Bathsheba Syndrome

What does the Bathsheba Syndrome refer to? It is the ethical failure of people in power.

What is an example of the Bathsheba syndrome?

Consider, for example, the biblical story of David and Bathsheba. King David is smitten by Bathsheba, the wife of one of his generals, and he seduces her. David compounds his moral failure with one misdeed after another, until he eventually orders Bathsheba's husband killed—David is corrupted by his power.

Ethics in Telling the Truth

While feeling pressured to either tell the truth or to lie can make most people anxious, anxiety can be seen as a positive emotion—that, in the face of threats and feelings of powerlessness, anxiety gives humans freedom to act courageously according to Rollo May’s The Meaning of Anxiety. Facing threats, May believed, is the mark of an authentic adult, who is creative, responsible and ready to move beyond conformity and traditional values. In Power and Innocence, May argued further that failing to confront lies is symptomatic of powerlessness and the feeling of powerlessness contributes to corruption and violence.

One complication is those most likely to lie (and feel no anxiety about lying) tend to be those with power. According to Dana Harvey, a sense of power buffers individuals from the stress of lying and increases their ability to deceive others. Terry Newell, in his Aug. 9, 2016, PA Times Online column, referred to this as the “Bathsheba Syndrome.”

The need, then, is not only to tell the truth, but to confront power with power—telling truth to power. In this time of heightened political awareness, as well as in our daily lives as public administrators, we must discern truth from fiction, tell the truth when we see it or confront lies when they are evident.