Article By: Iyo_Embong

With all the lying going around, please remind our children that it is still a sin to tell a lie! Please tell and retell to your children the message that lying is bad, and that to prevent others to tell the truth is also very bad!

These are the exact words of Jose Rizal (Philippines National Hero) in regard to this tendency of religious observers (from Rizal’s “The State of Religiosity in the Philippines”).

“You can hurt even unjustly the self-respect of an unfortunate; you can rob the orphan and the widow, or take the honor of one who had no other patrimony; you can apply to him the most injurious epithets and the vilest names; you can make him pay bitter tears his sad fate and your enviable situation; in short, you can even maltreat him, slap his face, and kill him morally. All this you can do and more, and nobody will say that you are a bad Christian so long as you hear mass and confess, take communion and attend all the processions, pray everyday and fast during all the days which the calendar indicates. The truth of the matter is that the orders of the church are more respected than the laws of God; rituals carry more weight than thoughts; and pomp and ceremony impress the common man more than the substance and the principle. The ease with which sins are washed away and absolution is obtained and the facility of effecting reconciliation with the creator by means of confessions, or at least by acts of contrition, induce many to violate the divine law. Anyway, they have the assurance that they will be able to purge themselves of their faults in less time than it takes them to disobey the precept or the law.”

Lying is probably one of the most common wrong acts that we carry out (one researcher has said ‘lying is an unavoidable part of human nature’), so it’s worth spending time thinking about it.

Most people would say that lying is always wrong, except when there’s a good reason for it – which means that it’s not always wrong!

But even people who think lying is always wrong have a problem… Consider the case where telling a lie would mean that 10 other lies would not be told. If 10 lies are worse than 1 lie then it would seem to be a good thing to tell the first lie, but if lying is always wrong then it’s wrong to tell the first lie…

What is a lie?

Lying is a form of deception, but not all forms of deception are lies. Lying is giving some information while believing it to be untrue, intending to deceive by doing so. Lying is an intentionally deceptive message in the form of a statement. It also includes ‘living a lie’; those cases where someone behaves in a way that misleads the rest of us as to their true nature.

Why is lying wrong?

There are many reasons why people think lying is wrong; which ones resonate best with you will depend on the way you think about ethics.

Lying is bad because a generally truthful world is a good thing: lying diminishes trust between human beings.  If people generally didn’t tell the truth, life would become very difficult, as nobody could be trusted and nothing you heard or read could be trusted – you would have to find everything out for yourself.  The funny thing is, an untrusting world is also bad for liars – lying isn’t much use if everyone is doing it!

• Lying is bad because it treats those who are lied to as a means to achieve the liar’s purpose, rather than as a valuable end in themselves.
• 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 be made into a universal principle. Many people think that something should only be accepted as an ethical rule if it can be applied in every case.
• Lying is bad because it’s a basic moral wrong. Some things are fundamentally bad – lying is one of them.
• Lying is bad because it’s something that Good People don’t do. Good behaviour displays the virtues found in Good 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 wrong-doing they may well become more comfortable with wrong-doing in 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 language is essential to human societies and carries the obligation to use it truthfully. When people use language they effectively ‘make a contract’ to use it in a particular way – one of the clauses of this contract is not to use language deceitfully.

What harm do lies do? Lies obviously hurt the person who is lied to (most of the time), but they can also hurt the liar, and society in general.

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

They are deprived of some control over their future because

They can no longer make an informed choice about the issue concerned

They are not fully informed about their possible courses of action

They may make a decision that they would not otherwise have made

They may suffer damage 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 as a person who doesn’t deserve the truth

They see the damage they have suffered

They doubt their own ability to assess truth and make decisions

They become untrusting and uncertain and this too damages their ability to make free and informed choices

They may seek revenge

The liar is hurt because:

He has to remember the lies he’s told

He must act in conformity with the lies

He may have 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 risk

He will probably suffer harm if he’s found out

If he’s found out, people are more likely to lie to him

If he’s found out he’s less likely to be believed in future

His own view of his integrity is damaged

He may find it easier to lie again or to do other wrongs

Those who tell ‘good lies’ don’t generally suffer these consequences – although they may do so on some occasions.

Society is hurt because:

The general level of truthfulness falls – other people may be encouraged to lie

Lying may become a generally accepted practice in some quarters

It 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?

• 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 about the particular case.
• Thirdly, consult some independent persons about it.

This sort of test 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.

A good way of helping our conscience is to ask how we would feel if we were on the receiving end of the lie. It’s certainly not foolproof, but it may be helpful.

Are there some truthful alternatives to using a lie to deal with the particular problem?  What moral justifications are there for telling this lie – and what counter-arguments can be raised against those justifications? Would telling the truth or telling a lie bring about the better consequences? I personally would argue that, even if lying has the better consequences, it is still morally wrong to lie. Lying is bad, because it causes harm to people and it reduces society’s general respect for truth.

Lying was always wrong. We should treat each human being as an end in itself, and never as a mere means. Lying to someone is not treating them as an end in themselves, but merely as a means for the liar to get what they want. Life would rapidly become very difficult as everyone would feel free to lie or tell the truth as they chose, it would be impossible to take any statement seriously without corroboration, and society would collapse.

“Every liar says the opposite of what he thinks in his heart, with purpose to deceive.” (St. Augustine)

St Augustine said that:

God gave human beings speech so that they could make their thoughts known to each other; therefore using speech to deceive people is a sin, because it’s using speech to do 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’s his list, with the least forgivable lies at the top:

1. Lies told in teaching religion
2. Lies which hurt someone and help nobody
3. Lies which hurt someone but benefit someone else
4. Lies told for the pleasure of deceiving someone
5. Lies told to please others in conversation
6. Lies which hurt nobody and benefit someone
7. Lies which hurt nobody and benefit someone by keeping open the possibility of their repentance
8. Lies which hurt nobody and protect a person from physical ‘defilement’

But how about lying to enemies?

When two parties 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 try 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 there will be spies and that spies will lie under interrogation (this acceptance of spying doesn’t benefit the individual spies much, as they are usually shot at the end of the day).

There are two main moral arguments for lying to enemies:

• Enemies do not deserve the same treatment as friends or neutrals, because enemies intend to do us harm and can’t grumble if we harm them in return by lying to them
• Lying to enemies will prevent harm to many people, so the good consequences outweigh the bad ones.

White lies:

A white lie is a lie that is not intended to harm the person being lied to – indeed it’s often intended to benefit them by making them feel good, or preventing their feelings being hurt.

For example, I go to a dinner party and my hostess asks how I like the dish she’s prepared. The true answer happens to be ‘I think it tastes horrible’ but if I say ‘it’s delicious’ that’s a white lie. Most people would approve of that white lie and would regard telling the truth as a bad thing to do. (But this lie does do some harm – the hostess may feel encouraged to make that dish again, and so future guests will have to suffer from it.) Or let’s take it closer to our heart. What if your partner cooks bad food? Are you going to tell her/him the truth or should you say ‘Darling it’s lovely’? Careful now, he/she might cook same dish for you every night!

White lies usually include most of these features:

• They are not intended to harm the person lied to
• They are not intended to harm anyone else
• They don’t actually harm anyone (or only do trivial harm)
• The lie is about something morally trivial
• They aren’t told so often that they devalue what you say

White lies are not a totally good thing:

• The person being lied to is deprived of information that they might find useful even if they found it unpleasant
• The person telling the lies may find it easier to lie in future and they may come to blur the boundary between white lies and more blameworthy lies

White lies weaken the general presumption that lying is wrong and may make it 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 be told – for example, when giving a performance evaluation it is more comfortable not to tell someone that their work is sub-standard.

Lying to liars. If someone lies to you, are you entitled to lie to them in return? Has the liar lost the right to be told the truth? Human behaviour suggests that we do feel less obliged to be truthful to liars than to people who deal with us honestly.

We are not justified in lying to another person because they have lied to you. From an ethical point of view, the first thing is that a lie is still a lie – even if told to a liar. The old maxim ‘two 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.

If you think people don’t lie, ask the Lawyers & Doctors!

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 be good therapy. The doctor may believe that the patient should only be given information that will help their treatment
• Lying deprives the patient of the chance to decide whether they want the treatment – highly intrusive treatment near the end of life may prolong life, but at greatly reduced quality, and the patient, if properly informed, might decline such treatment
• The truth may harm the patient. A patient may, for example, give up hope, go into a decline or suffer a heart attack if given a depressing diagnosis and prognosis – they may even choose to kill themselves

Information should be given in a way that minimizes harm – the patient should be appropriately prepared to receive the information and given proper support after being given bad news.

I’m sure that patients in general don’t go into a severe decline or choose to kill themselves after hearing some bad news. Patient should be given the chance to consider all legal courses of action, no matter how undesirable other people may think they are. Lying deprives the patient of the opportunity to take meaningful decisions about their life, based on accurate medical information. Then again Doctors also make mistakes like all of us. Patient may realise that the symptoms they experience and the way their disease progresses don’t fit what they have been told!

It’s the duty of the professional to communicate the truth in a way that each particular patient can understand, and to check that they really have understood it. (Honesty and intelligibility are particularly important when obtaining patient consent for a particular treatment or procedure.)

Sure, patients may go into denial if being told the truth, but that’s the patient’s choice! Denial may be an important stage of coming to terms with the inevitable; the patient should not be deprived of the chance of working through it and dealing with their life-situation.

If the patient is not told the truth they cannot give ‘informed consent’ to any proposed course of action. A patient can only give informed consent if they know such things as the truth about their illness, what form the treatment will 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-record of those involved in the treatment. I’m sure that patients do better 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 course of their treatment.

How about in the Church? Well…that’s another story.

“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.” – Thoreau

Article By: Iyo_Embong