According to this objection, the volunteer army may not be as voluntary as it seems. In fact, it may involve an element of coercion. If some in the society have no other good options, those who choose to enlist may be conscripted, in effect, by economic necessity. In that case, the difference between conscription and the volunteer army is not that one is compulsory while the other is free-the force of law in the first case and the pressure of economic necessity in the second- Only if people have a reasonable range of decent job options can it be said that the choice to serve for pay reflects their preferences rather than their limited alternatives.

The class composition of today’s volunteer army bears out this objection, at least to some extent. Young people from low-to middle-income neighbourhoods(median household income of $30,850 to $57,836) are disproportionately represented in the ranks of active-duty army recruits. Least represented are the poorest 10 per cent of the population (many of whom may lack the requisite education and skills) and the most affluent 20 per cent (those from neighborhoods with median household incomes of $66,329 and above). In recent years, over 25 per cent of army recruits have lacked a regular high school diploma. And while 46 per cent of the civilian population has had some college education, only 6.5 per cent of the 18-to-24-year-olds in the military’s enlisted ranks have ever been to college.

In recent years, the most privileged young people in America society have not opted for military service. The title of a recent book about class composition of the armed forces captures this well: AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America’s Upper Classes Military Service. Of the 750 members of Princeton’s class of 1956, the majority-450 students-joined the military after graduation. Of the 1,108 members of Princeton’s class of 2006, only 9 students enlisted. A similar pattern is found at other elite universities-and in the nation’s capital. only 2 per cent of members of Congress have a son or daughter serving in the military.

Congressman Charler Rangel, a Democrat from Harlem who is a decorated Korean War veteran, considers this unfair, and has called for reinstatement of the draft. “As long as Americans are being shipped off the war”, he wrote, “then everybody should be vulnarable, not just those who, because of economic circumstances, are attracted by lucrative enlistment bonuses and educational incentives.” He points out that, in New York City, “the disproportionate burden of service is dramatic. In 2004, 70% of the volunteers in the city were black or Hispanic, recruited from lower income communities.”

Rangel opposed the Iraq War, and believes it never would have been launched if the children of policy-makers had had to share the burden of fighting it. He also arguees that, given the unequal opportunities in American society, allocating military service by the marked is unfair to those with fewer alternatives (…)

Of course, no society is perfectly equal. So the risk of coercion always hovers over the choices people make in the labour market. How much equality is needed to ensure that market choices are free rather than coerced? At what point do inequalities in the background conditions of society undermine the fairness of social institutions(such ad the volunteer army) based on individual choice? Under what conditions is the free market really free?(…)

Kennedy observes that, “proportionate to the population, today’s active-duty military establishment is about 4 per cent of the size of the force that won World War II.” This makes it relatively easy for policy-makers to commit the country to war without having to secure the broad and deep consent of the society as a whole. “History’s most powerful military force can now be sent into battle in the name of a society that scarcely breaks a sweat when it does so.” The volunteer army absolves most Americans of the responsibility to fight and die fir their country (…)

“A hugely preponderant majority of Americans with no risk whatsoever of exposure to military service have, in effect, hired some of least advantaged of their fellow countrymen to do some of their most dangerous business while the majority goes with their own affairs unbloodied and undistracted”.

Justice, Michael J. Sandel.

Truth is perceived to be something more elusive and inhuman, whereas the lie is all too human. The love of truth may indeed have its reward in heaven, but lies, as Nietzsche said, are ‘necessary to life’, and that they should be so is ‘part and parcel of the terrible and questionable character of existence’.

If that were all it was then a lie would indeed be little more than an unfortunate necessary of life, like having to shave, and had Nietzsche been neither German nor syphilitic, unsuccessful nor finally insane, he might have realized that lying is not just one of the terrible necessities of life, but that it is also one of life’s most enjoyable pleasures.

You need only imagine two dinner tables, one attended by the great men of truth such as Augustine, Knox, Wesley, Kant, Hume and Bentham, and the other attended by such liars and tellers of tall stories as Machiavelli, Casanova, Rousseau, Napoleon, Oscar Wilde and Ernest Hemingway, to appreciate just how entertaining lying can be, especially when compared with the truth.

(…)

Indeed, says Popper, lying ‘has made the human language what it is: an instrument which can be used for misreporting almost as well as for reporting’.

(…)

That lying is instictive rather than learned may be perceived in the early speech of children, for whom there only ever exists the vaguest dividing line between true and false reporting. Truth is a moral concept that has to be taught.

Dejando de lado engorrosas discusiones éticas sobre la materia, la percepción de este concepto ha ido evolucionando a lo largo de los años.

The 13th-century theologian Thomas Aquinas agreed with St Augustine that all lies are sins, but not that they are all mortal sins. He divided lies into three distinct categories: officious or helpful lies, intended to prevent someone from injury; jocose lies, told for pleasure or in jest; and malicious or mischievous lies, told to injure someone. It was only the third kind, the malicious lie, that Aquinas believed brought everlasting damnation of the soul.

‘The lying ape’. Brian King.

El problema parece que se complica: ¿cuándo es justificable una mentira?, ¿se tiene que decir la verdad en todo momento?, ¿qué mentiras son mejores y cuáles peores?

A la pregunta de si se debe decir la verdad en todo momento, es necesario tomar como ejemplo a Kant:

Impresionada al ver que un filósofo se subía con tal decisión al precario púlpito de la certeza moral, en 1791 una tal María von Herbert escribió a Kant para comunicarle que era una admiradora suya desde hacía mucho y que recientemente había aplicado el ‘principio de decir siempre la verdad’ a un asunto en el que estaban implicados sus más íntimos afectos.

‘Cual creyente que se dirige a su Dios-empieza diciendo María, llena de fervor-, me dirijo a usted en busca de ayuda, consuelo y consejo para prepararme a morir’. Según parece, al contarle a su amante que había tenido una relación anterior, éste se había sentido muy ofendido por ‘aquella prolongada mentira’. aunque ‘no fue una relación viciosa-cuenta ella-, el hecho de que hubiera mentido bastó para que el amor que él sentía por mí se desvaneriera’. en su condición de ‘hombre honorable’, su amante le ofrece continuar como ‘un simple amigo’. Pero ‘ese sentimiento interior que no sabía de límites y nos impulsaba al uno hacía el otro ha desaparecido, ¡y mi corazón se despedaza en un millar de abrasadoras astillas!’

Hasta aquí la tragedia. María añade finalmente que sólo el hecho de que Kant condene el suicidio le ha impedido de momento optar por esa salida. La primavera siguiente, Kant respondió (todo esto, claro está, tuvo lugar antes de que el correo electrónico ralentizara el flujo de correspondencia). Tras unas breves palabras de cortesía. alabando la bondad manifiesta de sus intenciones, pasa a hablar en términos muy tajantes sobre el deber: ‘Un amor de esta clase aspira a comunicarse plenamente y espera de la persona a quien se dirige que también ella abra su corazón sin ninguna reticencia o desconfianza’. Si esta franqueza plena conduce a la ruptura de la pareja, ello se debe a que su ‘afecto era más físico que moral’ y, a no tardar mucho, habría terminado por desaparecer. Y con un suspiro, Kant, un solterón empedernido, añade que ésta es una desgracia harto frecuente en la vida. Afortunadamente, el valor de la propia vida, cuando lo hacemos depender del placer que nos proporcionan otras personas, está ‘inmensamente sobrevalorado’.

Un año más tarde, María responde para comunicarle que ya ha alcanzado ese alto grado de firmeza moral del que Kant le había dado una idea, si bien es cierto que ahora la vida le parece vacía. Dice que todo le resulta indiferente y que no se encuentra bien de salud. Como suele ocurrirle a todo filósofo moral que se precie, asegura que ‘cada día que paso sólo me importa en la medida en que me acerca más a la muerte’. Piensa, no obstante, que le gustaría visitar a Kant, pues en su retrato le ha parecido discernir ‘una honda calma y una gran profundidad moral-aunque no tanto esa agudeza de la que la Crítica de la Razón Pura da buena prueba-’. suplica a ‘su Dios’ que le dé algo ‘que aparte de su alma este vacío insoportable’.

Pero, aparentemente, Kant no contaba con ningún remedio para eso.

Martin Cohen, 101 dilemas éticos.

Quizá como bien dijo arriba Nietzsche, la mentira es ‘part and parcel of the terrible and questionable character of existence’.