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Lying and truth-telling

Lying

A liar should take a good retention

Quintilian

O what a tangled web we weave when offset we practice to deceive.

Sir Walter Scott, Marmion

Lying is probably one of the nigh common wrong acts that we acquit out (one researcher has said 'lying is an unavoidable part of human being nature'), so it'south worth spending time thinking nigh it.

Most people would say that lying is always wrong, except when in that location'southward a good reason for it - which ways that information technology's non ever wrong!

Only fifty-fifty people who recall lying is always wrong accept a problem... Consider the case where telling a lie would hateful that 10 other lies would not be told. If x lies are worse than 1 lie then it would seem to be a expert thing to tell the start prevarication, but if lying is always wrong and then it's wrong to tell the first lie...

Acknowledgement

Nobody who writes near lying nowadays can practice and then 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 form of charade, just not all forms of deception are lies.

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

A lie has three essential features:

• A lie communicates some data
• The liar intends to deceive or mislead
• The liar believes that what they are 'maxim' is not true

There are some features that people call back are part of lying just aren't actually necessary:

• A lie does not have to give false data
• A lies does not have to be 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 lie a lie is that the liar intends to deceive (or at least to mislead) the person they are lying to. It says nothing almost whether the information given is truthful or fake.

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

• the case where someone inadvertently gives true information while assertive that they're telling a lie
  • I want the last helping of pie for myself, so I lie to you that in that location is a worm in information technology. When I later eat that slice of pie I discover that there actually is a worm in it
• the case where nobody is deceived past me because they know that I e'er tell lies

Lying and statements

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

Sisella Bok, author of a major philosophical volume on the subject of lying, defines a lie as:

an intentionally deceptive message in the course of a statement

Others stretch the definition to include doing nada in response to a question, knowing that this will deceive the questioner.

Others include 'living a prevarication'; those cases where someone behaves in a way that misleads the balance of us as to their truthful nature.

Why is lying wrong?

There are many reasons why people think lying is wrong; which ones resonate best with you lot volition depend on the mode you recollect near ideals.

• Lying is bad because a more often than not truthful world is a practiced thing: lying diminishes trust betwixt human beings:
  • if people by and large didn't tell the truth, life would get very hard, as nobody could be trusted and nothing you lot heard or read could be trusted - y'all would have to notice everything out for yourself
  • an untrusting world is likewise bad for liars - lying isn't much use if everyone is doing information technology
• Lying is bad because it treats those who are lied to as a ways to reach the liar's purpose, rather than as a valuable end in themselves
  • Many people think that information technology is wrong to care for people every bit means not ends
• Lying is bad because it makes it difficult for the person being lied to make a free and informed decision about the matter concerned
  • Lies lead people to base their decisions on false information
• Lying is bad because it cannot sensibly exist made into a universal principle
  • Many people think that something should only be accepted as an ethical rule if information technology tin can be applied in every case
• Lying is bad considering it'southward a basic moral incorrect
  • Some things are fundamentally bad - lying is ane of them
• Lying is bad because it's something that Good People don't exercise
  • Good behaviour displays the virtues found in Proficient People
• Lying is bad because it corrupts the liar
  • Telling lies may get a addiction and if a person regularly indulges in one form of incorrect-doing they may well become more comfortable with wrong-doing in general
• Some religious people fence Lying is bad considering information technology misuses the God-given gift of human advice
  • God gave humanity speech so that they could accurately share their thoughts - lying does the reverse
• Some philosophers say lying is bad because language is essential to man societies and carries the obligation to use it truthfully
  • When people utilize language they effectively 'brand a contract' to use it in a particular way - one of the clauses of this contract is not to employ language deceitfully

What harm do lies do?

Lies evidently injure the person who is lied to (almost of the time), but they can as well hurt the liar, and society in general.

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

• They are deprived of some control over their future because
  • They can no longer make an informed choice nigh the issue concerned
  • They are not fully informed about their possible courses of activeness
  • They may make a decision that they would not otherwise accept made
• They may endure harm as a result of the lie

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

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

The liar is hurt because:

• He has to remember the lies he'south told
  • He must act in conformity with the lies
  • He may accept to tell more lies to avoid being found out
• He has to be wary of those he's lied to
• His long-term credibility is at hazard
  • He will probably suffer harm if he'southward found out
  • If he's plant out, people are more than likely to lie to him
  • If he'south found out he'southward less likely to be believed in hereafter
• His own view of his integrity is damaged
• He may find information technology easier to lie again or to do other wrongs

Those who tell 'skillful lies' don't generally suffer these consequences - although they may practise then on some occasions.

Society is hurt considering:

• The general level of truthfulness falls - other people may be encouraged to lie
• Lying may become a mostly accustomed practise in some quarters
• It becomes harder for people to trust each other or the institutions of society
• Social cohesion is weakened
• Somewhen no-1 is able to believe anyone else and order collapses

When is information technology OK to lie?

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

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

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

If we were to utilise this test as a thought experiment we would bring together a panel of everyone affected past a item prevarication - the liar, those lied to and everyone who might exist afflicted by the lie.

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

Just what could we practice in the real earth?

• Kickoff inspect our ain censor and enquire whether the prevarication is justified
• Second, inquire friends or colleagues, or people with special ethical knowledge what they retrieve virtually the particular instance
• Thirdly, consult some independent persons about it

This sort of test is most useful when considering what nosotros might telephone call 'public' lying - when an institution is considering just how much truth to tell well-nigh a project - maybe a medical experiment, or a proposed war, or an environmental development.

Ane executive observed to this writer that a useful test for the justifiability of an action that he was uncertain virtually was to imagine what the press would write afterwards if they discovered what he had washed and compared information technology to what he had said in advance.

In most cases of personal minor calibration lying there is no opportunity to do anything more than consult our own censor - but nosotros should remember that our conscience is usually rather biased in our favour.

A good way of helping our conscience is to ask how we would feel if nosotros were on the receiving end of the lie. It'due south certainly not foolproof, just it may be helpful.

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

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

Lying and ethical theory

Lying and ethical theory

Dissimilar 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 better outcome than telling the truth, they volition contend that it is practiced to tell the lie. They would inquire:

'Would telling the truth or telling a lie bring about the amend consequences?'

In contrast, a dutybased ethicist would argue that, even if lying has the improve consequences, information technology is still morally wrong to lie.

Consequentialists (Utilitarians) and lies

Consequentialists assess the rightness or wrongness of doing something by looking at the consequences acquired by that act. So if telling a particular lie produces a improve result than not telling it, then telling it would be a proficient thing to do. And if telling a particular lie produces a worse result than not telling it, telling it would be a bad thing to do.

This has a certain commonsense appeal, but it's also quite impractical since it requires a person to piece of work out in advance the likely good and bad consequences of the lie they are nigh to tell and rest the proficient against the bad. This is hard to do, considering:

• consequences are hard to predict
• measuring good and bad is hard
  • how practise we decide what is good and what is bad?
  • for whom is information technology good or bad?
  • what system of measurement can we apply?
  • what consequences are relevant?
  • how long a time-period should be used in assessing the consequences?
• it requires a person to value everyone involved equally and non to give extra value to their own wishes
• it requires a person to consider the consequences to social club in general of telling lies as well as the consequences for those actually involved

So most Utilitarian thinkers don't apply it on a instance by example basis but employ the theory to come up with some full general principles -- maybe forth the lines of:

• Lying is bad, because
  • it causes harm to people
  • it reduces society's general respect for truth;
• just there are some cases - white lies or mercy lies - where it may be OK to tell lies.

This is an instance of 'dominion-utilitarianism'; considering every single action separately is 'deed-Utilitarianism'.

These ii forms of Utilitarianism could atomic number 82 to different results: An act-Utilitarian might say that telling a prevarication in a particular example did atomic number 82 to the best results for everyone involved and for society every bit a whole, while a rule-Utilitarian might fence that since lying fabricated society a less happy identify, information technology was wrong to tell lies, even in this particular example.

Deontologists

Deontologists base of operations their moral thinking on general universal laws, and not on the results of particular acts. (The discussion comes from from the Greek give-and-take deon, meaning duty.)

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

Deontologists don't ever hold on how we arrive at 'moral laws', or on what such laws are, only one generally accepted moral law is 'do not tell lies'.

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

Most of u.s. would have that an unbreakable rule confronting lying would exist unworkable, but a more than sophisticated rule (mayhap one with a list of exceptions) might exist something we could live with.

Virtue ethics

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

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

Philosophers on lying

Philosophers on lying

Immanuel Kant, 18th century portrait ©

Immanuel Kant

Some philosophers, virtually famously the German Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), believed that that lying was always incorrect.

He based this on his full general principle that we should treat each human being as an terminate in itself, and never as a mere ways.

Lying to someone is not treating them equally an end in themselves, but merely equally a means for the liar to get what they want.

Kant too taught 'Deed so that the saying of thy volition can ever at the same time concur proficient as a principle of universal legislation.' This roughly means that something is but good if it could become a universal police.

If there was a universal law that it was generally OK to tell lies then life would apace go very difficult equally everyone would feel free to lie or tell the truth as they chose, it would exist incommunicable to take any statement seriously without corroboration, and gild 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 accustomed that this would be very hard to live upward to and that in real life people needed a get-out clause.

St Augustine said that:

• God gave human being beings speech then that they could make their thoughts known to each other; therefore using spoken language to deceive people is a sin, because it's using spoken communication to practise the opposite of what God intended
• The true sin of lying is contained 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 8 classes, depending on how difficult it was to pardon them. Here'south his list, with the least forgivable lies at the height:

• Lies told in teaching religion
• Lies which hurt 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 conversation
• Lies which hurt nobody and do good someone
• Lies which injure nobody and benefit someone by keeping open the possibility of their repentance
• Lies which injure nobody and protect a person from physical 'defilement'

Thomas Aquinas

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

• Malicious lies: lies told to do 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 under serious threat

In a prison camp, lying can exist used to gain an advantage ©

The reason for lying that gets nearly sympathy from people is lying considering something terrible will happen if you don't lie. Examples include lying to protect a murderer'southward intended victim and lying to save oneself from expiry or serious injury.

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

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

• The adept 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 prevent irreversible harm beingness done
• Such situations are very rare, and so lying in them doesn't harm the general presumption that it's incorrect to prevarication

Since such lies are often told in emergencies, another justification is that the person telling the lie often has not fourth dimension to call up of whatsoever alternative class of activity.

Threatening situations don't just occur as emergencies; there can be long-term threat situations where lying will give a person a greater chance of survival. In the Gulag or in concentration camps prisoners can gain an reward by lying well-nigh their abilities, the misbehaviour of beau-prisoners, whether they've been fed, and so on. In a famine lying about whether you accept whatever food subconscious away may be 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 accepted as part of the way each side will attempt to send its opponent in the wrong direction, or fool the enemy into not taking particular actions.

In the same way each side accepts that at that place volition be spies and that spies will prevarication under interrogation (this acceptance of spying doesn't do good the individual spies much, as they are usually shot at the end of the day).

In that location are ii principal moral arguments for lying to enemies:

• Enemies do not deserve the aforementioned treatment equally friends or neutrals, because enemies intend to practise us harm and can't mumble if we harm them in return by lying to them
• Lying to enemies will prevent harm to many people, so the skillful consequences outweigh the bad ones.

Other types of lying

Other types of lying

Mental reservations

This legalistic device divides a argument into two parts: the first part is misleading, the two parts together are true - however only the starting time part is said aloud, the second part is a 'mental reservation'.

Here are some examples:

• "I have never cheated on my wife" (except concluding Thursday)
• "I did not steal the cakes" (on Thursday afternoon)
• "I did not touch the painting" (but my glove did)

This device seems outrageous to the modern mind, only a few centuries ago it 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" as long every bit they added in their mind "on Monday". Since God was believed to know every thought, God would hear the mental reservation as well as 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 instance, asks what his temperature is, the doctor is advised to answer "your temperature is normal today" while making the mental reservation that it is normal for a person in the patient's precise physical condition.

Lying to those with no right to the truth

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

This stemmed from his idea that what made a incorrect or unjust action wrong was that it violated someone else'due south 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 information technology'southward not an unethical lie to tell a mugger that you lot have no money (although it is a very unwise thing to do), and it is non an unethical lie to tell a expiry squad that yous don't know where their potential victim is hiding.

In practice, most people would regard this as a very legalistic and 'modest impress' sort of statement and not think it much of a justification for telling lies, except in certain extreme cases that tin can probably exist justified on other grounds.

Lying to liars

If someone lies to you, are you lot entitled to prevarication to them in return? Has the liar lost the right to be told the truth? Human being behaviour suggests that we do feel less obliged to be true to liars than to people who deal with united states of america honestly.

About moral philosophers would say that you are not justified in lying to another person because they have lied to you.

From an ethical point of view, the first matter is that a lie is still a lie - fifty-fifty if told to a liar.

Secondly, while the liar may be regarded equally having lost the right to be told the truth, lodge every bit a whole still retains some sort of right that its members should use language truthfully.

Just is it a pardonable prevarication? The onetime maxim 'ii wrongs don't make a right' suggests that it isn't, and it's clear that even if the liar has lost their right to be told the truth, all the other reasons why lying is bad are still valid.

But at that place is a real change in the ideals of the situation; this is not that a lie to a liar is forgivable, but that the liar himself is not in a morally strong position to mutter nearly being lied to.

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

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

Mutual agreed deception

In that location are cases where two people (or groups of people) willingly engage in a mutual charade, because they remember it will benefit them. Sisela Bok puts it like this:

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

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

An case of this is a negotiation in which both parties will prevarication to each other ('that's my all-time price', 'I'll have to leave information technology and then') in a mode that everyone involved understands.

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

If both parties know that the liar's argument is Not intended to exist taken as a definitive and important statement of the truth then it may not count equally a sinful lie, because there's 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 let us off the hook for things like:

• Flattery: 'you look lovely'
• Gratitude: 'that's just what I wanted'
• Formal language conventions: 'sincerely yours', 'pleased to see yous'
• Bargaining: 'my best toll is £500'
• Generalisation: 'it always rains in Manchester'
• Advertising: '#### washes whitest'
  • If believing the advert might lead to bad consequences - for case in medical advertising - this would not count as a guilt-free lie.
• Jokes: 'in that location 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 meeting'
• Conjuring tricks: 'There's nothing upwards my sleeve'

Information technology'south non always easy to run across the deviation betwixt these statements and white lies.

Incidentally the Ethics spider 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 not intended to harm the person being lied to - indeed it's oftentimes intended to do good them past making them feel good, or preventing their feelings being hurt.

For case, I get to a dinner political party and my hostess asks how I like the dish she'southward prepared. The true answer happens to be 'I think it tastes horrible' but if I say 'it'southward delicious' that's a white lie. Most people would corroborate of that white lie and would regard telling the truth as a bad matter to do. (But this lie does exercise some harm - the hostess may feel encouraged to make that dish again, and and then future guests will accept to suffer from it.)

White lies usually include most of these features:

• they are non intended to harm the person lied to
• they are non intended to harm anyone else
• they don't actually damage anyone (or only do footling harm)
• the prevarication is virtually something morally trivial
• they aren't told then often that they cheapen what you lot say

White lies are non a totally good matter:

• the person being lied to is deprived of information that they might observe useful even if they found it unpleasant
• the person telling the lies may find information technology easier to lie in hereafter and they may come up to mistiness the purlieus between white lies and more than 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 impairment someone, or may make it easier to avoid telling truths that demand to be told - for case, when giving a performance evaluation it is more comfortable not to tell someone that their work is sub-standard.

Lying and medical ideals

Patients must have the facts and understanding they need to make an informed option ©

Lying and medical ethics

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

The fundamental principles of medical ethics are:

• Respect for autonomy: acknowledging that patients can brand decisions and giving them the information they need to make 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 as to produce the all-time result for the patient
• Justice: using limited medical resources fairly, legally and in accord with human rights principles

Telling the truth is non an explicitly stated principle of most systems of medical ideals, just it is conspicuously implied by the principle of respect for autonomy - if a patient is lied to, they tin can't brand a reasoned and informed pick, because they don't accept the information they need to do so.

Respect for patient autonomy is specially of import in the case of people who are terminally ill, as they are likely to exist particularly vulnerable to manipulation of the truth.

And so why might healthcare professionals want to lie 'for the good of patients', and what are the arguments against this sort of lying?

• Lying may exist good therapy: the doc may believe that the patient should only be given information that will assist their handling
  • Lying deprives the patient of the chance to decide whether they desire the treatment - highly intrusive treatment near the end of life may prolong life, just at profoundly reduced quality, and the patient, if properly informed, might decline such treatment
• The truth may harm the patient: a patient may, for case, surrender promise, go into a decline or endure a heart attack if given a depressing diagnosis and prognosis - they may fifty-fifty choose to kill themselves
  • Such information should be given in a way that minimizes harm -- the patient should exist appropriately prepared to receive the information and given proper back up after being given bad news
  • Surveys suggest that patients don't in general become into a severe decline or choose to kill themselves
  • Respect for autonomy requires the patient to be given the risk to consider all legal courses of activeness, no affair how undesirable other people may retrieve they are
  • Lying deprives the patient of the opportunity to take meaningful decisions virtually their life, based on authentic medical information
  • The patient may realise that the symptoms they feel and the way their disease progresses don't fit what they accept been told. They so feel all the bad consequences of being lied to
• The patient wants to be lied to
  • Surveys suggest that the majority of patients want to be told the truth, even if information technology'southward bad
• The patient won't properly understand the truth
  • It's the duty of the professional to communicate the truth in a way that each particular patient can empathize, and to bank check that they really have understood it. (Honesty and intelligibility are specially of import when obtaining patient consent for a detail treatment or procedure.)
• The patient would go into denial and resist the truth if they were told information technology
  • Many patients don't go into deprival
  • The patient however has the pick to go into denial
  • Denial may be an of import stage of coming to terms with the inevitable; the patient should not be deprived of the chance of working through information technology and dealing with their life-situation
• There is no sure truth: the hereafter course of a illness is almost e'er uncertain
  • The professional should requite the patient the range and likelihood of possible outcomes
• The medico doesn't desire to bring the patient bad news
  • This seems more for the benefit of the medico than the patient
• Telling the patient the truth may cause the patient to use up more of the healthcare professional's time than telling a prevarication, when this time could more beneficially exist spent on other patients
  • Putting proper patient back up systems in place will deal with this

Obtaining informed consent

Healthcare professionals must tell the truth and brand certain that the patient understands it properly when they are obtaining the patient'south consent to a procedure or handling.

If the patient is not told the truth they cannot give 'informed consent' to the proposed course of activeness.

A patient can only give informed consent if they know such things as the truth about their disease, what form the handling volition take, how it will benefit them, the probabilities of the possible outcomes, what they will experience during and after the treatment, the risks and side-effects, and the qualifications and track-tape of those involved in the treatment.

In that location is also evidence that patients exercise amend after 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 grade of their treatment.

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