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manipulating out of free will? Who is the victim and who is the oppressor? Is said manipulator truly an aggressor or is he also being acted upon by an outside force?
    It is hard to deny that there are cases in which manipulative behavior seems to be a desperate choice that comes out of weakness. For example, the disadvantaged in society may feel that the only way to express their misery or to receive help is through manipulative behavior. This point was argued intensely by the well-known psychiatrist, or more precisely the “anti-psychiatrist,” Thomas Szasz, who denies the existence of mental illnesses and claims that abnormal behavior is simply a desperate cry for help. In other words, the weak in society have no choice but to vie for attention and seek help through manipulative means. The bitter irony, according to Szasz, is that it is common for psychiatrists to “fall in the trap,” and instead of “really” listening to the patient’s distress, to diagnose him as a “mentally ill patient” and check him into a psychiatric ward. In these extreme cases manipulation actually backfires, as the “victim of manipulation,” the doctor, becomes the oppressor who operates under the illusion that he chooses the best available option for the manipulator, the mental patient.
    Of course, the “mental illness” issue is a controversial and sensitive matter that exceeds the scope of this chapter. Nevertheless, the controversy over the term mental illness in general and Szasz’s perception in particular raises important and interesting questions concerning the individual’s freedom of choice. I will return to this issue in the following chapters. I briefly touch upon the “mental illness” issue at this juncture only to establish how difficult it is to pass a conclusive moral judgment on manipulative behavior.
    Those who revile every kind of manipulative behavior discount the misery and the hopeless situation of the weak in society. True, we should not praise the use of offensive means. However, we should consider that manipulative behavior could be used as a desperate strategy to attract attention to severe social problems and to trigger positive change.
    THE ETHICS OF MANIPULATION
    As noted in the first chapter, it has been shown that some women will pay 25 cents for soap that will make their hands clean and $2.50 for soap that promises to makes their hands more beautiful. Selling a plain soap is selling a plain product, but claiming the benefit of beauty is also selling happiness, which is more powerful psychologically and more profitable economically.
    Most of us don’t believe that soap that contains a little bit of cream will make someone’s hands beautiful, but we are willing to consider that a placebo medication (that resembles the drug without its active substance) can help cure a sick person. Most of us are inclined to believe that the first example involves some type of indecent manipulation while the second, in certain circumstances of course, can be considered admirable. Is there any significant difference between the two examples of manipulation? Perhaps our different expectations are the result of our own biases and self-deception?
    In order to pass a moral judgment we need a theory and context. For example, Thomas Szasz, the libertarian psychiatrist, points out that using placebo drugs in medical practice represents indecent manipulation. Doctors who use placebo drugs are, according to Szasz, simply untrustworthy to their patients and betray their profession. Shifting attention to the marketplace, however, will lead Szasz to change his considerations for ethical judgment. Szasz, who believes in a free trade of drugs, will probably refuse to express a moral opinion on the sale of soaps through impossible claims. However, he will condemn almost any kind of government regulation that intends to ensure the “decency” of our cosmetic products.
    In general, we can identify two central flows in the liberal