Down yonder, a reader writes:
If you have a cohabiting couple that aren’t engaging in conjugal relations, do they become morally responsible for the misperceptions of others?
To which another reader responded:
If the "misperception" is reasonable and they do nothing to correct it, then yes.
This is correct except for the scare quotes around "misperception." If an individual acts in such a way that his behavior reasonably leads others to believe something that is false and he takes no steps to correct it, he becomes responsible for others believing something that is false. He thereby does damage to that person’s doxastic structure (i.e., his belief system).
People don’t often think about it, but doxastic damage is real damage. It isn’t just a place where we don’t know something about the world; it’s where our beliefs are out of alignment with the way the world is. That is an evil in and of itself, and it becomes worse if the falsehood that the person has been led to include in his belief system has a practical impact on his behavior. The problem is most acute if he is led into sin as the result of the false belief.
That being said, people have fallen intellects and, even under the best of circumstances, they will misperceive things and form false beliefs as a result. Often false beliefs result from misperceptions that are not reasonable.
For example, some folks out of anti-Southern bigotry may conclude from the way I talk or dress that I am of substandard intelligence and a racist. Neither of those things is a reasonable inference to draw simply from the fact that a person is Southern. Consequently, I am not responsible for suppressing the way I talk or changing the way I dress in order to keep others from thinking these things. Indeed, if anything I would regard it as more incumbent on my to openly display these things as a way of helping to break the stereotype that is at the core of anti-Southern bigotry.
There also can be situations in which individuals may reasonably misperceive a situation in which a person does not have an obligation to correct the misperception for another reason.
For example, suppose a brother and a sister are living together for economic reasons. Those in the neighborhood may suppose that they are not brother and sister but husband and wife and that they are sleeping together. This is a misperception resulting in a false belief, but it is not reasonable to expect the couple to either (a) stop sharing quarters and incur greater financial hardship or (b) go door-knocking in the neighborhood to make sure everyone knows that they’re brother and sister. The thing to do would be to simply mention the fact if the topic comes up in conversation with neighbors and hope the neighborhood gossip net will take care of the rest.
One aspect of this situation is that, since folks are assuming they’re married, they’re also assuming that the conjugal relations they believe them to be having are marital relations and thus morally licit, so no scandal is being given.
On the other hand, if a couple is living together in a way that reasonably leads others to believe that they are engaging in sinful behavior, even though they are not, then we are in the general territory of the sin of scandal. Conveying a public image of sinfulness weakens society’s moral fabric and encourages others to actually engage in sinful behavior by making it seem socially acceptable. Thus, even if a cohabiting couple is not having conjugal relations, the fact that they are reasonably presumed to be having them can lead others to view cohabiting-with-conjugal-relations as acceptable and engage in it themselves. The number of people and the likelihood that they would be drawn into sin as a result determines the gravity of the scandal.
