The sexual, the secret and the sacred

Some ethical truths are intuitively obvious but it is hard to understand the reasons for them. For instance, sexual behavior should be, at least other things being equal, kept private. But why? While I certainly have this intuition, I have always found it deeply puzzling, especially since privacy is opposed to the value of knowledge and hence always requires a special justification.

But here is a line of thought that makes sense to me now. There is a natural connection between the sacred and the ritually hidden recognized across many religions. Think, for instance, of how the holiest prayers of the Tridentine Mass are said inaudibly by the priest, or the veiling of the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Jerusalem, or the mystery religions. The sacred is a kind of mysterium tremendum et fascinans, and ritual hiddenness expresses the mysteriousness of the sacred particularly aptly.

If sexuality is sacred—say, because of its connection with the generation of life, and given the sacredness of human life—then it is unsurprising if it is particularly appropriately engaged in in a context that involves ritual hiddenness.

Note that this is actually more of a ritual hiddenness than an actual secrecy. The fact of sex is not a secret in the case of a married couple, just as the content of the inaudible prayers of the Tridentine Mass is printed publicly in missals, but it is ritually hidden.

I wonder, too, if reflection on ritual hiddenness might not potentially help with the “problem of hiddenness”.

Reasons for non-disclosure

Until today I thought that non-disclosure was only justified in reference to our sinful condition. The psychologist doesn't disclose her patients' problems because sinful humans are likely to treat her patients wrongly if they know about the problems. And so on.

But I was mistaken. First, there are cases not referring to our present sinful condition but a potential future sinful condition. For instance, even an unfallen human can be swayed by temptation, as the story of the tree of knowledge of good and evil shows, and a person can be tempted by the disclosure of benefits.

Second, there are cases where it is good to fail to disclose information either because the order of disclosure is important or because because it is better that the information be discovered by someone on her own. This is an important part of sound pedagogy, and this does not seem to be an aspect of the Fall. God did not, as far as we know, disclose Pythagorean Theorem to Adam and Eve before the Fall, and it was better that humans discover it on their own.

Confidentiality

You ask me: "Did Owen tell you in confidence that he is looking for another position?" He didn't, and in fact Owen and I have never talked about the question. What can I say? It seems I can truthfully and with a clear conscience answer: "No." After all, Owen never confided in me, so I owe him no duties of confidentiality.

But if I make it a policy to answer such questions honestly in cases where Owen has reposed no relevant confidence in me, then I make myself into a non-intentional betrayer of secrets. For you can then tell whether Owen has shared a relevant confidence in me simply by asking me about it—if I answer, then he has not, and if I do not answer, then he has. Moreover, in typical cases you can also deduce, with some probability, what the confidence was. For it is more likely that Owen would take the trouble to request confidentiality about his looking for a new position than about his being satisfied with his present post.

By answering in the negative when no confidence has been reposed in me, then, I decrease my ability to keep confidences on other occasions. It seems, then, that a good thing to say is: "If he did tell me so, I wouldn't be able to share it with you. And if he did not tell me so, I still shouldn't tell you that, since then you'd be able to tell when confidence has been reposed in me."

But what is kind of tricky is that there are cases where this response does not seem satisfactory from Owen's point of view. Suppose that Owen never committed a certain pecadillo, but I am such a close friend of his, that had he done it, he would have immediately told me about it in confidence. If I am asked whether Owen confessed the pecadillo to me, and he had not, then it seems the very best thing for Owen's reputation is a clear denial from me. But a policy of such denials makes me a poorer keeper of confidences for my friends. So there is a bit of a dilemma here.

Presumably, the thing to do is to say that the duty to remain an effective keeper of confidences when one has not had a secret confided to one is only a prima facie duty. It is, simply, a good thing to be an effective keeper of confidences, but sometimes we need to act in ways that makes us less effective at keeping secrets, just as sometimes we need to act in ways that will make us less good racketball players (a philosopher I know gave up a professional racketball career to go into philosophy). To be an effective keeper of secrets is a genuine good, but there are incommensurable goods that might justify becoming a less effective keeper of secrets. There is nothing surprising here. In fact, examples are easy to find. Learning to keep a poker face, for instance, makes one a more effective keeper of secrets, but increases one's temptations to dishonesty.

What is kind of interesting to me about this case is that it seems one has prima facie duties of confidentiality towards people whose confidences one does not actually possess. I think this is because one has good reason to be ready with the offices of a friend (understood broadly—we should be a friend or neighbor to all), and hence to act in ways that make one a more effective friend. Maybe we should see this reason as grounded in what one owes fellow human beings, or maybe in what one owes oneself, or maybe in what one owes God.

And confidentiality is not the only such case. For instance, one likewise has reason to avoid budgeting one's money and time in such a way that one has no margin to help friends in need.

There is nothing earthshaking or deeply surprising here. I just wanted to think through these issues, and as often, my way of thinking them through is by writing.