Truthfulness and Contract Law

Suppose Smith tells Jones something in confidence. Jones then reveals the message. Is it ethical for Smith to deny having informed Jones, causing Jones's revelation to lack credibility?

Or suppose Jones tortures Smith to get him to reveal his secret mission. Is it ethical for Smith to lie to Jones?

Or suppose that Smith and Jones are enemies, and Jones is a vile person. When Smith says to Jones, "What I am telling you now is the truth," is Smith obligated to then tell the truth? In both cases, a useful framework for thinking about the situation is the common law of contracts. The common law reflects fairness and efficiency, and has been thought out over many years in addressing lots of difficult situations in a consistent way.

The way to use the insights of contract law is to think of Smith and Jones as making a contract. Smith agrees to tell Jones something, and Jones agrees to do something for Smith in exchange. An implicit part of the agreement is that Smith will tell the truth.

In the case of the violated confidentiality, Jones has breached the contract by revealing the information publicly. Smith is therefore released from his obligation to tell the truth and back Jones up. If one party to a contract breaches seriously enough, the other party need not perform.

In the case of the torture, the contract is made under duress. Smith is therefore not obligated to perform his side by telling the truth.

In the case of the vile Jones, the contract is valid. Contract law does not allow breach just because the other party is a bad person.

Evolution and Religion

David Sloan Wilson, author of Darwin’s Cathedral, a book about the usefulness of religion as an evolutionary adaption, harshly criticizes Richard Dawkins for sloppiness in thinking about religion and evolution. This is part of Dawkins's contempt for group selection, which is misguided. Click here to read more

It is the more sober work of Wilson that is the more serious criticism of Christianity. He says, re Dawkins:

Richard Dawkins and I share much in common. We are both biologists by training who have written widely about evolutionary theory. We share an interest in culture as an evolutionary process in its own right. We are both atheists in our personal convictions who have written books on religion. In Darwin’s Cathedral I attempted to contribute to the relatively new field of evolutionary religious studies. When Dawkins’ The God Delusion was published I naturally assumed that he was basing his critique of religion on the scientific study of religion from an evolutionary perspective. I regret to report otherwise. He has not done any original work on the subject and he has not fairly represented the work of his colleagues....

As one example reported in the July 6, 2006 issue of Nature, a group of microbiologists headed by Benjamin Kerr cultured bacteria (E. coli) and their viral predator (phage) in 96-well plates, which are commonly used for automated chemical analysis. Each well was an isolated group of predators and their prey. Within each well, natural selection favored the most rapacious viral strains, but these strains tended to drive their prey, and therefore themselves extinct. More prudent viral strains were vulnerable to replacement by the rapacious strains within each well, but as groups they persisted longer and were more likely to colonize other wells. Migration between wells was accomplished by robotically controlled pipettes. Biologically plausible migration rates enabled the prudent viral strains to persist in the total population, despite their selective disadvantage within groups.

As a second example reported in the December 8, 2006 issue of Science, economist Samuel Bowles estimated that between-group selection was strong enough to promote the genetic evolution of altruism in our own species, exactly as envisioned by Darwin. These and many other examples, summarized by Edward O. Wilson and myself in a forthcoming review article, are ignored entirely by Dawkins, who continues to recite his mantra that the selective disadvantage of altruism within groups poses an insuperable problem for between-group selection.