Lately the moral focus of our society has been diverted from morality to the avoidance of the appearance of impropriety. The aspiration for untainted appearances is very old; what is new is the scope and force with which it is now applied to everyday living. Thus the Bible states, "And ye shall be pure before God and man,"(1) and the Talmud explains the verse as an exhortation to the avoidance of both impropriety (purity before God) and its appearance (purity before man).(2)
Yet a Biblical aspiration to total purity cannot be and ought not to be the standard of morality by which secular society judges its members. Cannot: because man will not live by such a rarefied standard, no matter how forcefully it is proclaimed and applied. Indeed, application of such a standard will simply reveal a thoroughly tainted society, not prevent its appearance. Ought not: because given that man is beset by impurity, such a standard frequently achieves the opposite of that which is intended and various attendant evils.
For example, a faculty member enamored of one of his better graduate students asks her out, but the young lady is already attached and says "No." She then earns a solid B+ on her research paper. Fearing charges of sexual harassment stemming from a clear appearance of impropriety, the professor assigns an A without hesitation. The very wrong to be avoided--an academic action taken on other-than-academic grounds--has occurred, and, in addition, reluctance to further supervise the student's research is likely.
Likewise, a town commissioner responsible for the competitive award of contracts reviews all bids and finds his son-in-law's the most reasonable and worthy. Fearing charges of nepotism and bid-rigging stemming from a clear appearance of impropriety, the public official quickly awards the contract to someone less able. The very wrong to be avoided--noncompetitive award of a contract--has occurred, and, in addition, normally irenic family relations have been disturbed.
Finally, an engineering firm with few minority employees and substantial government contracts has a vacancy. The project manager responsible for the hiring decision has two applications, one from an old classmate with whom he already enjoys substantial rapport but who is white, and one from an otherwise equally qualified black. Fearing charges of invidious discrimination stemming from a clear appearance of impropriety, the project manager hires the black applicant. The very wrong to be avoided--a personnel action taken on racial grounds--has occurred, and, in addition, a friendship has been damaged.
All of these cases have in common a plying of principle to avoid the appearance of impropriety, notwithstanding that a real moral wrong is thereby committed. Each also has in common ideas stemming from various movements that arose in the Sixties or in the aftermath of the Watergate scandals. In the first case, there are ideas stemming from the intersection of the women's movement and the students' rights movement. In the second case, there are the conflict-of-interest and full-disclosure ideas. And, in the final case, there is the idea of affirmative action and the idea that employment is an entitlement. Thus in each case an ancient aspiration is given life by a modern focus of attention.
Unfortunately, however, our heightened concern with appearances detracts from genuinely moral concerns, shifts the burden of proof to the accused, and erodes basic yearnings for privacy, naturalness, and freedom, all quintessentially American ideals. After all, there is hardly anything more natural than a father-in-law helping a deserving, capable son-in-law, than someone in middle management hiring an old school chum, or than a young professor asking out an attractive graduate student. But, increasingly, people are not socially free to act naturally, even when no wrong is thereby committed and no rights are thereby invaded. Accompanying this erosion of freedom and naturalness is a loss of privacy and the presumption of innocence. The mere appearance of impropriety shifts the burden of explanation to people who are neither accustomed nor prepared to defend themselves for natural and reasonable behavior.
Worse still, the explanations offered by such people, no matter how true, how cogent, and how convincing, will be endlessly scrutinized for minor and irrelevant misstatements of fact or lapses of memory and endlessly sifted for improperly resolved conflicts of interest, even when it should be apparent to all that the individual involved acquitted himself honorably.
Conflicts of interest are impossible to avoid. They pervade every area of life, every day of living. But absent evidence to the contrary, it should be presumed that people resolve these conflicts appropriately, since the contrary of this proposition is simply intolerable.
A society as worldly as ours must develop the courage and sophistication not only to condemn that which is wrong, for any self-righteous fool can do that, but also to be silent at that which, contrary to appearances, violates no real moral standard. Such silence requires inner courage, because the temptation to believe, spread, and urge the acceptance of half-true rumors is so overwhelming. It requires sophistication, because to a species that learns almost everything from sight and sound, appearances are so very hard to reject and rumors so very hard to discount. Both require moral discipline and moral discrimination, traits not easily acquired, but whose acquisition is essential for those truly concerned with virtue.
Notes
1. Numbers 32:22.
2. Pesachim 13a, and the commentaries thereon.