Political Corruption as Deformities of Truth

Yann Allard-Tremblay

doi:10.7202/1024293ar

Abstract

This paper presents a conception of corruption informed by epistemic democratic theory. I first explain the view of corruption as a disease of the political body. Following this view, we have to consider the type of actions that debase a political entity of its constitutive principal in order to assess corruption. Accordingly, we need to consider what the constitutive principle of democracy is. This is the task I undertake in the second section where I explicate democratic legitimacy. I present democracy as a procedure of social inquiry about what ought to be done that includes epistemic and practical considerations. In the third section, I argue that the problem of corruption for a procedural conception of democracy is that the epistemic value of the procedure is diminished by corrupted agents’ lack of concern for truth. Corruption, according to this view, consists in two deformities of truth: lying and bullshit. These deformities corrupt since they conceal private interests under the guise of a concern for truth. In the fourth section, I discuss the difficulties a procedural account may face in formulating solutions to the problem of corruption.

Highlights

It is not uncommon to associate corruption with the deterioration and weakening of moral characters or of social mores
The idea of corruption as a damage to the moral fabric of society has not been entirely relegated to history books: e.g. article 163 of the Criminal Code of Canada relates to “offences tending to corrupt morals”. This is because corruption appears as an element of our moral theory used to characterise the degraded or detrimentally affected moral character of agents
There is certainly a kernel of truth in this folk understanding of corruption and in the idea that part of political corruption is to be attributed to moral corruption. This folk conception offers a nominal definition. It points to what type of activity—individuals or groups promoting their self-interest through their institutional position all the while acting against their institutional duties—we generally refer to when we consider political corruption

Summary

Introduction

It is not uncommon to associate corruption with the deterioration and weakening of moral characters or of social mores. We need to consider the normative underpinning of democratic legitimacy to really appreciate both the nature of corruption and the harms it causes. A democratic decision-making procedure needs to include features that will recognisably allow it to achieve, in the long run, correct answers.

Results

Conclusion