One of the curious features of American politics is how the pejorative label of ‘flip-flopper’, if successfully pinned on a candidate, can seriously hurt that person’s electoral chances. The term is used to describe someone who has made a 180-degree turn on some issue, taking a position now that is diametrically opposed to one he or she took before. This issue dogged John Kerry’s candidacy in 2004. Some people pay a surprising amount of attention to this question, even to the extent of looking into what a politician said or did even as far back as in college or high school. Journalists sometimes pore over a candidate’s past statements on some topic in order to confront them with some contradiction.

Behind this there seems to be this assumption that someone whose views have never changed during his or her entire adult life is more virtuous than someone who has changed. But is this a reasonable assumption? Why is holding steadfastly to one’s views all through one’s life seen as such a good thing? After all, as time goes by, we learn more things and acquire life experiences and these can cause us to re-evaluate our positions. Why is this a bad thing? The economist John Maynard Keynes, when he was confronted with an old statement that contradicted his current views reportedly riposted, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” Even if this story is apocryphal, it illustrates the fact that changing one’s views is sometimes the most reasonable thing to do.

When I look back on my own life, I can see many areas where my views have changed dramatically. I used to think that US involvement in Vietnam was a noble thing. I now think is was an atrocity. I used to be a devout believer in god and now am an atheist. I used to disparage the feminist movement as making much ado about trivial things but now realize what an important role they played in the drive for women’s equality. I used to be indifferent to gay issues but now strongly support their move towards full equality. If I think harder, I am sure that I can come up with more examples of my own flip-flopping on important issues. But I don’t see myself as a rudderless person, drifting this way and that on the basis of whims or expediency.

Perhaps the crucial issue is motive, that it is acceptable to change one’s mind because of new facts or because one has been persuaded by arguments, but that to do so for the sake of political expediency is to justly invite criticism This is the charge currently being laid against Mitt Romney, that he changed his views from his time as governor of Massachusetts merely because of his desire to appeal to the evangelical Christian tea party base of the Republican party, requiring him to make increasingly emphatic affirmations that what he says he believes now represent his core beliefs, that he always had these beliefs, and leading to contortions to show that his previous positions were consistent with them.

Leaving aside the specifics of Mitt Romney, changing one’s public views to meet external needs without actually changing one’s beliefs lays one open to the charge of hypocrisy or opportunism and that may seem to be obviously wrong. But is it that clear cut? Surely hypocrisy is also not always a bad thing? Suppose some elected official really thinks that women should not be in leadership positions or that gay people are sinners who will go to hell or that all Muslims are particularly susceptible to terrorist influence. But this person is also smart enough to know that to say any of those things publicly is to doom the chances for election. If such a person adopts a neutral stance or even asserts support for equality for those groups, surely that hypocrisy is better than his adamant opposition? In fact, don’t we want politicians to be people we can influence to vote our way? Political demonstrations, marches, rallies, etc. are all designed to pressure public officials to take actions that they might not take otherwise. Why is it such a bad thing for elected officials to be swayed by public opinion to take actions that are contrary to their own beliefs?

To my mind, what is truly inexcusable in politics is lying, where a politician says one thing while campaigning for office and does the opposite after being elected, even though nothing else has changed. That is something that should be strongly censured and punished by the voters. But even here one has to be careful not to be too rigid and to carefully take into account the important caveat about nothing else changing. In real life, things can change and one should not hold people to account for taking those changes into consideration when forming policy. This is why I disapprove of these pledges that some candidates are forced to sign as a condition of support. Right now there seems to be an epidemic of such pledges on the Republican side, requiring pledges against raising taxes, gay marriage, and so on.

If the facts change, good governance may require a change in policy and there is nothing wrong with that, as long as a good case can be made as to why the change is necessary.