I don’t like lying and try to never do it. I work retail and see casual lying on a regular basis. It disturbs me that people will casually lie to save themselves a few dollars or an employee will tell a stupid obvious lie rather than admit a mistake or bad judgment. Then there’s the lie of omission. Information you purposely leave out with the intent to mislead , but later you’ll say “technically, I didn’t lie”
In almost every case I think the truth is the better choice and if we make a real effort to tell the truth rather than casually lie to avoid hurting someone’s feelings or to avoid dealing with a situation, we discover ways to be honest with good judgment. Honesty doesn’t require being brutally honest.
In rare cases, like the Jews in the attic thing, the choice may sometimes be between the lesser of two evils, and lying may be the lesser. In most cases I think attention to honesty makes for a better society.
Isn’t it a little bizarre that we expect our elected leaders to lie and be something akin to the stereotypical used car salesman?
My oldest brother believes that lying is inherently a violation of God’s law, and as he believes doing good is synonymous with following God’s will (and that all violations of God’s will are equally bad), he’d say that, even to save the Franks in their attic, he will not lie.
A lot of people who say they’re brutally honest are just using honesty as an excuse to be brutal. They just like to say whatever they want without concern for offending or hurting other people. But saying “I’m an insensitive opionated loudmouth” won’t score them a lot of social points. So instead they say “I’m brutally honest” like that makes their personality defect into a virtue.
And lot’s of that type, who defend their insensitivity with honesty, can’t tell or don’t care about the difference between facts and their opinion.
I’ve run across several who give a very unkind untactful opinion about someone else and then claim “Hey I’m just being honest” “really? So my calling you an insensitive prick is also just being honest”
My older brother once told me, freedom of speech is a right not an obligation.
There are tactful sensitive ways to remain an honest person. I’ve found honesty a good way to keep it simple. If you are trying to remain honest in word it also affects your actions. You tend to shy away from any actions you don’t want to be honest about.
I’d like to add that a social asking of “How are you?” really isn’t a question to me any more than “Hello” or “Have a nice day is.” Its merely a social ritual and most people don’t actually expect a real answer and often will become confused if one is given. To me it means “I hope that you are doing well” rather than “I would like to know your mental/physical/emotional state.”
Yes, you don’t see people saying something like “Franklin Roosevelt’s Vice President? Well, to be brutally honest, he had three; John Nance Garner, Henry Wallace, and Harry Truman.”
Lying is always morally wrong, period. I’m firmly on board with Kant: lying to another human being (whatever their motives) treats that human as a means to an end, when to behave morally you must always treat people as ends in and of themselves.
If the Gestapo came to my home and asked me if I was hiding any Jews I could not morally justify lying simply because I didn’t want to see harm come to the Jews. That would be putting what I want ahead of what was morally right. However I could of course always refuse to answer any questions–even to the point of paying for such silence with my life and that could very well be the most moral thing to do in that situation.
The truth of the matter is it is often the case that if you behave morally in the face of those that are behaving immorally you and even those you care about may suffer immensely. The great question is whether you can ever really justify behaving immorally in such situations.
Upon stumbling on this thread I was immediately reminded of the new episode of House I viewed last night. The patient’s main symptom was a complete lack of inhibition tearing into the fabric of his cherished relationships because he couldn’t put up a false front.
We lie all the time otherwise we’ll be complete social misfits.
I disagree. All communication is means to an end; all communication is treating another human being as a means to an end, to one extent or another. In your example, you refusing to lie for the Jews would mean you are treating them as a means to the end of your desire to be a moral person. It’s exactly the same, just with different priorities. The wish to act morally is, in and of itself, and end, to which you are in your example prepared to sacrifice both their and your lives - if anything, you are adding one more life to the sacrifice than lying to save them would be.
The problem with this idea is that it can only support on moral principle. If you say that lying is absolutely wrong under any circumstances than you are justified in never lying - even if your refusal to lie causes innocent people to die. If however you say that protecting innocent people is your absolute principle then you’re justified in telling a lie to protect them.
But most people don’t operate under an absolute principle. They have a set of principles that guide their moral actions. And they recognize that having several moral principles can be a problem in a situation where two of them are in contradiction. That’s when you have to weigh the values of the competing principles in the situation before you and decide which one to follow in this particular case.
Only the action itself is a moral question. It is a moral wrong to lie, it is also a moral wrong to stand idly by while people are murdered. Thus you couldn’t lie to stop someone from being murdered but you could take other actions to try and prevent this. For example you could warn them that a murderer is approaching or you could try to stop the murderer yourself. These would be morally acceptable.
But generally you can’t say an action is morally wrong or right based on what will happen afterward, morality is not contextual.
I disagree, I don’t really define “means to an end” the way you do. While I find your opinion to be reasoned in a manner just as sound as mine I don’t believe any further argument would be of substance on this point so I think we’ll simply have to agree to disagree.
You’re hiding Jews in your attic. The Gestapo conducts a raid to look for hidden Jews. You’re in the middle of occupied Europe and there’s nowhere to go and hide. You have no weapons to fight with. The Jews will be found if the house is searched. If the Gestapo finds the Jews they’ll execute them and you right there on the street as a warning to everyone else. The Gestapo agents make an announcement over their loudspeaker that everyone in town must step outside. Then the Gestapo agents go up and down the streets asking everyone if they’re hiding any Jews. They don’t need very much of an excuse to search a house. If you refuse to answer their questions or try to equivicate with your answers (or if you refuse to step outside as ordered) that will be enough for them to choose your house for a search. Your only hope to avoid having your house searched is by blending in with everyone else and doing nothing to single you out for their attention. And everyone else is saying that have no Jews in their house.
Are you asking me what I would do or what I think the morally correct thing would be? I don’t purport to behave morally, in fact I hardly even try to do so.
My answer: I most likely wouldn’t hide Jews in my house due to the risks involved. If I decided to take that risk I certainly wouldn’t admit it to the authorities and earn myself a guaranteed trip to a concentration camp.
And my actions would be immoral–I’d be lying, period.
Theory of lying, as told by an academic scholar of deception on public radio, as I remember it:
If you are thinking of lying to someone, ask yourself two questions.
Will I have a continued relationship with this person, so that I care about what they think about me? One might tell a homeless person that they have no funds in their pocket for example.
If the person that I am lying to finds the truth out, will he or she be upset? (And, I’ll add, how upset? -MfM) Some sorts of lies don’t bother people: they are part of polite discourse.
The academic continued: if the answer both of these questions is yes, then watch out. You may find yourself in trouble. 2. Some years back Spiritus Mundi relayed the standard he was taught at West Point. As I remember it, one may morally leave somebody with the wrong impression, provided you correct that impression at the earliest practicable opportunity.
For myself, flat-out lying consists of 2 components: inaccuracy and deception. I try not to do both at the same time. Now there are certain questions that are simply not the interrogator’s business to know. I prefer not give an incorrect response under such circumstances: instead I exercise vagueness and misdirection.
If the issue is the questioner’s business however, then in many cases misdirection can be construed to be the bad sort of lying. So I try not to be too clever under those circumstances.
Nazi example: Lying is always an evil. However, there are lesser and greater evils.
Your food? It’s ok.
Is that inaccurate? I think, “It’s ok” is a pretty meaningless remark, and is usually taken that way. It’s only on rare occasions when somebody says, “No really: I’d like to know: I’m working on my cooking”. At that point, I might offer constructive help if I know how to cook, and tentative evaluation if I don’t - after all I couldn’t do any better I would note. So I would attempt to give a diplomatic but truthful opinion, with apologies and caveats. Ultimately though, I expect somebody who presses for the truth to have a thick skin. If they do not, I am apt to become more evasive in future encounters.
Does diplomacy and incomplete admission constitute lying? Usually not, IMHO: typically we are not testifying under oath.
Could you work through one or more examples of lies of omission? In my view, not all dishonest practices fall under the category of lying, but that doesn’t necessarily make them honest or moral.
It depends on the situation and the relationship between the people communicating.
Some situations only call for the bare minimum of information.
For instance. A few days ago my manager was upset because someone had taken something from her office. She asked me and I honestly said. “I never touched it and I don’t know who did.” Through deduction I was reasonably sure a certain employee had taken it to help a customer and close a sale, but I hadn’t seen it happen. That employee had denied it, so, I thought the best course of action was to let them work it out and keep my suspicions to myself. IMO I was completely honest. I didn’t see any moral responsibility to in interfere in their discussion even though I was convinced the employee was being less than honest.
OTOH, a romantic relationship a very close friendship, requires a different level of honesty. The difference between the truth, and the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
If I ask my significant other what she did last night and she leaves out important details with the intent to deceive me or even to avoid a discussion the whole truth might initiate, that IMO is a lie of omission. What she said might be technically true but she knew the detail left out would be something I’d want to know.
I’ve been a retail a long time and spent some time in commission sales. It’s an interesting job to explore honesty in. If a customer asks a direct question and a salesman leaves out an important detail that clearly relates to the customers concern {such as, a high return rate on a specific item} that IMO would also be a lie of omission. IMO it’s about intent. If the intent is to mislead or deceive then although it may not technically be a false statement it’s morally the same.