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The following article is from the Secular Humanist Bulletin, Volume 24, Number 2 (Summer 2008).
This election season, like many others in the past, has come to focus not so much on issues as on personalities. But more so than most other seasons, it seems, the focus has been not so much on the personalities of the candidates as on their so-called proxies and, worse, on their friends and acquaintances. Reminiscent of the controversy that surrounded Jimmy Carter regarding his hapless brother, Billy, the current spate of candidates’ associates has included its share of wild and woolly characters. Most notable is the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s pastor of several decades. Less closely tied to the candidate and perhaps less problematic is John McCain’s “spiritual guide” James Hagee, whose relationship with McCain may have been more an opportunity for the senator to garner some religious street cred rather than significantly influential.
The Clintons haven’t been immune to the notion that we can judge individuals by the company they keep. Since the 1990s, we have been shown cocaine-abusing brothers, shady lawyers, and other bogeymen in attempts to encourage us to draw conclusions about the Clintons’ characters by those of their associates.
I want to challenge the notion that any of this guilt by association matters and suggest that we are being systematically distracted. Even the most casual student of logic knows that a claim that the character of one person should be judged by the character of his friends amounts to the fallacy of circumstantial ad hominem.
Of course, as voters, we might not be favorably impressed by someone who is reported to have regularly listened to controversial comments made by leaders in his or her community without uttering a word in response or voicing apparent objection. But what fair conclusions can we draw about the character of one who says nothing in the face of ridiculous, insipid, or even hateful speech? The only fair conclusion is that he or she chose not to speak for some reason. No more may be concluded.
Of course, you might be the sort of person who always speaks up when someone says something terrible. Perhaps you will object without fail to hateful or hurtful comments, even if they are made at a family dinner by one’s elderly relative, whether out of mere ignorance or malice. If you’re that type of person, then kudos to you for being true to your principles and unafraid of confrontation. But that sort of person is rare, and most of us judge that sometimes, in some situations and under some circumstances, we must bite our tongues to preserve social order. We may judge that those who have offended us will not be swayed by our arguments and that speaking up will do more harm than good or will simply do no good at all. This judgment is not in itself irrational. Nor does it necessarily impute to the one who decides not to speak any particular guilt. It may or may not reveal something about the person’s judgment or courage.
We value free thought and free speech, and we should certainly encourage people to speak their minds on issues that are important, especially when they are guided by reason and goodwill. But this does not imply that those who don’t do so have a weakness of character, moral failing, or ill intent. Worse still than judging character according to when a person chooses to speak or not is judging someone by the company he or she keeps. It seems a singularly Victorian notion, borne perhaps of the sort of primitive psychologizing so popular during that period, to claim that one’s cohorts, associates, acquaintances, or comrades influence one’s own character. It clearly is not so. Who among us hasn’t discovered at some point that someone we knew was involved in some scandal, major or minor? Who can honestly claim that all his or her friends, associates, and acquaintances are and ever have been completely upright citizens, never having strayed from steadfast morals or the law? We might claim that, but then we could not back it up with sound evidence. We’d be lying, or at best, being naïve.
There’s an old adage among trial lawyers that says that no one is innocent—some are simply found not guilty. Far from being a remnant of the notion of original sin or being merely cynical, this is simply a practical recognition that while many may claim to be utterly pure, they are likely not. Some are worse than others, but everyone is guilty to some degree of some breach of ethics, either personal or public, or has some character flaw. So shall we judge a person’s character by his or her misdeeds, or are there other, more relevant criteria? Surely you cannot be held culpable for the thoughts or actions of others, unless you’ve conspired with them somehow. We cannot know the full thoughts, deeds, or characters of others, perhaps even of our closest friends or family members. We are only fully responsible for our own.
Similarly, we should avoid drawing positive conclusions about the character of a person because of the apparently good reputations of those with whom he or she spends time. Many a scoundrel has kept the company of kings and queens. It says almost nothing about the scoundrel that he or she was friends with good people, and character testimony is ultimately worth very little, even in courts of law. This is also logical, since it is not unusual for one with a low character or little in the way of personal accomplishments or abilities to attempt to elevate his or her own status by becoming acquainted with those who are better than him or her in both character and accomplishments. But the same ad hominem fallacy applies.
So how shall we take the measure of a candidate? We might look to what the candidates say. More so with candidates for office than anyone else, we have vast repositories of the things that have been said, generally publically but also sometimes privately, and are recorded in memoranda, transcripts, or electronically for historians and members of the media to dredge up. Even a few words speak volumes and give us good insight into the workings of other minds. But they too are not foolproof as a guide to judging character. Many a politician, preacher, poet, author, philosopher, or even friend has said one thing and done another. Confidence artists make mints with charming speeches and easy demeanors, taking people in with fine words and then ripping them off. Words alone cannot give us full insight into character, though they may be a starting point for inquiry and give us some measure of the person.
But words must also be interpreted in the context in which they are spoken or written, and the context of a person is his or her life. So there is something that we ought to consider even above words, and that is actions. What has the person done? Has he or she acted consistently? Have actions matched words? Has he or she behaved honorably, helped others, and behaved civilly?
But all of this inquiry is difficult. It requires more than knee-jerk reactions and involves methodical and careful examination of a life through an individual’s words and actions. It’s so much simpler to find a sound bite and replay it until it’s etched in people’s minds like a soap-detergent commercial. It’s more convenient to simply parrot catch-phrases as though they had content than to delve into the history of a life well-lived and ask, has this person been true to the values he or she espouses? It is a process unlikely to succeed in a commercialized culture full of people unable to concentrate for more than the twenty or thirty seconds it takes to smear someone with a slip of the tongue, a careless remark, or the suggestion of a poorly considered friendship.
Nonetheless, we have a duty to require more, to use reason and logic to recognize when we are being deceived by a fallacy, formal or not. Our judgments about the characters of those we elect, and even those with whom we throw in our lot as friends and colleagues, matter in the grand scheme of things. As we’ve discovered, elected officials can change the course of history. We owe it to ourselves to dig a little deeper than the media choose to, and to use all the evidence at hand to make wise judgments. We should look at the thoughts, words, and actions of the candidates themselves over the courses of their lives and avoid the fallacy of circumstantial ad hominem. Reason demands no less, and the future depends on it.
David R. Koepsell is the executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism. He is an author, philosopher, and attorney.
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