Not even a little white lie every now and then…?
“Honey, does my butt look good in these expensive pants I just bought?”
I wouldn’t do so lightly. I would do so if the circumstances demanded it.
Let me first state three premises or axioms. I consider that:
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In general, a court proceeding serves a just purpose and under normal circumstances, it is my duty to tell the truth and not undermine the proceedings in any way.
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You should, in general, tell the truth. However, lying is NOT always wrong. There are situations where it is justified. I don’t agree with this simplistic notion promoted by religions that any lie is evil. It is completely justified to lie in self-defense or in defense of another person (in the classic example of telling a Nazi official that there are no Jews in your house whereas in fact there are, I would say it would not only not be evil to lie, it would be highly immoral to tell the truth). Little white lies are often quite harmless. I think that the notion that “every lie is bad” is a stupid moral absolute that was likely invented by those in power to help them control those under them and extort the truth from them. From all this, it follows that there could be exceptional situations where lying under oath in court could be justified.
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I am not (respectively, am no longer) religious. Therefore, I have no fear of some higher power punishing me should I break an oath. My swearing to tell the truth is upon my honor, between me and the court, and not a “god”.
Therefore, there could be situations, though I hope I would never find myself in one, where I would judge it more moral to commit perjury than to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. As an example of a potential situation of this sort, I will give an instance from a work of fiction. In the 1991 film “Fried Green Tomatoes”, there are two friends and one of them kills the other’s abusive husband. She is charged with the murder. The local minister takes her side and in court gives her a false alibi, resulting in her acquittal. (In order to get around or mitigate the perjury aspect, when asked to put his hand on the Bible, the minister said he brought his own; in fact, the book on which he took the oath was a copy of “Moby Dick”). This is an example of a situation in which I might be willing to commit perjury - in this example, the killing, though technically a murder, was one that I would consider morally justified owing to it being the destruction of a malicious predator preying on his wife, a weaker individual. Therefore, I would be willing to tell a noble lie in court, that is, to give the killer an alibi.
However, I would emphasize that I wouldn’t commit perjury without just cause. The default would be that, if called to testify in court, I would upon my honor tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Quite often, an individual initiates legal proceedings because he/she wants something. Or finds proceedings initiated against them which could result in undesirable consequences for them. In such situations, my cynical mind questions the extent to which saying, “I swear/affirm,” and a theoretical potential penalty for perjury ensures that people will not lie if they think they can get away with it.
Ah, the SD flexible morals. “Honesty for thee, none for me.” “I’ll lie to protect my family, even if they killed some one.” Nice /s
Not really. For me at least, the reason I’d like for my kid but not for anyone else (again in cases where they actually committed I crime I think should be a crime) is not because of any moral problem with lying. It’s because I am prepared to risk going to prison for them (either for the crime itself or for perjury) but not for some rando.
If there was zero chance of me being punished for it I would absolutely lie to keep a stranger from doing 20 years in prison for a marijuana bust. Hell, i would morally justify that by the tax payer expense of imprisoning someone for 20 years alone.
Well, what if I don’t think lying is necessarily immoral? I mean, I don’t. I would be more apt to say unconditional honesty is immoral but, hey, that’s me.
Selling your soul to the government is not morality, it’s just easy. It exposes an internal weakness of character.
Telling the truth is not “selling your soul to the government”. Sheesh.
I sure hope you’re never around when something happens I need a witness.
You alluded to an oath to the government being more important than your family. There are a lot of things short of murder. Where do you draw the line?
I think lying is an “Internal weakness of character”. If you don’t believe in following society’s rules, then don’t pretend to be a member of society. Go live in a bunker somewhere.
I draw the line at not believing in “I and my kind are above the law.” Do you?
I believe that governments are not inherently moral. I believe that blindly throwing out personal morals and replacing them with the governments morality is a terrible idea. Character is not defined by doing the easy thing when it’s easy. Defending unjust outcomes with the excuse of “I was just following the rules” is weakness of character. People who are not equipped to deal with hard decisions find comfort in absolutes.
While that is true, if you and I wouldn’t lie to get something “we want,” I think we should assume until there is evidence to the contrary that most other people wouldn’t either. My clients go to court for compensation for serious injuries. It’s pretty offensive when they’re accused of being motivated by “secondary gain.” Don’t forget, the other side of litigation “wants something” too. Namely, they want the claimant or plaintiff to get none of their money.
That’s fine. And that’s your perspective. Unfortunately, in my area of law, I’m pretty confident that people clearly lie under oath very often. Many reps do as well (tho not under oath.) And that does not include people/attorneys who are just aggressively presenting their case in a manner that supports their desired outcome, hoping for a resolution somewhere in the middle. Or people seeking treatment/taking time off work/otherwise styling their response to injury - not because they feel it is needed, and not as they would behave if they were footing the bill, but because they feel it enhances their eventual recovery.
And sure, the same way I am confident a significant number of PI plaintiffs lie, I’m confident a significant number of defendants do as well. Of course I am not saying you or your clients, or ALL lawyers and plaintiffs/defendants lie all of the time.
That has to make it hard to do your job in a way that’s fair to claimants. Or are you including those who argue that the claimant is not disabled?
Our hearings are not adversarial, so no one is arguing that the claimant is not disabled. IMO, being “fair” to the claimants involves reasonably applying the law - which requires sufficient support and corroboration of subjective allegations. To a large extent, if a claimant fails to provide sufficient medical support, or if the medical support is inconsistent with their claims, they are not likely to receive benefits.
What has long since ceased to surprise me is when claimants exaggerate ridiculously and unnecessarily. They say, “I can’t walk 10 feet. I can’t lift a coffee cup.” When such extreme limitations are not needed for them to prevail - and are not supported by the examination/treatment records, their demonstrated activities, or their appearance during the hearing. Instead, they could say, “After walking a block or 2 I need to sit down and catch my breath”. Or, “I can lift small objects, but I need to rest after a using my hands consistently for 15 minutes when washing dishes, and lifting more than a gallon of milk hurts.” The latter statements seem reasonable. The former ones - which I hear VERY OFTEN make me wonder whether they are exaggerating EVERYTHING.
I wish it were an unusual occurrence, that someone adamantly testifies to something that is directly contrary to unambiguous repeated contemporaneous records. They come in hobbling on a cane/walker, when no door has ever described them needing or using one. Sure, MAYBE those records were incorrect for some inexplicable reason. Or, perhaps the person who stands to benefit financially might - um - be mistaken?
Yeah, it makes the job tough. Especially because the reps are not terribly highly compensated, and the field does not attract the highest caliber of practitioners. The worst is that, after year after year of this, it can be a challenge to shake off in my personal life. Making me even more of a jerk than I naturally am! 
Good thing the pay and hours are good! 
I would, during voir dire, lie through my teeth if the person were on trial for some victimless “crime” such as pot possession or leaving the state to get an abortion. Absolutely I’d insist that I haven’t pre-judged the case (or whowever they word it during the process) but then I’d vote Not Guilty, and be steadfast in it, when it was time to decide.
Would you lie under oath?
Of course I would. How in the real world do the words that someone else forces me to declare (taking an oath), somehow override my personal freedom, my intellect, my ability to think for myself, and basically all of my human rights, how do the words that someone has made me say override all of that?
It doesn’t. I will say what I want and the words that someone else put in my mouth are of no matter to me.
It seems to me that lying to protect your family from the consequences of their actions IS doing the easy thing. The harder thing is allowing them to face the consequences of those actions when it is in your power to prevent it.
That really hinges on what the consequences are versus the wrong done.
Is it ok to lie, if you haven’t sworn an oath? What difference does the oath make, if you are already invested in the lie. I personally value telling the truth but it is up to the individual. You wouldn’t tell the Gestapo Ann Frank is in your attic, and it follows from there.