It s Not Just That It s More or Less She Lied to Him Again and He s Sick of It

Lying and truth-telling

Lying

A liar should have a practiced memory

Quintilian

O what a tangled web nosotros weave when first we practise to deceive.

Sir Walter Scott, Marmion

Lying is probably one of the most mutual wrong acts that nosotros carry out (i researcher has said 'lying is an unavoidable function of human nature'), so it'south worth spending time thinking about it.

Most people would say that lying is e'er incorrect, except when there's a skilful reason for information technology - which means that it's not e'er wrong!

But fifty-fifty people who think lying is always wrong have a problem... Consider the example where telling a prevarication would mean that x other lies would not be told. If ten lies are worse than 1 lie so it would seem to be a good thing to tell the first lie, only if lying is always wrong and then it's incorrect to tell the first lie...

Acknowledgement

Nobody who writes about lying present can do so without acknowledging an enormous debt to this groundbreaking book: Lying: Moral choice in public and private life, by Sisela Bok, 1978.

What is a lie?

Lying is a class of deception, only not all forms of deception are lies.

Lying is giving some information while believing it to be untrue, intending to deceive by doing so.

A lie has 3 essential features:

• A prevarication communicates some data
• The liar intends to deceive or mislead
• The liar believes that what they are 'saying' is non true

There are some features that people think are part of lying but aren't actually necessary:

• A prevarication does not have to requite simulated information
• A lies does not accept to exist told with a bad (malicious) intention - white lies are an example of lies told with a good intention

This definition says that what makes a prevarication a lie is that the liar intends to deceive (or at least to mislead) the person they are lying to. It says nothing about whether the information given is truthful or faux.

This definition covers ordinary cases of lying and these two odd cases as well:

• the case where someone inadvertently gives true information while assertive that they're telling a lie
  • I want the terminal helping of pie for myself, so I lie to you that at that place is a worm in information technology. When I later eat that slice of pie I observe that there really is a worm in it
• the example where nobody is deceived by me because they know that I always tell lies

Lying and statements

Some philosophers believe that lying requires a statement of some sort; they say that the liar must actually speak or write or gesture.

Sisella Bok, author of a major philosophical book on the bailiwick of lying, defines a lie equally:

an intentionally deceptive bulletin in the form of a statement

Others stretch the definition to include doing nothing in response to a question, knowing that this will deceive the questioner.

Others include 'living a lie'; those cases where someone behaves in a way that misleads the rest of us every bit to their true nature.

Why is lying wrong?

There are many reasons why people call back lying is incorrect; which ones resonate all-time with yous will depend on the way you recollect about ethics.

• Lying is bad because a generally truthful world is a good thing: lying diminishes trust between man beings:
  • if people generally didn't tell the truth, life would get very difficult, as nobody could be trusted and null you heard or read could be trusted - you lot would have to find everything out for yourself
  • an untrusting world is as well bad for liars - lying isn't much use if everyone is doing it
• Lying is bad because information technology treats those who are lied to as a means to reach the liar's purpose, rather than as a valuable end in themselves
  • Many people recollect that it is wrong to treat people equally means non ends
• Lying is bad considering information technology makes it difficult for the person being lied to brand a free and informed conclusion near the matter concerned
  • Lies atomic number 82 people to base of operations their decisions on false information
• Lying is bad considering information technology cannot sensibly be made into a universal principle
  • Many people think that something should only exist accepted as an ethical rule if it can be applied in every example
• Lying is bad considering it'due south a bones moral wrong
  • Some things are fundamentally bad - lying is i of them
• Lying is bad because it's something that Skillful People don't practise
  • Skilful behaviour displays the virtues found in Proficient People
• Lying is bad because it corrupts the liar
  • Telling lies may become a habit and if a person regularly indulges in one form of incorrect-doing they may well become more comfortable with wrong-doing in full general
• Some religious people argue Lying is bad because it misuses the God-given gift of human communication
  • God gave humanity speech so that they could accurately share their thoughts - lying does the opposite
• Some philosophers say lying is bad because linguistic communication is essential to human being societies and carries the obligation to apply information technology truthfully
  • When people use linguistic communication they effectively 'make a contract' to employ information technology in a detail mode - one of the clauses of this contract is non to use linguistic communication deceitfully

What harm do lies do?

Lies patently hurt the person who is lied to (well-nigh of the fourth dimension), only they can also hurt the liar, and guild in general.

The person who is lied to suffers if they don't find out because:

• They are deprived of some control over their hereafter considering
  • They can no longer make an informed pick about the issue concerned
  • They are not fully informed about their possible courses of activity
  • They may make a decision that they would non otherwise have fabricated
• They may suffer impairment as a result of the prevarication

The person who is lied to suffers if they do discover out because:

• They feel badly treated - deceived and manipulated, and regarded as a person who doesn't deserve the truth
• They run into the damage they have suffered
• They doubt their own ability to assess truth and brand decisions
• They become untrusting and uncertain and this too damages their ability to make costless and informed choices
• They may seek revenge

The liar is hurt because:

• He has to recollect the lies he'due south told
  • He must human activity in conformity with the lies
  • He may have to tell more than lies to avert being found out
• He has to exist wary of those he's lied to
• His long-term brownie is at run a risk
  • He volition probably suffer harm if he's plant out
  • If he'southward found out, people are more likely to lie to him
  • If he's found out he's less probable to be believed in future
• His ain view of his integrity is damaged
• He may discover information technology easier to lie once more or to practise other wrongs

Those who tell 'good lies' don't mostly suffer these consequences - although they may do so on some occasions.

Order is hurt because:

• The general level of truthfulness falls - other people may exist encouraged to lie
• Lying may get a generally accepted practice in some quarters
• Information technology becomes harder for people to trust each other or the institutions of society
• Social cohesion is weakened
• Eventually no-one is able to believe anyone else and society collapses

When is it OK to lie?

The philosopher Sissela Bok put frontward a process for testing whether a lie could be justified. She calls it the test of publicity:

The test of publicity asks which lies, if any, would survive the appeal for justification to reasonable persons.

Sissela Bok, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Individual Life, 1978

If we were to employ this test as a thought experiment we would bring together a panel of everyone affected by a detail lie - the liar, those lied to and anybody who might exist affected by the lie.

Nosotros would then put forward all our arguments for telling a particular lie and then enquire that 'jury' of relevant and reasonable persons if telling this lie was justified.

But what could we practise in the real world?

• First inspect our own conscience and ask whether the lie is justified
• Second, ask friends or colleagues, or people with special ethical knowledge what they think virtually the particular case
• Thirdly, consult some independent persons near it

This sort of examination is most useful when considering what we might call 'public' lying - when an institution is considering just how much truth to tell about a project - perhaps a medical experiment, or a proposed war, or an environmental development.

One executive observed to this author that a useful test for the justifiability of an action that he was uncertain about was to imagine what the press would write after if they discovered what he had done and compared it to what he had said in advance.

In almost cases of personal small scale lying there is no opportunity to practise anything more than consult our own conscience - just we should remember that our conscience is unremarkably rather biased in our favour.

A good mode of helping our conscience is to ask how nosotros would feel if we were on the receiving stop of the lie. Information technology'due south certainly non foolproof, just it may be helpful.

Bok sets out some factors that should exist considered when contemplating a lie:

• Are there some truthful alternatives to using a prevarication to deal with the item problem?
• What moral justifications are there for telling this lie - and what counter-arguments tin be raised against those justifications?
• What would a public jury of reasonable persons say virtually this lie?

Lying and ethical theory

Lying and ethical theory

Different theories of ethics approach lying in dissimilar ways. In grossly over-simplified terms, those who follow consequentialist theories are concerned with the consequences of lying and if telling a lie would lead to a meliorate issue than telling the truth, they volition debate that it is good to tell the lie. They would ask:

'Would telling the truth or telling a prevarication bring nigh the better consequences?'

In dissimilarity, a dutybased ethicist would debate that, even if lying has the better consequences, it is withal morally incorrect to lie.

Consequentialists (Utilitarians) and lies

Consequentialists assess the rightness or wrongness of doing something past looking at the consequences caused by that deed. So if telling a detail lie produces a meliorate issue than not telling it, and then telling it would be a good thing to do. And if telling a particular lie produces a worse result than not telling information technology, telling information technology would exist a bad thing to do.

This has a certain commonsense appeal, merely it'south also quite impractical since information technology requires a person to work out in advance the likely good and bad consequences of the prevarication they are about to tell and residue the good against the bad. This is difficult to practise, because:

• consequences are difficult to predict
• measuring skilful and bad is hard
  • how do we decide what is good and what is bad?
  • for whom is information technology expert or bad?
  • what arrangement of measurement can we use?
  • what consequences are relevant?
  • how long a time-menses should exist used in assessing the consequences?
• it requires a person to value everyone involved equally and not to requite extra value to their own wishes
• it requires a person to consider the consequences to society in general of telling lies as well every bit the consequences for those actually involved

So most Commonsensical thinkers don't apply it on a case by case basis merely use the theory to come up with some general principles -- perhaps along the lines of:

• Lying is bad, because
  • information technology causes damage to people
  • information technology reduces society'due south general respect for truth;
• but there are some cases - white lies or mercy lies - where information technology may exist OK to tell lies.

This is an example of 'rule-utilitarianism'; considering every single action separately is 'act-Utilitarianism'.

These two forms of Utilitarianism could lead to different results: An act-Utilitarian might say that telling a prevarication in a particular example did lead to the best results for everyone involved and for lodge as a whole, while a rule-Utilitarian might fence that since lying made lodge a less happy place, information technology was wrong to tell lies, even in this detail case.

Deontologists

Deontologists base of operations their moral thinking on general universal laws, and not on the results of particular acts. (The word comes from from the Greek word deon, pregnant duty.)

An act is therefore either a right or a wrong act, regardless of whether it produces adept or bad consequences.

Deontologists don't always agree on how nosotros arrive at 'moral laws', or on what such laws are, only one generally accepted moral law is 'exercise not tell lies'.

And if that is the law then lying is ever wrong - even if telling the truth would produce far better consequences: so if I lie to a terrorist death squad about the whereabouts of the people that they're hunting, then save their lives, I have in fact done incorrect, because I broke the dominion that says lying is wrong.

Virtually of us would accept that an unbreakable rule against lying would be unworkable, merely a more sophisticated dominion (perhaps one with a list of exceptions) might be something nosotros could live with.

Virtue ethics

Virtue ideals looks at what good (virtuous) people do. If honesty is a virtue in the particular system involved, then lying is a bad thing.

The difficulty with this approach comes when a virtuous person tells a lie as a result of another virtue (compassion mayhap). The solution might exist to consider what an ideal person would take done in the particular circumstances.

Philosophers on lying

Philosophers on lying

Immanuel Kant, 18th century portrait ©

Immanuel Kant

Some philosophers, most famously the German language Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), believed that that lying was always wrong.

He based this on his general principle that we should treat each man existence every bit an cease in itself, and never as a mere means.

Lying to someone is not treating them as an stop in themselves, just merely equally a ways for the liar to go what they desire.

Kant also taught 'Act and then that the maxim of thy will can always at the same fourth dimension concord good as a principle of universal legislation.' This roughly means that something is only skillful if it could become a universal law.

If there was a universal police force that it was mostly OK to tell lies and then life would chop-chop become very hard equally everyone would feel free to prevarication or tell the truth equally they chose, it would be incommunicable to have any argument seriously without corroboration, and society would collapse.

St. Augustine

Every liar says the contrary of what he thinks in his heart, with purpose to deceive.

St Augustine, The Enchiridon

Christian theologian St. Augustine (354-430) taught that lying was always wrong, but accepted that this would be very difficult to alive up to and that in real life people needed a get-out clause.

St Augustine said that:

• God gave human beings speech and so that they could make their thoughts known to each other; therefore using speech to deceive people is a sin, considering it's using speech to do the opposite of what God intended
• The truthful sin of lying is independent in the desire to deceive

Augustine believed that some lies could be pardoned, and that there were in fact occasions when lying would be the right thing to do.

He grouped lies into eight classes, depending on how difficult information technology was to pardon them. Here's his list, with the least forgivable lies at the summit:

• Lies told in pedagogy organized religion
• Lies which injure someone and help nobody
• Lies which injure someone but benefit someone else
• Lies told for the pleasure of deceiving someone
• Lies told to please others in chat
• Lies which hurt nobody and benefit someone
• Lies which hurt nobody and benefit someone by keeping open the possibility of their repentance
• Lies which hurt nobody and protect a person from physical 'defilement'

Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas also thought that all lies were incorrect, but that in that location was a hierarchy of lies and those at the bottom could be forgiven. His list was:

• Malicious lies: lies told to practice harm
  • Malicious lies are mortal sins
• 'Jocose lies': lies told in fun
  • These are pardonable
• 'Officious' or helpful lies
  • These are pardonable

Lying under serious threat

Lying nether serious threat

In a prison army camp, lying tin be used to gain an advantage ©

The reason for lying that gets about sympathy from people is lying because something terrible will happen if you don't prevarication. Examples include lying to protect a murderer'south intended victim and lying to relieve oneself from expiry or serious injury.

These lies are idea less bad than other lies because they prevent a greater harm occurring; they are basically similar other actions of justified self-defence or defense of an innocent victim.

The reasons why nosotros think lies in such situations are acceptable are:

• The good consequences of the lie are much greater than the bad consequences
• Such lies are told to protect innocent persons who would otherwise suffer injustice
• Such lies are told to forestall irreversible harm being done
• Such situations are very rare, so lying in them doesn't damage the general presumption that information technology's wrong to prevarication

Since such lies are often told in emergencies, some other justification is that the person telling the lie often has non time to think of any alternative course of activity.

Threatening situations don't simply occur equally emergencies; there can be long-term threat situations where lying will requite a person a greater gamble of survival. In the Gulag or in concentration camps prisoners can gain an advantage by lying about their abilities, the misbehaviour of beau-prisoners, whether they've been fed, and then on. In a famine lying most whether you have any food hidden abroad may exist vital for the survival of your family.

Lying to enemies

When two countries are at war, the obligation to tell the truth is thought to be heavily reduced and deliberate deception is generally accustomed as part of the way each side volition effort to send its opponent in the incorrect direction, or fool the enemy into not taking detail actions.

In the aforementioned mode each side accepts that at that place will be spies and that spies will prevarication under interrogation (this credence of spying doesn't benefit the individual spies much, as they are ordinarily shot at the cease of the 24-hour interval).

There are two main moral arguments for lying to enemies:

• Enemies do non deserve the same treatment as friends or neutrals, because enemies intend to do the states harm and tin can't grumble if we harm them in return by lying to them
• Lying to enemies will forestall harm to many people, and then the proficient consequences outweigh the bad ones.

Other types of lying

Other types of lying

Mental reservations

This legalistic device divides a statement into two parts: the first office is misleading, the two parts together are true - however just the beginning part is said aloud, the second part is a 'mental reservation'.

Here are some examples:

• "I have never cheated on my married woman" (except terminal Thursday)
• "I did non steal the cakes" (on Thursday afternoon)
• "I did non bear on the painting" (but my glove did)

This device seems outrageous to the modern heed, but a few centuries ago information technology was much used.

One common occasion for mental reservations was in courtroom, when a person had sworn an oath to tell the truth and expected God to punish them if they lied.

If they'd stolen some sheep on Tuesday they could safely tell the court "I did not steal those sheep" every bit long as they added in their heed "on Mon". Since God was believed to know every thought, God would hear the mental reservation as well every bit the public statement and therefore would not have been lied to.

Sissela Bok says that this device is recommended to doctors by one textbook. If a feverish patient, for example, asks what his temperature is, the md is advised to answer "your temperature is normal today" while making the mental reservation that it is normal for a person in the patient'southward precise physical condition.

Lying to those with no right to the truth

The Dutch philosopher and lawyer Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) taught that a prevarication is not really wrong if the person beingness lied to has no correct to the truth.

This stemmed from his idea that what made a wrong or unjust action wrong was that it violated someone else'southward rights. If someone has no right to the truth, their rights aren't violated if they're told a lie.

This argument would seem to teach that it's not an unethical lie to tell a mugger that you have no coin (although it is a very unwise matter to do), and it is not an unethical lie to tell a decease team that you don't know where their potential victim is hiding.

In practice, nearly people would regard this as a very legalistic and 'minor print' sort of statement and non recall it much of a justification for telling lies, except in certain extreme cases that tin probably be justified on other grounds.

Lying to liars

If someone lies to y'all, are yous entitled to lie to them in return? Has the liar lost the right to be told the truth? Homo behaviour suggests that we do feel less obliged to exist truthful to liars than to people who deal with the states honestly.

Most moral philosophers would say that you are not justified in lying to some other person because they have lied to you.

From an ethical betoken of view, the first thing is that a lie is yet a lie - even if told to a liar.

Secondly, while the liar may be regarded as having lost the right to be told the truth, society as a whole yet retains some sort of right that its members should apply language truthfully.

But is it a pardonable lie? The old maxim 'ii wrongs don't brand a right' suggests that it isn't, and information technology's clear that even if the liar has lost their correct to be told the truth, all the other reasons why lying is bad are even so valid.

Simply there is a real change in the ethics of the state of affairs; this is not that a prevarication to a liar is forgivable, merely that the liar himself is non in a morally strong position to complain about existence lied to.

But - and it's a big 'but' - even this probably only applies in a item context - if I tell you lies about the number of children I take, that doesn't entitle you lot to lie to me about the time of the next train to London, although information technology would make information technology very hard for me to complain if yous were to lie to me about the number of children in your family.

Nor does it justify lying to someone because you know they are an habitual liar - once again all the other arguments against lying are still valid.

Mutual agreed deception

There are cases where two people (or groups of people) willingly engage in a mutual deception, because they recall information technology will benefit them. Sisela Bok puts it like this:

Such charade can resemble a game where both partners know the rules and play by them. It resembles, then, a pact of sorts, whereby what each tin do, what each gains by the arrangement, is clearly understood.

Sissela Bok, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life, 1978

An example of this is a negotiation in which both parties will lie to each other ('that'south my all-time price', 'I'll take to get out it then') in a way that everyone involved understands.

Lies that don't deceive are not sinful lies...or are they?

If both parties know that the liar'south statement is NOT intended to be taken as a definitive and important statement of the truth then information technology may not count as a sinful prevarication, because there'south no intention to deceive.

At that place are many cases where no reasonable person expects what is said to them to be genuinely truthful.

That may permit united states off the claw for things like:

• Flattery: 'you look lovely'
• Gratitude: 'that's simply what I wanted'
• Formal language conventions: 'sincerely yours', 'pleased to meet yous'
• Bargaining: 'my best price is £500'
• Generalisation: 'information technology always rains in Manchester'
• Advertising: '#### washes whitest'
  • If believing the advertizement might lead to bad consequences - for instance in medical advertizement - this would not count equally a guilt-free prevarication.
• Jokes: 'there was an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman'
• Unpredictable situations: 'it won't rain today'
• Sporting tips: 'Pegleg is unbeatable in the 3:30 race'
• False excuses: 'he's in a coming together'
• Conjuring tricks: 'There's nothing up my sleeve'

It'southward not ever easy to see the departure between these statements and white lies.

Incidentally the Ethics web team disagreed amongst themselves as to the status of lies that don't deceive - your thoughts are very welcome.

White lies

A white lie is a lie that is non intended to harm the person being lied to - indeed it's oft intended to do good them by making them feel expert, or preventing their feelings existence hurt.

For case, I go to a dinner party and my hostess asks how I like the dish she's prepared. The truthful reply happens to exist 'I remember it tastes horrible' merely if I say 'it'southward succulent' that's a white lie. Almost people would approve of that white lie and would regard telling the truth as a bad thing to do. (Only this lie does do some harm - the hostess may experience encouraged to make that dish over again, and so future guests volition accept to suffer from it.)

White lies unremarkably include nigh of these features:

• they are not intended to harm the person lied to
• they are not intended to impairment anyone else
• they don't actually harm anyone (or merely do trivial harm)
• the lie is virtually something morally fiddling
• they aren't told so often that they devalue what you say

White lies are not a totally good affair:

• the person being lied to is deprived of data that they might find useful even if they institute it unpleasant
• the person telling the lies may discover information technology easier to prevarication in future and they may come to blur the purlieus between white lies and more blameworthy lies

White lies weaken the general presumption that lying is incorrect and may make information technology easier for a person to tell lies that are intended to harm someone, or may make it easier to avoid telling truths that need to exist told - for example, when giving a performance evaluation it is more comfortable not to tell someone that their work is sub-standard.

Lying and medical ethics

Patients must have the facts and understanding they demand to make an informed choice ©

Lying and medical ethics

Wellness professionals have to reconcile the general presumption against telling lies with these other principles of medical ethics. While healthcare professionals are every bit concerned to tell the truth as any other group of people, there are cases where the principles of medical ideals tin can conflict with the presumption confronting lying.

The fundamental principles of medical ethics are:

• Respect for autonomy: acknowledging that patients tin make decisions and giving them the information they need to brand sensible and informed choices
• Doing no harm: doing the minimum harm possible to the patient
• Beneficence: balancing the risks, costs and benefits of medical action so every bit to produce the best result for the patient
• Justice: using express medical resources fairly, legally and in accordance with man rights principles

Telling the truth is not an explicitly stated principle of nearly systems of medical ideals, but it is clearly implied by the principle of respect for autonomy - if a patient is lied to, they tin't make a reasoned and informed choice, because they don't have the information they demand to exercise so.

Respect for patient autonomy is especially important in the instance of people who are terminally ill, as they are probable to be particularly vulnerable to manipulation of the truth.

So why might healthcare professionals want to lie 'for the skilful of patients', and what are the arguments confronting this sort of lying?

• Lying may exist good therapy: the md may believe that the patient should merely be given data that will help their treatment
  • Lying deprives the patient of the chance to decide whether they want the handling - highly intrusive treatment near the end of life may prolong life, but at greatly reduced quality, and the patient, if properly informed, might reject such treatment
• The truth may harm the patient: a patient may, for example, give up hope, go into a decline or suffer a heart set on if given a depressing diagnosis and prognosis - they may fifty-fifty cull to kill themselves
  • Such information should exist given in a way that minimizes harm -- the patient should be appropriately prepared to receive the data and given proper support later on being given bad news
  • Surveys suggest that patients don't in general go into a severe decline or cull to kill themselves
  • Respect for autonomy requires the patient to exist given the chance to consider all legal courses of activeness, no matter how undesirable other people may retrieve they are
  • Lying deprives the patient of the opportunity to take meaningful decisions about their life, based on accurate medical information
  • The patient may realise that the symptoms they experience and the way their affliction progresses don't fit what they take been told. They then experience all the bad consequences of beingness lied to
• The patient wants to be lied to
  • Surveys advise that the bulk of patients want to be told the truth, even if it'south bad
• The patient won't properly understand the truth
  • It's the duty of the professional to communicate the truth in a manner that each particular patient can understand, and to check that they actually have understood it. (Honesty and intelligibility are peculiarly important when obtaining patient consent for a particular treatment or procedure.)
• The patient would go into deprival and resist the truth if they were told information technology
  • Many patients don't go into denial
  • The patient still has the choice to become into denial
  • Denial may be an important stage of coming to terms with the inevitable; the patient should not be deprived of the gamble of working through it and dealing with their life-situation
• There is no certain truth: the futurity course of a disease is almost e'er uncertain
  • The professional should give the patient the range and likelihood of possible outcomes
• The doctor doesn't desire to bring the patient bad news
  • This seems more for the do good of the doc than the patient
• Telling the patient the truth may cause the patient to employ up more than of the healthcare professional person's time than telling a lie, when this time could more beneficially be spent on other patients
  • Putting proper patient support systems in place will deal with this

Obtaining informed consent

Healthcare professionals must tell the truth and make sure that the patient understands it properly when they are obtaining the patient's consent to a procedure or treatment.

If the patient is not told the truth they cannot requite 'informed consent' to the proposed class of action.

A patient can merely requite informed consent if they know such things as the truth about their illness, what form the treatment volition accept, how it will benefit them, the probabilities of the possible outcomes, what they will experience during and after the treatment, the risks and side-furnishings, and the qualifications and rails-record of those involved in the treatment.

There is too evidence that patients do better later treatment if they have a full understanding of both the treatment and the illness, and have been allowed to take some participation and control of the course of their treatment.

chamberlandkied2002.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/lying/lying_1.shtml

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