The Ethics of Santa Claus

The Ethics of Santa Claus
by Oliver Butterick

"He's gonna find out who's naughty or nice..."

The Friday after Thanksgiving, I was driving back home, listening to talk radio. There was a host on KFI out of Los Angeles, who was ranting about why jolly old Saint Nick should be taught as a myth, and that the illusion that he actually exists should be discarded.

He reasoned that parents should not perpetuate the belief that Santa Claus is a real person. He, and the callers that supported his position, had several reasons for this. Among them were 1) that it is lying, and this sets a bad example and may cause your children to have trust issues in the future, 2) that it is manipulation to use Santa Claus to get your children to behave for the month or two preceding Christmas, 3) that it gives children a false conception of how the world works—namely, that good is rewarded and evil is punished.

Another argument not proposed but perhaps legitimate is that idolizing Santa Claus takes away from the religious significance of the holiday, namely the birth of Jesus Christ. Neither the radio host nor I are religious people, so he did not focus on this argument, and neither will I. An argument that may have been touched upon but not elaborated is an idea that synthesizes some of the arguments above: that using Santa Claus as the basis of your children’s ethical system reinforces the belief that morality is a function of obeying authority. The elaboration of this argument will be the focus of this article.

In 1961, Stanley Milgram began a series of experiments that ended up showing that around two-thirds of people are likely to submit to authority, even if it means having fatal harm inflicted upon them. Even more interesting is that the people who dissent are able to explain why it is wrong for them to continue with the experiment, whereas the two-thirds are not able to articulate why what they were doing was wrong, even though they might have felt that it was.

The problem is that around three-fourths of adults are stuck in what psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg calls the “Conventional Stage of Moral Development.” This stage, which is supposed to span from age ten to anywhere between age 13 and age 18 is characterized by conformity to peer norms and respect for social rules. In fact, “teenage angst” is likely a manifestation of the transition from the Conventional stage to the Postconventional stage, which is characterized by moral systems that are grounded in universal principles such as justice and equality. In short, people in the Conventional stage look for some authority (their parents, the law, the church, etc.) to tell them how they should behave, and people in the Postconventional stage have a system so they can figure out for themselves what the difference between right and wrong.

Most adults in the United States never make the transition from Conventional moral thinking to Postconventional. I guess this is one reason that I have such a problem with organized religion, especially the Catholic church. To me, it seems like organized religions repress their congregation by telling them what they should and shouldn’t do, instead of letting them develop a mature system of ethics that will enable them to make morally correct decisions in complex situations.

Do I blame only Santa Claus and organized religion for this phenomenon? Of course not. They are two of several factors that serve to retard moral development. Instead of being the “culprit upon whom belongs the blame,” Santa is more of an archetype, an illustration of how so many things in our culture collaborate to keep people from thinking for themselves.

The difference between Santa and organized religion is that Santa reinforces the “Preconventional” stage, the one that is characterized by an egoistic world view with morality based on reward and punishment. While this may entirely be age-appropriate, since it’s not expected for kids to transcend the Preconventional stage until around age ten, and by this age all but the most naïve children have stopped believing in Santa Claus.

However, the pattern of relying on rewards and punishment as the basis of morality lasts long after a child knows that the guy in the mall doesn’t really live in the North Pole. How many teenagers get grounded, or have privileges taken away when they misbehave? Or worse yet, how many of them get rewarded for getting good grades? I know more than one good student whose parents bought them a car because of it.

I remember many of my peers when I was in college who were ill-prepared to face reality. Still receiving allowances from their parents, they would get into trouble with drinking or because of stealing something from the cafeteria. My theory is that they thought it was okay because they knew that their parents wouldn’t find out.

In conclusion, I agree with that talk radio host—let's teach Santa as a fun part of Christmas, but not that he's a real person. And more importantly, let's teach our kids how to think for themselves so that they know and understand why what's right is right and why what's wrong is wrong.

Oliver can be reached at oliver@babblog.com.