Is it wrong to tell a lie?

👉👉Is it wrong to tell a lie?👈👈

It’s been a while since I did one of my secular morality Sunday posts. I want to get back into it — but for those of you who’ve started reading my blog since the last time I posted one of these, I’ll begin with a bit of an explanation.

If you know anything about the Bible, you know (at least some of) the Ten Commandments. It’s probably pretty easy to imagine why a Jewish or Christian — and, depending on interpretation, Muslim — person would refrain from lying. It’s right there, with a “thou shalt not” in front of it, directly from God: “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” But what about atheists? In the absence of divine command, do we have any reason to want to tell the truth? I argue yes, though I don’t claim to speak for all atheists — merely to illustrate that it is possible to have well-develeoped moral beliefs without relying on supernatural ones. Perhaps unsurprisingly, my understanding of moral and immoral acts regarding truth-telling is a bit more nuanced than “thou shalt not.”
As you know if you’ve been following along at home, I believe that on some level we have to base our moral judgments on our intuition. I try to begin with the most fundamental, most obvious axioms, and reason from there. Because of this, I start with things like “more happiness is good” and “more sadness is bad,” and I generally judge actions based on their consequences for overall happiness and well-being — though I take a long view and look at as many consequences as possible, including the consequence of setting precedent in which everyone might act that way.
In the spirit of taking this sort of mathematical approach, let’s begin by defining what it means to tell a lie. A lie must have two components:
The statement must be false (i.e. not a matter of opinion that differs from yours, but actually opposite real facts)
The speaker must know their statement is false
I don’t think it is appropriate to assign moral weight to something a person has no idea they are doing. If the speaker should reasonably be expected to educate themselves on the matter on which they’re speaking, we can assign some level of culpability. More so if they have deliberately remained ignorant of the facts in order to continue to spread a falsehood. But in general, if you really think something is true when you say it, I don’t think it makes sense to call that “lying.”
Also in mathematical style, I want to establish a “base case.” I don’t believe that lying in itself is inherently wrong. That is, in the absence of a supernatural record-keeper making his list and checking it twice, there is nothing morally problematic about standing alone in an empty room and making a counterfactual statement out loud. I wouldn’t think it the most effective use of my time, but if you get some enjoyment out of announcing to no one in particular, “I am a beautiful butterfly” — go for it, I guess. No complaints here. This is why I think that any moral problem with lying must arise from what happens when you tell a lie to others.
Tiny lies in polite conversation

Some lies told to others have no negative effects that I can see. If anything, they have positive effects of streamlining interpersonal interactions. As such, I consider these lies morally permissible.
By way of example: have you ever been listening to someone telling a story about something cute a little kid did one time, and they get sidetracked by explaining how the kid was related to them? Maybe it was “my niece; well actually she’s my cousin’s neighbor’s kid; well, the daughter of my cousin’s neighbor at the place she used to live at, before she moved to Springfield; well, she’s kind of like a daughter to my cousin ’cause they’re close like family and we just call everyone who comes to our backyard barbeques aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews or whatever.” Does it matter to the story at all? No. The cuteness would be conveyed equally well or better if the person just said “my niece” and moved on. While it’s technically a falsehood, its utter inconsequence makes it equivalent to our base case. I’m sure you can supply lots of other similar situations.
Little white lies

“White lies” are told to make someone feel good, spare someone (perhaps yourself) embarrassment, and so on. They’re also typically about relatively inconsequential topics (whether your friend looks awesome or just okay in that dress; how long you were waiting and whether it was an inconvenience; etc.). In general, white lies probably do more good than harm the vast majority of time. However, I can think of circumstances in which telling one actually covers up a problem that deserves attention and therefore delays its resolution.
Example: I don’t see anything on face problematic about declining an invitation by saying, “Oh, I’d love to, but I already have plans that afternoon” when really you just don’t want to spend time with a person and you want to soften the blow. It’s worth considering, though, whether a polite
http://www.noforbiddenquestions.com/2012/01/is-it-wrong-to-tell-a-lie/