Private vices, public vices

New Jersey voters overlooked the messy marriage breakup of Senator Jon Corzine and elected him governor anyway. An expert in business ethics asks what lessons can be drawn from this.

I was deeply disturbed by the views expressed by Gail Collins in a recent column in the New York Times entitled “No Sex Please, We’re American Voters”1. Drawing on the outcome of the governor’s race in New Jersey won by a Democrat Senator publicly accused by his ex-wife of adultery, Collins infers that American voters are indifferent to the sexual behaviour of their public officials. She then goes on to cite a string of celebrated cases such as those of Roosevelt, Kennedy and Clinton as proof that “great public leadership and domestic fidelity do not really go hand in hand”. She even implies that the irrelevance of private sexual misconduct for public office has been a long-standing tradition going back to the times of Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. Towards the end of her column she manifests her hope that American voters be at least as indulgent if and when the sexual impropriety involves female candidates.

I don’t think that indifference towards improper sexual behaviour is a conclusion one could draw from the New Jersey polls. It wasn’t a referendum on that particular issue. Any inference would have to be a bit more nuanced. All things considered, perhaps New Jersey voters still thought that Senator Jon Corzine would be a better governor than his Republican opponent, Douglas Forrester. I cannot imagine “being an alleged adulterer” figuring  in any candidate’s campaign materials. After all, adultery is still a crime in some states, although hardly prosecuted and difficult to prove. At most, it is treated as a minor misdemeanour and grounds for divorce.

As for the claim that faithfulness to one’s spouse hasn’t really been a distinguishing trait of great American leaders, we would do well by requiring something more than anecdotal evidence. A consensus would first have to be reached regarding “great leadership” followed by a careful historical scrutiny of the lives of public officials who purportedly qualify. Although one could not deny that people unfaithful to their marriage vows could be excellent leaders, that would be despite and not because of their lack of loyalty.

What I found most troubling is the incoherence between the demands of unquestionable integrity from elected public officials, on the one hand, and the pressure to ignore their fidelity to marriage oaths, on the other. It’s as if honesty and truthfulness were virtues to be lived exclusively in money-matters, in business dealings and taxes, for example, and rightfully neglected in other more personal relationships, involving love, sex and family. As character traits, virtues accompany one wherever he goes; they’re not the kind of thing that could be lived privately at home, but not publicly in the workplace. To do otherwise is not a sign of maturity or enlightenment, just plain double-dealing.

And lastly, I don’t think women’s welfare or status will at all improve if marital faithfulness are not to count when running for public office. That would be too condescending on the part of men. Just like their male counterparts, female candidates also need to live the virtues which are the true measure of human flourishing.

Dr Alejo Sison holds the Rafael Escolá Chair of Professional Ethics at the University of Navarra in Spain.

Notes
(1) Gail Collins. “No Sex Please, We’re American Voters”. New York Times. Nov 15, 2005.