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The ethics of "speaking truth to power"
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I subscribe to an e-mail discussion list which recently began discussing whether it was ethical for Milton Friedman to visit Augusto Pinochet and give him economic advice. 
 
One list member argued that "he [Friedman] damn well should have [spent the meeting chastising the General].  He had the undivided attention of a brutal and ruthless dictator for 45 minutes.  Why not use it?  He could have said something like:  I am delighted you are putting my theories into practice....  But I wish that you would stop torturing, murdering and disappearing your opponents; it gives me and my theories a bad name.  [And why not speak out?  After all, ...]  Milton was in no danger of being 'disappeared'.  But Milton said no such thing. Speaking truth to power was not what he was about."
 
After reading this, I began to wonder what the whole idea of "speaking truth to power" really means.  I am certainly not about to claim that Gen. Pinochet was some kind of sweet guy, but I think the proposed alternative is more problematic than it looks.  The following is what I came up with.
 
I have to wonder how useful the concept of "speaking truth to power" is, at least in this particular case.  (There may be other cases that are different.)  Let me put it in the form of a thought experiment: if Mr. Friedman had indeed said exactly those things to Gen. Pinochet, what would he have accomplished?  What I mean is, could he possibly have told Gen. Pinochet anything that the General didn't already know?  Is it even remotely believable that Pinochet might have replied, "Gosh, I never realized before that torture and murder and kidnapping were evil things.  Thanks for clearing this up for me -- I'll stop doing them right away!"
 
Of course not.  It is certainly true that Gen. Pinochet already knew that torture and murder and kidnapping are evil, and whatever twisted mental gymnastics he was already using to justify them to his own conscience would certainly have withstood his hearing the same thing from Mr. Friedman.  (In other words, while I do not say that Gen. Pinochet was right to do any of the things he did, I am quite certain that he told himself he was right.  He could not possibly have held on for long any other way.) 
 
Therefore if Mr. Friedman had taken the 45 minutes to deliver that kind of message, it would have had as much effect as to spend the time explaining the message to a brick wall.  And what's the point of that?  The most -- I say, the most -- that Mr. Friedman could have accomplished would have been to walk out of the meeting feeling a righteous glow in his breast for having had the courage to upbraid the General.  But it would have to be a pretty hollow kind of courage, because after all he would know in advance that he was in no danger.  And it would have to be a pretty hollow kind of righteous moral glow, because he would know in advance that he was going to accomplish nothing.  
 
In other words, all that Mr. Friedman would have accomplished if he had chosen to lecture Gen. Pinochet on human rights would be a display of phony courage in the service of a phony pretense at moral righteousness.  It would have been a facade or a show of moral indignation which would not have actually accomplished anything of moral substance.  I think the technical term for this is Phariseeism, and I don't think anybody calls it admirable.  So why on earth would anybody want Mr. Friedman to have wasted his time striking poses and playing the Pharisee?  What actual moral good would that have done?
 
The only answer I can think of (unless you treat the question as rhetorical) is that even if Mr. Friedman had not been able to achieve any concrete improvement in the life of Chileans subject to Gen. Pinochet, nonetheless he would have preserved his own moral character unsullied by not consorting with tyrants in such an obviously chummy fashion.  I can only reply that a concern for personal purity at the expense of achieving any real good in the world is simply another feature of Phariseeism.  For myself, I am more impressed by those who are willing to dine, when necessary, with publicans and sinners ....

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