What is a lie?

Great Debates
21

What a great debate. :slight_smile:

Those in the, “lying is always wrong, although sometimes it is the less of two evils” camp will want to have a more restrictive definition of lying: i.e. there must be an intent to deceive. Ok, maybe I’m just describing myself. I’m all for ARL’s stance on candor. One reason why I don’t like lying is that I usually find it unnecessary: while I don’t like to lie, diversions such as changing the subject or being intentionally ambiguous are acceptable to me.

“Does this make me look fat?”
A) I dunno. (Most honest, in my case.)
B) If pressed, I’ll stare, think about it and say something like, “Hm, I’ve heard horizontal stripes are problematic”.

“I’m not a liar, you’re stupid”.
Tricky. If I’m with an associate, I’ll typically keep delivering the ludicrousness until my counterpart understands. The point of practical jokes, after all is not exactly to fool the person, it’s to make their eyes become very wide.

“What if you’re faced with an organization bent on deception (eg brand advertising) and which makes no enforceable commitment not to misuse your information?”

You could go elsewhere. (China? :slight_smile: ) But I say, “Retaliate”. Whether or not the person at the desk understands your joke (and I think they do, they’re just doing their job), it is the responsibility of the organization to catch such obvious signals. If they can’t, tough luck. I realize that this stance implies some moral imperfection on my part, but I believe that to be appropriate when operating in the corporate marketplace. If the organization exhibits unusually high level of integrity or honesty, then my stance would probably be different.

22

Who is the liar when one advances a lie by wanting to believe it? (ie, Kitty lies and says that Jane smokes pot, Joey likes what he hears so he spreads the word–who is the liar?).

23

It sounds like Joey is showing disrespect for the truth. It also sounds like he isn’t being fair-minded.

If he simply stated what he heard and who he heard it from, along with appropriate caveats, that would be acceptable as far as honesty is concerned. But he still would be a gossip.

24

I like the part about clarifying mistakes as soon as they come to light. The idea of lying by omission, though, gets under my skin.

As long as it’s a matter of allowing another person’s own preconceptions to work to my advantage, I’ve always viewed this as the ethical alternative to lying.

If someone tells me they’re praying for my father’s health I don’t reply, “Save yourself the trouble. He doesn’t believe in God.” I say, “Thank you.”

I don’t like to give out my age. If someone wants to know it and guesses a number I like, I answer, “Okay, I’ll be (that number).”

When I go someplace where the prevailing political views are diametrically opposed to my own, I dress like one of the crowd and smile quietly when they talk politics.

Is this lying by omission? I call it tact.

25

ARL and flowbark, both of you have stated that you are for candor at all times. I think we should establish first of all that there are times when you are faced with an ethical dilemma in which lying would be wrong and so would telling the truth. Spiritus briefly mentioned the Nazis at the door example. Suppose that you are in living in poland back in the early 1940’s, and some of your friends are jewish and hiding at your house. If the Nazis knock on your door and ask you if there are any Jews inside, are you going to tell them yes? Knowing they will be unjustly murdered? If you tell the truth in this situtation you have just become party to an even grater unjustice, that of murder. I would like to hear your thoughts on how to be completely and utterly candid at this point.

ARL, I don’t know if you have read Atlas Shrugged, but wouldn’t this be akin to someone using our righteousness as a means to destroy us? They are doing something which is unethical and monstrous, and to support this monstrocity they count on, no depend on our inability to lie. Wouldn’t telling the truth in a situation like this enable their evil and propagate it?

To me the definition of lie is as has been stated on this board, to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive. Yes deception is a lie, but would does revealing the truth cause a greater injustice to be enabled?

Take another example, what if one of our men in the military is capture by an enemy. If they ask him whether or not he knows something, should he tell them? Should he tell them that he knows, but that he won’t tell them? Should he answer not at all? Should he try to convince them that he doesn’t know? To me the answer is obvious, it’s much easier to convince someone that you don’t know something than it is to resist red hot pliers and electricity applied in unpleasant places. The point is that if the information is revealed, many hundreds or thousands of lives could be at risk.

There is example after example where you are in a position where to do anything violates some principal of ethics from some point of view, however much of what you do must be based on the situation. If the lie causes the loss of innocent life where the truth would preserve them, I think we would all agree that it is unethical, conversely if the truth will cause the unnecessary loss of innocent lives where a lie would spare them, then I would think it’s obvious that you should lie. The question is where is the crossover? At what point is a lie better than the truth?

To me the answer is, is the result of the truth an unjust thing? If so, is it worse than the lie? If it is then it’s obvious that lying is proper.

There was a great segment on this in Return of the Jedi. Obi wan has told Luke all along that his father was dead, yet luke finds out that his father is alive. During the discusion Obi wan tells him that many of the truths that we cling to depend greatly on our point of view. This is a point worth considering, and I would extend it even further, the decision of whether or not an action is moral or immoral, just on unjust depends greatly on our point of view.

26

My position is not so absolute. Let me direct you to, “the lesser of two evils” part of my post. While I believe that lying is wrong, sometimes it is less wrong than the alternative. Indeed, IMHO the same could even be said of murder, although examples of justifiable homicide are far rarer than justifiable deception.

27

scampering gremlin

Well, if you are taking advantage of another person without their informed consent, then I submit that you have not found an ethical alternative. BUT, I do not see such behavior in the situations you gave as examples.

And what is the deception? You thank them for their concern and their wish to help, even though you (and your father) think that the particular method of help that they have chosen will have no effect. If they ask you to pray with them, and you bow your head, close your eyes, etc., then you have deceived them.

Honesty does not require us to express our opinion on every matter. When I say that I am ordering a hamburger, I have not asked you whether you think that beef is a proper element of a human diet. You do not deceive me if you fail to state that you are a vegetarian.

And the deception is? Do you think that the person now believes that you are the age they guessed? I think this is a fine solution to a question which lacks tact. It lets the person know that you choose not to answer without being brusk or confrontational.

Again, I see no deception. Social tact does exist, and one of its principle tenets is the idea that people of diffreent veiwpoints can behave civilly toward each other. Now, I personally find no deception in the idea that conservatives people and liberal people can, if they choose, politely interact. I have had dinner, enjoyed conversations, even been romantically involved with pacifists. I do not think any of them were deceived into thinking that I agreed with their political philosophy.

28

Is lying by ommission (1)continuing to let someone believe a fact that you know is untrue and not correcting the misinformation or (2)giving a false impression by not giving a vital piece of information?

An example of number one: Jamie’s mother states emphatically that Jamie is not pregnant. Jamie does not contradict her, even though she knows she is.

An example of number two. “Son, did you finish you homework?” “I finished all my English and Math and Spanish homework, plus I did an extra credit Humanities paper!” Meanwhile son has not done his biology, history or media homework.
I think that number one is just too broad. We can’t go around fixing everyone’s misconceptions or mistaken beliefs. Because the mistaken belief benefits a person and he doesn’t correct it, it doesn’t make him any more of a liar than if he doesn’t correct one that doesn’t benefit him.

The above is as clear as mud, I know.

29

lol Biggirl, every time I think I’m getting a handle on this thread, you throw more sand into the water.

I think there is also an element of whether or not it is appropriate for the information to be shared. In scenario #1, by not throwing in her two cents, Jamie is not lying, because there is no good reason why she should share this information with you, unless …

as in Scenario #2, you are the parent, in which case, it’s more than appropriate that you know. When your son doesn’t tell you about the undone homework, he is clearly intending to deceive you (going back to the previous points about intention). I assume you were not asking him about his homework to be conversational, but in your role as the authority who makes certain his homework is complete.

Jumping back to #1, by not speaking up, Jamie is not a participant in the lie her mother is telling. If she had an obligation to be forthcoming with every person who was being inquisitive, or just plain nosy, then wouldn’t everyone be obligated to participate in gossip? If you hear your boss tell HER boss that the report is finished, even though it’s really not quite finished, but it will be by the time the company president arrives for the board meeting, do you have an obligation to butt in and offer this information?

Jamie may have an intention to deceive you, but in this situation, the primary intention is to get you to mind your own business. Silence is sometimes a good way to communicate the fact that you have no interest in having such a discusison. Her non-verbal statement is more “I don’t care to discuss this with you” than “I want to you believe something that is not true.”

30

Well, this is quite broad. Is it lying to not tell every child on Earth that Santa Claus is a myth? I don’t think so. If a child asks me and I allow him to believe in teh reality of Santa Claus, then I am lying. But that lie may still be ethical, if I believe that the cultural lessons and social ties behind the Santa myth are sufficiently important.

Again, I find myself going back to the position that honesty does not compell me to volunteer my position on all issues. However, if the issue is one in which I am expected to give input, then I cannot dodge the ethical contraint toward honesty simply by allowing someone else to speak for me. If Jamie’s mother is talking to a representative for a Christian scholarship fund, for example, then Jamie would be lying by not correcting the misinformation. Actually, I am having a hard time constructing a hypothetical in which Jamie would not be knowingly misrepresenting herself by allowing that particular disinformation to go uncorrected, since the information id a direct representation of Jamie herself.

If someone introduces me as a Nobel Prize winner, then I cannot help but realize that those listening have been given a fase impression. That means in any further dealings with them I would be party to that deception. Since I understand this, if I allow it to happen I have demonstrated the intent to deceive. That means it is a lie.

31

This is prevarication, balancing the truth of a statement on imprecise language. The mother’s evident intent was to ask, "Did you finish all of your homework?

Sometimes prevarication is ethical. If the biology, history, and media assignments aren’t due until next Monday and the son doesn’t think his mother expects him to complete them early, then it’s hard to fault him.

Sometimes even intentional prevarication is acceptable. When someone from Tennessee asks me, “Are you from the South?” I answer, “Yes. I went to high school in a small town in Virginia…” not mentioning that I also lived in New York City for three times as long. Even if I profit from the impression, no one takes me to task.

What’s the dividing line? Durned if I know.

Maybe we’re quibbling over terms at this point. I’d call that accepting underserved credit, which is ethically problematic but different from lying. If you had arranged beforehand to have someone call you a Nobel Prize winner then you’d be party to the lie as an active conspirator.

Here’s the rub: suppose you’re going out to dinner with a group of friends. At the end of the meal the restaurant staff comes out to sing “happy birthday” and serves you a slice of cake with a candle on top. You don’t know whether this cake is being added to the tab or not. Looking at your friends’ faces you can tell who planned the surprise. Do your ethics compel you to say, “My birthday’s not until October?”

32

The situations you present me with are indeed toughies. You are correct, as well, in stating that both options are “wrong” under most systems. In which case, why are you trying to have the system pat you on the back for choosing the lesser of two evils?

We may rationalize the bad things we do to tell ourselves it was, actually, a good thing that we saved that Jew from the Nazi (which it would be, the lying was what was bad), but I don’t expect my system to work like an accountants sheet. My saving a guy’s life with a lie doesn’t make the lie any better, it just justifies it in the context of a lack of better alternatives.

It is wrong to kill, though there may be damn good reasons at times and no one would even blame you. It is also wrong to lie, though there are times when it is justifiable and no one would blame you.

33

scampering gremlin

Well, as long as we’re quiblling, I become an active conspirator the instant I realize the mistake and fail to correct it. “Undeserved credit” I have no ethical problem with, so long as it is not gained through deception.

Yes.

arl

Why are you trying to have your system declare “evil” the best available path?

Generally, we use ethics to help us determine a course of action. If our ethics declare “lying is evil”, then they cease to become a useful guide in a situation where lying is the best alternative. “Lying is eveil unless it is the best alternative” is helpful only if the ethical system also tells us how to figure out the best alternative. Some people prefer to find an ethos which tries to address the complex contexts of human action. Other people prefer a simple ethos. Among those who prefer simplicity, some apply a “corrective understanding” which allows for things like choosing the lesser of two evils.

So, it is justified but not better? How is ethical value determined if not by justification of _______ ?

34

Spiritus
Well, shall we say, cyanide is a poison, but in small doses it isn’t poisonous, so it is ok to ingest small quantities (like accidentally eating fruit pits, for example) without deadly effect. This does not change the fact that cyanide is indeed a poison. Similarly, a lie is bad (to me) period. We may rationalize(a better word than justify, for what I meant) the behavior to show that the lie was an appropriate choice. Why must we conclude that lying is good from that? Rather, I would say that sometimes evil is necessary.

To make a bad bromide here, a pile of shit with a bow on top is just a pile of shit with a bow on top. It still stinks. :slight_smile:

35

But in our case, it doesn’t “stink”.

We will never agree on this, obviously, but to me the idea of labeling things “good” and “evil” independent of their ethical value seems absurd. Since I see ethics as a guide to conduct, not an intellectual exercise without consequences for behavior, I cannot agree that it makes sense to say “evil” when we mean “the right thing to do”.

36

SM
I distinctly recall someone (though I don’t remember who, and IIRC he’d be upset about that ;)) calling you a liar, and you took great offense to that. Clearly the title was appropriate as you are a self-professed liar (though not about what you were accused of lying about, to be sure). Only, when one is called a “liar” the connotation is negative. Why is this, if lies can be good? Why can’t one be a good liar (since, no doubt, that is how one would need to classify what you would consider an appropriate liar)(and yes, a good liar does sound like Uri Geller but that’s not what I mean haha)?

I don’t see why it is necessary to have “a way out” in all situations; that is, I don’t see why there always has too be a morally correct choice, an ethical way out, whatever. Sometimes, I think, there just plain old isn’t. And I’m not going to lie to myself about it :). It sucked, I did what I could do, but in the end it was still wrong. And I’m not sure we mean “the right thing to do” but rather “the best [of all possible choices] thing to do.” YMMV, though.

37

Telling someone who didn’t understand what was meant that they are stupid isn’t an argument. It’s an attack.
I consider a lie as an attempt to deceive and gain something, especially time. Not all lies are harmful. Not all lies are equal. As long as I know when I’m lying to someone or myself, I can more appropriately choose my actions.

38

I might quibble, though, and defy you to find any such “self-profession” that I am a liar. Really, though, it is perhaps obvious to most that the insult inherent in a label does not always accurately reflect the totality of circumstances under which the label may be applied accurately.

My problem with an ethical system that “breaks down” under trying circumstances (i.e. discovers no “good” path.) is that it is useless in those situations where it is most needed. Much like modern medical insurance, it turns out.

I ask more of my ethics than mimicry of an HMO.

39

Now, admittedly, you did not say explicitely that you had ever told an ethical lie, so the quibble is noted.

As well, it breaks down if you start with the assumption, as you do, that there should be an ethical way out of every situation, meaning a good way out. The ethics don’t break down simply by admitting that all choices are bad; what sort of system would it be that equated accidental killing with out-and-out homicide(ie-that all we need to make a decision is to know whether or not it is bad at all)? It would merely say, “Well, pal, you’re screwed either way, but here’s what you should do…”

I don’t think I could feel good about lying. That does not mean that I would never lie, given appropriate circumstances. That, however, does not make a lie good.

I cannot, off the top of my head, think of any situation that I may expect to face in my lifetime that would cause me to lie.

40

Well, there are two options: either “good” is an attainable human result or it is not. Certainly, there are many ethical codes that hold human beings incapable of being/acting/feeling “good”. I see little value in such a system, sinc I explicitely look for my ethos as a guide to my (human) behavior.

I do believe that there is a most ethical course for any situation. I see no value in condemning such a course because it fails to meet an unrealizaeable (inhuman) standard of conduct. The main consequence of such a course seems to be extra helpings of guilt.

No thanks. I’m full already.

If you only face what you may expect to face, then I would suggest that utilitarianism might be a fine ethical philosophy.