Reasons Why I Won't "Play Santa" With My Future Kids (Perspectives Part 3)

When I was a kid, my parents never engaged my siblings or me with the Santa Claus story. It wasn't that they thought it was immoral per say; Santa was just never something we did as a family. For a while, the height of my understanding was that Santa was nothing more than a television character— just a fictitious accessory to make Christmas more fun. So maybe it's simply because I don't have much experience in the Santa department, but nonetheless, I can't help but wonder what role his story plays in a family's dynamics, and whether or not that kind of deception is as innocent as we take it for. In other words, I can't help but wonder whether teaching kids about Santa is "right" or "wrong."

The criteria for what is "right" and what is "wrong" has been debated by philosophers for generations, and there are countless different approaches— called "ethical normative systems"— that aim at providing concrete answers. These systems, although they are widely diverse, can be divided into three broad categories: virtue ethics, duty ethics, and consequential ethics.

Virtue Ethics

Without getting into too much detail, virtue ethics defines "right and wrong" as having to do with the "doer" of an action. It emphasizes an individual's moral character rather than their actions or the outcome of their actions. There are a couple of theories that accompany virtue ethics, but perhaps the most notable is Aristotelian ethics. 

Aristotle believed that all things had a function that if performed sufficiently would result in eternal eudaemonia (blessedness and prosperity), and he considered the function of humans to be their faculty of reason. Thus, a virtuous person wasn't one who followed a series of moral guidelines— because in Aristotle's model there are no moral guidelines— but rather someone who carried out their constitutional function and would automatically be able to choose the "right" action by their innate ability to reason.

There are other branches of virtue ethics such as Thomistic Ethics, Buddhism, and Confucianism, but fundamentally, each of these approaches share their emphasis on moral character in common.

Duty Ethics

While virtue ethics deals with the "doer" of an action, duty ethics (or deontology) deals with the action itself. A deontologist would suggest that there are specific standards that exist to guide our actions, and everything else— the intent behind our actions, the outcome of our actions, the perceptions of our actions— is extraneous. All that matters is that we follow the moral rules. 

A good example of deontology is Kantian ethics, more commonly called the categorical imperative. Introduced in German philosopher Immanuel Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysic of Morals, the categorical imperative presents specific rules of conduct that are unconditional and absolute, the validity of which does not depend on any desire or outcome. "Thou shalt not steal," for instance, is a categorical imperative that differs from the hypothetical imperative that would result from the influence of wants, such as "do not steal if you want to be popular."

Other examples of deontology include theistic normative ethics, which suggest a Supreme Being that indicates what humans should and should not do, and the pluralistic theory of duty, which is a little more complicated.

Consequential Ethics

Consequentialism is the idea that an act is not considered to be "good" based on the virtue of its doer, nor by the features of act itself, but rather by the outcome of the act. The concept is exhibited in a variety of different ethical normative systems, such as the rational self-interest theory and existentialism, but arguably the most eminent application of consequentialism is utilitarianism.

At its core, utilitarianism evaluates actions based on how useful they are to bringing about pleasure and happiness. English utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham developed hedonism, which is a quantitative, mathematical view of morality. Essentially, it rates all actions, big or small, based on how "happy making" they are. And although hedonism makes ethics far simpler and much more objective, it also raises a number of moral dilemmas, one of which is a thought experiment dubbed the "trolley problem." You may have heard of it before—  a runaway trolley is barreling down the railway tracks. Five people are tied to the tracks ahead, directly in the path of the uncontrolled trolley. You are standing next to a lever, and by pulling it, you can switch the trolley to a different set of tracks, to which one person is tied. Do you: a) do nothing and allow the trolley to kill the five people in its path, or b) pull the lever to divert the trolley onto the other set of railway tracks, killing the one person and sparing the five?

Well, a utilitarian would look at it mathematically. The act of killing one person is exactly four lives more ethical than the act of killing five people. The trolley problem is an effective model for the implications of consequential practice.

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After that brief yet extensive metaphysics crash course, you may be wondering how Santa Claus ties in. Well, between the official NORAD Santa Tracker and Canada Post's individual responses to Santa letters, our culture has made teaching your kid about Santa Claus to be as expected of you as teaching your kid to ride a bike without training wheels. But if you take a moment to remove cultural and nostalgic biases from the Santa narrative, it becomes little more than a trivial lie which, depending on the ethical normative system you may have adopted, can either be seen as right or wrong. Duty ethics doesn't leave much room for the defense of Santa; Kant's categorical imperative would say lying is always wrong, regardless of how happy that lie might make a 4-year-old on Christmas morning. But a consequential ethicist might argue that the positive outcomes of the Santa story outweighs the deceit and dishonesty.

One of these positive outcomes is supported by child psychologist Jacqueline D. Wooley, who sums up the argument when she writes "not only do children have the tools to ferret out the truth; but engaging with the Santa story may give them a chance to exercise these abilities." Essentially, Wooley argues that lying about Santa teaches children to be analytical and skeptical, which ultimately allows them to grow into free-thinkers who do not trust people blindly but use their own inferencing skills to decipher the truth for themselves. But there is so much deception in a child's social life that I can't see how adding the existence of a giant magical elf is necessary. Besides, when a child is at that stage of their life where they are learning to distinguish between fact and fiction (which according to a 2006 issue of Child Development starts at age 4, right in the midst of their Santa-believing years), it can't be beneficial to their psychological development for their parents, the people they trust the most, to present fiction as fact so elaborately.

When kids discover the truth, it can also affect their trust in their parents. Not permanently of course, but certainly for a time. I mean, if something as verified as Santa Claus—  and for that matter, the tooth fairy, the Easter bunny, etc—  was a lie, then what else can't be trusted? My family is religious, and one of the reasons my parent's didn't play Santa for my siblings and me is because when we discovered that the existence of an all-good, all-powerful man who flies across the sky rewarding our goodness and punishing our faults was complete fiction, then why should we believe them when they tell us about God?

Another common argument against Santa is that usually, at least for the beginning (and most formative years) of a child's life, their parents and family make up the entirety of their role models. And if those role models lie about Santa, it sends the message that it's okay to lie. Santa encourages a "do as I say, not as I do" style of raising kids.

But even if none of these arguments are sound, the main qualm I have against the Santa story is that it teaches that only good children get presents. But what do the implications of this teaching say about children from families that are less well-off? Consider a child's sense of self-worth if their parents can't afford to play Santa and reward their goodness with material gifts. The Santa narrative says that the better the child, the more bountiful the bottom of their Christmas tree, but that's a toxic way to look at the world, both for the children taught that they aren't good enough, and for the children taught that goodness will always protect them from adversity.

Douglas College philosopher Kira Tomsons says: "neither social stigma nor the risk of missing out on traditional holiday fairy tales lessens the moral importance of disclosure." The brief happiness that Santa Claus causes 4-year-olds for one month a year doesn't negate the lasting consequences of the deception that accompanies that joy. And that's why I won't "play Santa" with my future kids.