened. So there is a tension here. And in recognizing the tension we can highlight one item that is often overlooked: the potential for moral damage on the part of the manipulator. Could there be an even larger victim—the person who wittingly violates and disregards the categorical imperative?

Only Remembered as the Blonde Shot in the Head

Let’s rewind back to Harry and Lori, Quaid’s two minders who were to trace and influence his actions in order to keep him away from Rekall and discovering his true identity. They do some nasty things, these two: they lie, they sleep around on their spouses, and they are willing to kill. But does this make them immoral people? Perhaps we need a bit more context. Going back to the utilitarian argument, they have conducted this naughty behavior as part of a directed plan from a government to whom they owe allegiance, so, while this is voluntary, it isn’t as if they’re doing these things for fun and profit (as far as we know). Maybe they aren’t immoral people at their core. It could be that these actions, repugnant as they might seem to an outsider just discovering the deception, are saving thousands or millions of lives. If this is the case, then perhaps we could overlook their brutish behavior?

But we know this isn’t the case. The government they serve isn’t particularly moral itself. Rather than focus on the safety and well-being of those they have been appointed to rule, the administration is about maximizing profit, ensuring production is maintained, and resolving disagreements between the rulers and ruled with the one-way dialogue of the truncheon and rifle. True, there is hesitancy about activating the alien device—it may be a bomb—but based on other actions in the movie this is likely simple self-preservation. But, it isn’t very interesting to talk about immoral people working for an immoral government. Let’s set aside what we know about the Martian government and assume that it is maybe amoral, but not outright immoral.

We don’t know enough about Lori or Harry to determine if their moral compasses were already less-than-optimally calibrated before they began to undertake the lines of work which led to this eventual job assignment. It could be that neither of them ever had a really good handle on what was moral or immoral, or it could be that being asked to continually engage in increasingly morally questionable activities slowly ate away at what they thought and felt was proper and correct. Quite frankly, it doesn’t matter. The employer, in this case a government organization, that bases an employee’s position on violating the rights of individuals for a utilitarian end is quite likely to cause damage to the moral framework of the individuals in question, whether or not they were already askew to begin with. For Godfrey, mentioned earlier, this is the crux of the issue.

Like People, Like Organizations

Much like the individuals being directed to conduct spying, we can look up at least one level to think about the moral environment of the organizations which orchestrate all of this. An underlying assertion here is that organizations, although composed of individuals, can take on individuality themselves—a unique persona often labeled as organizational culture. Just as there is a risk to moral damage to the individuals working for a spying organization, there’s also the risk of creating an immoral organizational culture.

After all, the organization has now taken on the role of manipulator of its own employees—convincing them to perform utilitarian actions on behalf of the organization which devalues other individuals. The cost here is the devaluing of the employee’s humanity through accumulation of moral damage. This is quite the vicious cycle. And it really comes to the fore with the Los Angeles County Police Department—compartmentalizing itself to the extent that narcotics detectives do not know if they are establishing relationships for exploitation with other narcotics detectives, or even who their supervisors may be. In such a culture, the moral damage can spread rapidly, and “Fred” even reflects on the fact that to support his case work against Bob Arctor may require his employing organization to install illegal surveillance devices.

It would be one thing if “Fred” addressed this with irony—an organization whose mission is to uphold the rule of law breaking it themselves in order to execute their mission—instead it is taken as a matter of course. Just as it is considered normal that “Fred” never knows the true identity of “Hank,” his supervisor, and vice versa. The organization creates an opportunity which allows them to lie to each other about what they might know of the developing case; in fact, both seem required by their job duties to do so. Not only is that an organizational culture that isn’t terribly efficient, it’s one which is morally damaging to its employees and likely creating a morally damaged organizational culture.

If there is such high risk of moral damage to both individuals and organizations in the utilitarian line of argument, are we forced back to the Kantian line of not spying at all? Not necessarily—identification of risk means that risk controls can be established. If those controls are implemented effectively, the risk is mitigated and potentially avoided, which allows continued use of the utilitarian line up to a point. Of course, the amount of mitigation and resulting decrease in risk level will be different from control to control, situation to situation. This is a step beyond simply accepting human-enabled spying as the least intrusive means of gathering needed information without going so far as to deny individuals of having some intrinsic value. But it also requires a significant compact between the society which needs these risky acts to be performed on its behalf and those individuals and organizations which are taking the risk. Controls, to be effective, tend to require an outside element to monitor both the implementation of the controls and to determine if the residual risk has, or is about to get out of hand.

The society which is having these activities performed on its behalf is this outside element and must monitor these activities—not because those performing the activities are not to be trusted, but because that society is the only element that can stop actions before moral damage occurs. Without this monitoring and oversight, members of the society have little ground to be shocked or dismayed when an unseemly act occurs and comes to light. At the conclusion of the Pike and Church hearings, the US Congress established oversight committees and every President since Ronald Reagan has upheld an executive order establishing intelligence oversight and limitations. The execution of this oversight at times is debatable; however at least it does exist. Some might even say that those willing to take such risks are owed that oversight and monitoring on the part of society.

Societies often take actions to assist those who may suffer physical damage on behalf of the society such as heat resistant equipment for firemen, bullet-proof vests for police, or armored transport vehicles for military forces. For those who may suffer moral damage on behalf of the society, oversight can be the bullet-proof vest.