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Radical transparency as a political doctrine

Brian Leiter

A colleague here writes:

Back in college, I read a book which contained an argument in favor of radical transparency as a political doctrine.  The author argued that if men lived in glass houses, they would always act virtuously, because otherwise they would be shunned by others.  I could swear that the author was William Godwin, and the book was his Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, but I have reread that book the best I could on the web, and I don’t see such a passage.  Do you have any idea who it could be?

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12 responses to “Radical transparency as a political doctrine”

  1. Mentally_eel

    Godwin definitely has an argument that in a tight community setting people won't commit crimes because the eyes of the community are upon them, but I don't remember the glass house analogy coming from him.

    Reply
  2. John

    I have no idea but you might like this essay and the book from which it is taken.

    http://www.dabase.org/p9rightness.htm

    Reply
  3. George Stamets

    this might be what your colleague is thinking of. a couple of paragraphs from "Chapter VI – Of Libels" in Godwin's "Enquiry …":

    If a veil of partial favour is to be drawn over the indiscretions and faults of mankind, it is easy to perceive whether virtue or vice will be the gainer. There is no terror that comes home to the heart of vice like the terror of being exhibited to the public eye. On the contrary, there is no reward worthy to be bestowed upon eminent virtue but this one, the plain, unvarnished proclamation of its excellence in the face of the world.

    If the unrestrained discussion of abstract enquiry be of the highest importance to mankind, the unrestrained investigation of character is scarcely less to be cultivated. If truth were universally told of men's dispositions and actions, gibbets and wheels might be dismissed from the face of the earth. The knave unmasked would be obliged to turn honest in his own defence. Nay, no man would have time to grow a knave. Truth would follow him in his first irresolute essays, and public disapprobation arrest him in the commencement of his career.

    There are many men at present who pass for virtuous that tremble at the boldness of a project like this. They would be detected in their effeminacy and imbecility. Their imbecility is the growth of that inauspicious secrecy which national manners, and political institutions, at present draw over the actions of individuals. If truth were spoken without reserve, there would be no such men in existence. Men would act with clearness and decision if they had no hopes in concealment, if they saw, at every turn, that the eye of the world was upon them. How great would be the magnanimity of the man who was always sure to be observed, sure to be judged with discernment, and to be treated with justice? Feebleness of character would hourly lose its influence in the breast of those over whom it now domineers. They would feel themselves perpetually urged, with an auspicious violence, to assume manners more worthy of the form they bear.

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  4. George Stamets

    sorry, wasn't quite specific enough: that's Book VI, Chapter VI.

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  5. Richard Baron

    Russell offered a more radical thought experiment. Suppose that we could all see into one another's heads, and learn what we really thought about one another. Most friendships would come to an abrupt end. But after a little while, we would realize that we were all much the same in our hypocrisy, and would get back together again. (I think this is around page 76 of The Conquest of Happiness, but have no copy to hand to check this.)

    More practically, the UK government is taking some steps towards transparency, in the hope that it will have the kind of effect described here. Substantial items of spending, and civil servants' work-related credit card bills, are being published. The fact that the Civil Service has not been at all keen on the latter suggests that it is a good idea.

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  6. Michael J. Augustin

    If you're attracted to the idea that men who live in glass houses will always act virtuously, you may appreciate Epictetus' thoughts on the matter. Specifically, Book III, discourse XXII, titled, "On the calling of a Cynic." I reproduce a relevant passage below:

    "For this you ought to know: Other men have the protection of their walls and their houses and darkness, when they do anything of that sort, and they have many things to hide them. A man closes his door, stations someone at the entrance to his bedroom: 'If anyone comes, tell him, 'He is not home, he is not at leisure.'' But the Cynic, instead of all these defences, has to make his self-respect his protection; if he does not, he will be disgracing himself naked and out of doors. His self-respect is his house, his door, his guards at the entrance to his bedroom, his darkness. For neither ought he wish to keep concealed anything that is his (otherwise he is lost, he has destroyed the Cynic within him, the man of outdoor life, the free man; he has begun to fear something external, he has begun to need something to conceal him), nor can he keep it concealed when he wishes to do so." (Oldfather translation.)

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  7. Michael Mirer

    Peter Singer actually has an essay about this–or a more modern version of this–in the latest issue of Harper's. It's called "Visible Man: Ethics in a World Without Secrets." Here's a link, which is sadly subscriber's only:http://harpers.org/archive/2011/08/0083544 .

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  8. David Morrice

    Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon scheme proposed the use of surveillance (transparency?)as a means of controlling behaviour in prisons. Michel Foucault comments on this in Discipline and Punish.

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  9. Maria Richards

    Reminds me also of Bentham's Panopticon – prisoners who feel themselves to be always visible will become self-policing.

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  10. Barry Sharpe

    For a dystopian take on radical transparency and glass houses, see Zamyatin's novel We.

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  11. Martin

    For a more communal version, John Winthop 1630 preparing to set up the Massachusetts Bay Colony (famously misquoted by Ronald Reagan):

    for wee must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eies of all people are uppon us; soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our god in this worke wee have undertaken and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall be made a story and a byword through the world

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  12. Jim Aune

    Godwin probably got it from Rousseau and, from there, Robespierre. See Jean Starobinski's great Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Transparency and Obstruction.

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