The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty

THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY NOVELIST Jane Austen provided a fantastic example of the way our own selfish interests, together with the help of others around us, can get us to believe that our selfishness is really a mark of charity and generosity. In Sense and Sensibility there is a revealing scene in which John, the first and only son and legal heir, considers what, exactly, is involved in a promise he made to his father. At his father’s deathbed, John promises the old man to take care of his very kind but poor stepmother and three half sisters. Of his own accord, he decides to give the women £3,000, a mere fraction of his inheritance, which would take care of them nicely. After all, he genially reasons, “he could spare so considerable a sum with little inconvenience.”

Despite the satisfaction John gets from this idea and the ease with which the gift can be given, his clever and selfish wife convinces him—without much difficulty and with a great deal of specious reasoning—that any money he gives his step-family will leave him, his wife, and their son “impoverished to a most dreadful degree.” Like a wicked witch from a fairy tale, she argues that his father must have been light-headed. After all, the old man was minutes from death when he made the request. She then harps on the stepmother’s selfishness. How can John’s stepmother and half sisters think they deserve any money? How can he, her husband, squander his father’s fortune by providing for his greedy stepmom and sisters? The son, brainwashed, concludes that “It would be absolutely unnecessary, if not highly indecorous, to do more for the widow and his father’s three daughters …” Et voilà! Conscience appeased, avarice rationalized, fortune untouched.

SELF-DECEPTION IN SPORTS

All players know that steroid use is against the rules and that if they are ever discovered using them it will tarnish their records as well as the sport. Yet the desire to beat new (steroid-fueled) records and to win media attention and fan adoration drives many athletes to cheat by doping. The problem is everywhere and in every sport. There was Floyd Landis, who was stripped of his Tour de France victory because of steroid use in 2006. The University of Waterloo in Canada suspended its entire football team for a year when eight players tested positive for anabolic steroids. A Bulgarian soccer coach was banned from the sport for four years for giving players steroids before a match in 2010. And yet we can only wonder what steroid users think as they win a match or while receiving a medal. Do they recognize that their praise is undeserved, or do they truly believe that their performance is a pure tribute to their own skill?

Then, of course, there’s baseball. Would Mark McGwire hold so many records if not for steroid use? Did he believe his achievement was owing to his own skill? After admitting to steroid use, McGwire stated, “I’m sure people will wonder if I could have hit all those home runs had I never taken steroids. I had good years when I didn’t take any, and I had bad years when I didn’t take any. I had good years when I took steroids, and I had bad years when I took steroids. But no matter what, I shouldn’t have done it and for that I’m truly sorry.”²