Lie - Ethics

Ethics

Aristotle believed no general rule on lying was possible, because anybody who advocated lying could never be believed, he said. The philosophers St. Augustine, as well as St. Thomas Aquinas and Immanuel Kant, condemned all lying. However, Thomas Aquinas also had an argument for lying. According to all three, there are no circumstances in which one may lie. One must be murdered, suffer torture, or endure any other hardship, rather than lie, even if the only way to protect oneself is to lie. Each of these philosophers gave several arguments against lying, all compatible with each other. Among the more important arguments are:

1. Lying is a perversion of the natural faculty of speech, the natural end of which is to communicate the thoughts of the speaker.
2. When one lies, one undermines trust in society.

Meanwhile, Utilitarian philosophers have supported lies which achieve good outcomes—white lies. In his 2008 book How to Make Good Decisions and Be Right All the Time, Iain King suggested a credible rule on lying was possible, and defined it as: "Deceive only if you can change behaviour in a way worth more than the trust you would lose, were the deception discovered (whether the deception actually is exposed or not)."

In Human, All Too Human, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche suggested that those who refrain from lying may do so only because of the difficulty involved in maintaining the lie. This is consistent with his general philosophy that divides (or ranks) people according to strength and ability; thus, some people tell the truth only out of weakness.