Imagine for a minute there were a magical ring that, when twisted, rendered the wearer invisible. In using the ring, would that person remain true to their moral code, or abandon their principles and use it to their undue advantage?

This is the question posed by Plato’s brother Glaucon about 2,500 years ago. It is worth considering again in light of the accusations made by journalist David Fisher that two consecutive governments have worked to obscure the inner functioning of the state.

Fisher claims that politicians and officials have manipulated Official Information Act (OIA) procedures and implemented a “no surprises” approach to sharing information with ministers to avoid public accountability. While the “no surprises” approach may not necessarily avoid public accountability, other accusations are more serious.

Since magic rings do not exist, and politicians and bureaucrats are unlikely to admit to being opaque, we have to turn to the field of psychology to answer Glaucon’s question.

Tony Haidt, in his book The Righteous Mind, presents a series of social experiments that suggest morality is only practiced when others are watching, a thesis Glaucon shares.

In one honesty experiment, a group was asked to complete a maths test, and were paid according to how many problems they said they had solved. Researchers expected to find a few cheaters at the margin, but were amazed to find that the majority of people cheated.

In another, participants were purposely given more change than they were due in a transaction. Unprompted, only 20% reported the mistake. Yet when asked by the cashier if the change were correct, the honesty rate shot up to 60%.

The experiments show that, in the absence of accountability, people cheat. Critically, though, the people involved still considered themselves honest, and only cheated to the extent that it allowed them to maintain this self-perception.

So using Fisher’s claims, a minster could legitimately (and honestly) say they did not know about a specific plan despite instructing officials to keep them ignorant of the details.

The rub is that these experiments were conducted in labs, where it is easy to simulate invisibility and plausible deniability. Reality is seldom that clear cut. Fisher asks us to assume that government is facing a media whose only aim is to expose the truth, not an industry that has sunk in tabloid-ism.

Nevertheless, Glaucon’s morality thesis holds, and we as a society benefit from more transparency, not less. That is why it is concerning that some OIA requests, which should be returned in 20-days or less under law, have taken 17-months to complete.