Honesty and kindness...

Great Debates
1

A number of events have brought me to thinking about this.

Which is the greater good: truth or joy?

Is it better for me to be completely honest and accurate at all times, telling only those things which I know to be true or which are my heartfelt opinion…
Or is it better to colour, soften, embellish the truth… or outright lie… to smooth the human side of the situation over?

You see, it turns out that people aren’t as rational or as consistent as machines. Sometimes, to get the most desireable results are gained with inexact methods.

If I’ve lost you at this point, perhaps an example or two will help:

Your girlfriend tells a joke. You think it’s horrible. Everyone else laughs. Should you follow along?
An old woman is reluctant to leave her home of fifty years to live in a nursing home, but she’s fallen several times, can no longer cook for herself, and sometimes doesn’t know where she is. She might go to the home if you let her think it’s temporary. Should you fib her into the nursing home?
Your son is away at summer camp, and, unknown to him, your family dog, beloved by all, but especially by the absent boy, is run over by a car. He calls home to say he has an important test tomorrow and to ask how the family and the dog are. Should you tell him the truth?

Is it right, ever, to say “I can’t tell her, it’ll upset her”?

If it is, then of what value is truth? If it’s okay for me to lie to influence another’s thoughts, emptions, and reactions, then, well… who gave me a licence to practice mind-control? (Sounds a little, extreme, I know, but arguably, that’s what it amounts to.)

Is a little deception ever justified? And if it is, who am I supposed to trust? Perhaps my best friend or my spouse cares about my feelings the most… that could make them most likely to practice “blissful deception.”

Well… time for me to shut up and let the teeming millions do with this what they will. Hoping for a bite, wolfStu.

2

**

Not such a simple answer. If I provide my child with lies that give him joy all through his life is that good? One day he will find out about my lies and he will be confused and miserable for quite some time. Doesn’t seem like the greater good was acomplished.

**

As a general policy you’re better off being honest and as accurate as you can. For the most part it isn’t difficult to do this and be polite at the same time. I think lies are only acceptable if the truth would cause greater harm then the lie. No this doesn’t apply to someone lying for themselves to cover up a mistake or actions.

**

It comes with experience. You learn when to tell the whole truth, when to keep your mouth shut, and when to lie. You even learn how to tell if other people are lying to you.

**

Why laugh if it isn’t funny?

**

Unless the courts have ruled that she is unable to make her own decisions what does my testimony matter?

**

Test in summer camp? I don’t like lying to kids so you might as well tell him. Sure he’ll be sad but death is a part of everyone’s life. You gotta learn to deal with it as some point even if it isn’t a good time.

**

Sure, it isn’t a lie just because you’re not telling someone something. But if you’re keeping something from them that they should know then you’re making a mistake. Something like a death or illness is going to manifest itself eventually.

**

Well if you get a reputation for being a liar you’ll soon find that people do not trust you. This can have negative consequences in your personal and professional life.

**

Sure a little deception is justified. If Bob at work asks me how I’m doing I’ll say fine regardless of the fact that me and my girlfriend just broke up. It just isn’t any of his business.
Marc

3

MGibson:
Thanks for the response. But just you? It seems I just can’t start a successful thread. Someday I’ll learn.

Yeah, believe it or not, every summer camp I’ve been to has had tests and exams.

Well, maybe time will gather responses… not to say yours wasn’t good, MGibson.

4

Believe it or not, the story about the dog actually happened to us. The only thing different was that our son was in college and at a summer National Guard Camp. He had a physical test the next day. He did not do as good on the test as he expected to, but we never questioned the fact that we told him.

5

Well, others may have heard of Socrates. I refer you to Plato, who records Socrates’s proof that it is impossible to be happy and not be virtuous.

Now you must investigate for yourself if it is possible to be virtuous and to lie…

6

Lies are not the good way out they are the easy way out. Whether you are talking about the death of a dog or the feelings of your SO truth is the best policy, always.

If you think that telling people lies to increase their joy is a good thing then you are not looking at the situation over time. The lies will come out one way or the other. When they do the “truth” you were trying to spare someone that was inherent in the original situation will be born home with greater impact and the betrayal of being lied to about it will be a compounding pain (or whatever you see as the antithesis of joy.)

So for the moment you have increased your own joy at having MADE someone feel better but you will probably not be there for the dull thud they experience when they discover your lie. Besides that what right do you have deciding how I react to the world? If I want to mourn, or make a hard decision, or know if my joke was a groaner what business is it of yours to give me a false response to foul up my view of the world? How is anyone going to learn anything around you if you persist in this dishonesty?

Nobody can amend their behavior if they are not aware of the consequences. You would keep any consequences that you deem inconvenient from the person who most needs to be aware of them. Thus rendering them incapable of positive change.

7

This approximate situaiton is dealt with in the joke at:

http://www.wctc.net/~kabong/funstuff/text/cat.html

8

Honesty and kindness? Why, wolf, of course you already know how honest and kind I am… :wink:

[sub]That was a joke![/sub]

Esprix

9

Hmmm… thank you for your comments. Some excellent points have been raised. Unfortunately, the issue still seems unresolved.
Thanks as always, wolfStu.

10

I rarely have found the “lying to save someone’s feelings” to be the best plan. Oftentimes it seems that people do this to save themselves the difficulty of telling a harsh, uncomforable truth rather than to spare the person they’re telling. And I’ve never met anyone who likes finding out that they were lied to (and eventually, they do find out), even if it was done to save his/her feelings.

So my rule is to tell the truth, even if it’s unpleasant, I don’t have the right to decide what would be a “kindness” for the other person not to know. But this is probably selfish, since I don’t like being lied to. Ever. Not about anything. Especially not to “spare my feelings”. To me that always seemed annoyingly condescending.

Of course, I know plenty of people who fall in the exact opposite camp.

There are probably as many opinions on ths subject as there are people on the planet.

(Apologies for any possible lack of coherance/being non-GD proficient)

11

My personal observation is that people who are ruthlessly honest at all times don’t have a lot of friends. :wink:

There’s a lot to be said for the grease of the tactful social lie, when it comes to making the wheels of civilization go around.

12

DDG:

Unfortunately there isn’t a sticking-your-tongue-out smilie, so I just have to say Thhhbbbbt :slight_smile:

Of course I don’t go up to random people and say, “my, that is a horrendous pair of green vinyl pants you have on”. But if someone asks for my opinion, I give it. And my friends say that they appreciate my blunt, “ruthlessly honest” manner.

So, to amend my previous statement, I guess I’ll say that with people you don’t give a rat’s hindquarters about, tact is primary, just to avoid hair-pulling, duels, boxing matches, etc.

But I just can’t lie to people i care about.

13

Situations where I think it is OK to lie:

  1. Spouse asks you “what are you thinking about?” and you are thinking about some thorny problem that you aren’t really ready to discuss. Saying “nothing” is acceptable.

2)Spouse asks if you mind doing them a favor. My example of this is if my husband is stranded at work because soemone hasn’t come in, and he asks if I would mind running over with some dinner. Well, if I am real comfortable, I probably do mind, but what is the point of telling him that?

  1. My 4 year old nephew was killed in a fire recently. My mother-in-law saw the body, and was convinced that he died in his sleep. However, had I been the one to see the body, and if I could tell that he had died painfully (which he didn’t, this is a hypothetical) I would have lied like a champ until my dying day. The only thing she had to hold onto in the face of that tragedy was that he didn’t suffer, and I cannot believe that taking that away from her could ever have been the right thing to do (if he had suffered, which he didn’t. The half-hypothetical here confuses things). This would also go for a child. I would never tell them Fido “went to live on a farm”, but I wouldn’t say “After the car hit Fido it took 20 min or so for him to die even though his guts were all over the place.” If asked, I would say he died instantly.

  2. I would avoid telling children things that I didn’t want them repeating at school, although I would try my best to tell them nothing rather than to actually lie. For instance, I can see a situation where my child wanted to sleep over at a friends house but where I thought the parents of the friend were incompetent or creepy. I am not going to say ‘no, you can’t go, Suzie’s dad looks like a violent drunk’ --I don’t need a slander case on my hands, and on princeple I don’t want to start rumors based on my faulty intuition.

  3. Under certain very specific circumstances, I would lie in court. My sister recently lost her kids in a nasty, nasty custody battle, and if by lying in court I could have prevented that I wouldn’t even have hesititated. I think that thier father represents a real danger to their lives, and that baring that he is going ot raise them to be the worst sort of alcoholic, drug-using, intolerant, ignorant assholes.

14

Many good new points.
Of note, Manda Jo:

That’s getting much closer to what I had in mind… in particular #3

Also looking at instances where a lie would influence a person’s behaviour…

Duck Duck Goose: Your observation is astute.

(And, if anybody cares, this is my 100th post.)

15

arisu

There is if you know where to look :stuck_out_tongue:

16

Nope. If that were the case I would say. “I’m thinking about some thorny problem that I’m not really ready to discuss. I’ll get back to you when I am.” In fact I have said this, or something very like.

A little thing called honesty. “I was pretty comfortable but I’ll give that up to see you for a minute and bring you some dinner.” sounds like something I’d say. Honesty doesn’t have to be a bad thing you know.

Big difference between lying and omitting certain facts. How someone or something dies is of no import at times like these. If someone asked me “Did he/she/it suffer?” I would answer, “There is no real reason to dwell on that.” whether I had the information or no. There can be no point in delving into the details of a death. The point is a death occurred and helping people deal with it.

If pressed I would tell someone I didn’t want to talk about it, not make up some fairy story that I think will make them feel good.

Again you are talking about omitting information not lying. I don’t see how this example has anything to do with the original question.

I like my family but I would not perjure myself on their behalf. That tends to come with a jail sentence attached. If I were sure enough about a situation to lie I feel confident that I could come up with something more constructive to do about the situation.

I don’t see any of these things as worth lying about. If there is information that I do not want someone to have or information that I do not think a person can handle then I will keep my mouth shut. Making up stories for people has no justification.

17

Degrance, I see see where you are coming from, but at times refusing to answer a question is, in fact, answering it. In my hypothetical, had my MIL asked “Did he suffer?” and someone had said “it is better not to worry about that,” well, the woman is not an idiot, she would have reconigzed the dodge as a way to avoid the question and would have imagened the worst possible senario. The moral issue is whether or not a comimitment to perfect truth is worth kicking a woman while she is down. (Note that when my newphew died, my MIL was is such grief we thought we were going to have to institutionalize her. Had he died screaming in pain and fear, I suspect she would have suicided. If you have not been around a family after the death of a young child, I assure you that theer is nothing like it.)

As far as white lies about whether or not you mind doing someone a favor, saying “I mind but I love you enough to to do it anyway” smacks of passive-aggressiveness to me. You ought to be able to do the people you love a favor without making sure they know just how much of a favor it is. That is a right I have claimed in my relationship, and my husband knows this.

Same thing goes for the “what are you thinking about?” issue. Saying “I am thinking about something that I may or may not discuss with you later” is creating an issue out of something I don’t want to be an issue. For instance, in that case my husband might think that I was wrestling with this big issue that he was no longer allowed to ask me about because I had put him off, and he would be standing around waiting for the other foot to drop, when I perhaps resolved the issue in my own mind and forgot about it. In many ways, I feel like the right to the privacy of my own thoughts supercedes my husband’s right to expect total honesty from me, and vice versa (and my husband knows this as well–these senarios are issues we have talked through and come to a mutual understanding of).