Some commentators have found fault with our account of Fred because they suppose that Fred’s happiness is “fragile,”
1 his situation “perilous,”
2 and his reputation “vulnerable to exposure.”
3 No doubt circumstances can be imagined in which things go badly for Fred, but we can also imagine circumstances in which immoral behavior provides a greater chance to avoid disaster than does acting morally. Here is an example inspired by the plot of Woody Allen’s thought-provoking movie
Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Suppose a man who is happily married and highly respected as a physician makes the mistake of embarking on an affair with an unmarried woman whom he meets while she is working as a flight attendant. When he tries to break off this relationship, she threatens to expose his adultery and thereby wreck his marriage and career.
All he has worked for his entire life is at risk. He knows that if the affair is revealed, his wife will divorce him, his children will reject him, and the members of his community will no longer support his medical practice. Instead of being the object of people’s admiration, he will be viewed with scorn. In short, his life will be shattered.
As the flight attendant is about to take the steps that will destroy him, he confides in his brother, who has connections to the criminal underworld. The brother offers to help him by arranging for the flight attendant to be murdered, with minimal danger that the crime will be traced to either the physician or his brother.
Should the physician consent to the killing? Doing so is clearly immoral, but, if all goes as planned, he will avoid calamity.
The physician agrees to the murder, and when it is carried out and the police investigate, they attribute it to a drifter who eventually dies of alcoholism, and the case is closed. The physician’s life goes on without further complications from the matter, and years later he is honored at a testimonial dinner where, accompanied by his loving wife and adoring children, he accepts the effusive gratitude of the community for his lifetime of service. He is a happy man, taking pride in both the affection of his family and the admiration of his patients and friends.
Even most of those who might take issue with our claim that the physician is happy would agree that he is happier than he would have been had his life been destroyed. Hence his immorality enhanced his chances for happiness.
Yet what if his role in the murder had been discovered? Wasn’t he taking a chance? Of course, but if we leave aside considerations of morality and focus on issues of strategy, the likelihood of catastrophe would have been greater if he had allowed his adultery to become known. Murder is more dangerous than adultery, but in this case the odds were that the adultery would be made public, while the murder would not.
Wouldn’t his conscience bother him? In Crimes and Misdemeanors that question is asked and answered in a conversation between the physician, Judah Rosenthal (played by Martin Landau), and the questioner, a documentary filmmaker named Cliff Stern (played by Woody Allen). As the story nears its conclusion, they discuss the scenario hypothetically.
In responding to Cliff’s suggestion that the murderer would be hard-pressed to live with his choice, Judah admits the murderer would be plagued by guilt, but “then one morning he awakens. The sun is shining, and his family is around him. Mysteriously the crisis is lifted. He takes his family on vacation to Europe, and as the months pass, he finds he’s not punished. In fact, he prospers…. Now he’s scot-free. His life is completely back to normal.” When Cliff doubts that the murderer could go back in this way, Judah replies, “Well, people carry sins around with them…. Oh, maybe once in a while he has a bad moment, but it passes. And with time, it all fades.” Cliff insists that the murderer should turn himself in so that the story would assume tragic proportions. Judah responds, “But that’s fiction. That’s movies. You see too many movies. I’m talking about reality. I mean, if you want a happy ending, you should go see a Hollywood movie.”
While everyone’s happiness is fragile, given the ever-present possibilities of accident, illness, and death, isn’t the happiness of those who act immorally more fragile than the happiness of those who act morally? On average such is the case, but averages don’t necessarily apply in specific cases. For instance, the average man is taller than the average woman, but some women are taller than most men. Judah Rosenthal’s adultery made his happiness especially perilous, but once he was threatened with exposure of his affair, even greater immorality was arguably his best chance to avoid utter disaster. Thus specific circumstances determine whether the risk inherent in an immoral action is offset by the probability of escape from an otherwise hopeless situation.
A well-known piece of political wisdom is that the cover-up of a crime is more likely to bring trouble than the crime itself. Rarely mentioned, however, is that the cover-up may succeed, thereby keeping the crime under wraps.
The situation is akin to that of a poker player holding a weak hand who decides to bluff. Doing so may cause the player to lose more money than need be, but at the same time the bluff may work, thereby turning a poor hand into a winning one. The better the poker player, the better a sense of when to bluff.
Fred is a bluffer. Could he have reached his goals of fame, riches, and esteem while behaving without deceit? Probably not, assuming his talents were limited, so he took a chance with his life and succeeded.
Does he rue his choice? No. He played his hand to the fullest and won. Most of us would regret acting unethically, but then most of us wouldn’t act as Fred did. We would not be so desirous of attaining our objectives as to be willing to achieve them by full-scale immorality. Furthermore, if everyone bluffed like Fred, then bluffing wouldn’t work because it would be expected. Fred succeeds precisely because few of us would follow his lead. He is taking a risk we wouldn’t. To observe, therefore, that he is vulnerable to exposure is hardly a decisive argument against his strategy.
