On Lying
Sunday night, 11 pm, October; you sprawl out on the couch, tea in hand as your mind drifts to a happier place. The dishes are put away, the children tucked in upstairs; you look forward to a peaceful evening in solitude when three pounds on your door pull you from your rest. Outside stands a very particular man, dressed all in black, except the bloody ax dangling by his ankle and his blood-red grin. “Hello! I’m the friendly neighborhood ax murderer, and I am here to kill your kids. Do you mind directing me to where they are?”
What a situation to be in! Indeed, it is one of fright, one of panic, but not, too many, one of consideration and ethicality. Naturally, when the choice is to,
Calmly lead the man down the street, where your kids are having a “sleepover”, then lock the door, and call the cops (ie. lie, and save your children), or:
Kindly direct the man upstairs to your children’s room (ie. tell the blatant truth, and get them killed).
To most, as we will learn “consequentialist readers”, choice ‘a’ seems the only ethically and morally correct option (excluding loopholes); it saves yourself, and your children, and overall delivers the more desirable result, all thanks to a little white lie. However, some philosophers, such as Kant and Bentham, may argue the opposite. What is it to say lying is justified under specific, self-determined circumstances? As deontologists may reason, we must live under particular moral codes; therefore, if lying is not justified even in some cases, it shouldn’t be justified at all. According to these everyday moral conflicts, we will now answer the question; is lying ethical, at all?
First of all, one must deal with measurement; how can we measure an action's ethicality? Even better, in what scope, with what filter are we measuring ethicality: what is there, to determine true right from wrong? As broad of a field this dilemma spans, there are genuinely two ways to go about analyzing ethicality in the simplest, normative sense of ethics.
Before this, let's introduce the moral compass; essentially how one perceives and distinguishes right from wrong on their own terms. Now, to look at each situation and tie an action to our own unique moral compass runs along the lines of moral relativism: the belief that there is no universal, objective morality. To give a less gruesome example, individual “a” might weigh lying to their boss about being “stuck in traffic” while they simply slept in, as perfectly moral, or at least excusable by the “far better outcome” it produces (measuring utility), while individual “b” may believe it is simply moral order for them to come clean. Therefore, seeing as each individual holds true to their own moral compass, this actually makes the measurement of morality and ethicality very difficult. Coming from an individualist perspective, it is within the borders of one’s own experiences and values, that a right or wrong action can entail as right or wrong.
And as we can see, this reason
ning poses many loopholes and many inconsistencies:
To start, what is it to say that we individual humans, with our limited experiences and biases, have the authority and the means to fairly deem right from wrong. Even when some might believe we have free will (which can really be reduced to the consequences of our history), the moral compass of a mother vs the friendly neighborhood ax murderer does not align in the slightest, per uncontrollable qualities. Firstly, having these different moral compasses, means individuals hold themselves accountable to different moral rules; one’s measurement of ethicality differs from another. So, in the scenario of lies, differentiating moral prospects, though accounting for freedom of thought, entrenches measurability, fairness and exudes miscommunication in many people's eyes.
But also, as we would like to picture human beings as equal to one another, doesn’t personalized moral codes mean that we should be, by a higher power or even by the intangibility of ethics, condemned to the same expectations regarding morality? Wouldn’t it be unfair to regard one's actions as alright, while others regard them as wrong compared to an inconsistent moral plate; doesn’t this wipe out the one human consistency—human dignity—that we possess.
Diving back to the idea of authority, what we must truly consider is our qualifications; how can us individuals, with the vulnerability of human souls and the unmeasurable amount of acknowledgement one cannot and does not possess, truly make the correct choices in measuring morality. Not only do everyday people like you and I not understand, nor can never understand, everything regarding the consequences of our actions that should be understood to make 100% logically-correct decisions, but we must contend the unobtainable. The fact that there is no way to fully know the past, and ever know the future, means that even with our most logical approaches to morality, filled with the most desire to do the right thing, we can never know if it is truly right or wrong until it is done. Take the trolley problem per say; you, conductor of a broken trolley-cart speeding down the track has the choice to either continue down such a road and kill five workers, or turn the cart and kill one. In this scenario, having the average measurement of morality coming down to utilitarianism, it seems coherent to believe that killing one person can save five, therefore obtaining the best consequence. However, we cannot understand particular variables related to these scenarios. What if the one person on the track, had they survived, could grow up to find the cure for cancer, saving millions. What if the five people you saved would then go to commit horrible crimes, therefore taking advantage of our “uneducated” decisions. It is fair to argue that we shouldn’t consider such unobtainable details in our analysis; however, these inconsistencies still hold true, and alone with our differentiating values and our missing knowledge, it is to say that moral relativism invalidates the measure of ethicality into a case to case basis, eliminating measurability totally.
Then, if one wants a way to truly measure ethicality objectively (the universal good and bad of it all), moral absolutism provides nothing less. Being a major value in Deontology, moral absolutists believe that there exist certain universal moral rules that must be followed by everyone. Stealing is always wrong, murder is never right, and lying is absolutely immoral. As “Absolutism” means “always applicable, in every single situation”, this measurement of ethics therefore holds every human being to the same set of moral standards and rules, mutually agreed upon or not, that may be pardoned, but never accepted. The big idea is that holding ethics as inherent solves the issue of “inequality” and increases measurability to a very easy “yes or no”, no deliberation necessary.
And right from the get-go, this moral conduct possesses the most obvious critique of inflexibility; to say that certain ethics must hold for every single human, not only ignore differences in situation, in lifestyle, and in individuality, but it also simplifies every moral choice to “yes or no”, regardless of details previously explained as crucial. To say that “lying is always immoral and wrong”, excuses no excuses, not even life or death scenarios. And though every single human can be treated equally in this measurement, recognize that not every human being is truly the same and equal in terms of their situations. We must ask ourselves if it is just or even considerable to objectively hold “the same” actions under the same roof , when the nuances of certain situations, intentions and consequences make things complicated.
For instance, moral absolutism says that lying is immoral in the case of stealing a copy-writed movie and selling it as your own for profit; it is completely different when one steals a head of lettuce to feed their starving children, and yet, it is measured the same in terms of morality. It is different when the ax murder kills to fulfill personal desires, compared to a case of self defense. It is different when we lie to deceive someone into obtaining a worse mark on an exam, compared to a friend lying to reassure their friend that their homemade dress looks stunning.
The issue of moral absolutism stands clear; the intention and the consequence of an action, no matter how great for society or for the individual, can’t ever make up for the action. And in the foresight, that can somewhat be good. To measure everything for what it is, to hold all human beings accountable under the same rules (as we all want to fight for equality right?); it makes things a lot more fair and easier.
However, to understand why this could never truly be ethical to think in such a way, is to take a step into reality. As I've previously articulated, account for the fact that each situation is different, and good consequences can be bought only from different actions; in reality, to follow moral absolutism means to determine utilitarianism even at its finest. It means to completely differ in the status quo, therefore, to undertake objective, absolutist morality arises with it many issues. It goes even more extreme as Cardinal John Henry Newman claims: “It were better for sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions who are upon it to die of starvation in extremest agony, so far as temporal affliction goes, than to let one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one willful untruth, though it harmed no one, or steal one poor farthing without excuse.” In a society where harmless lies are weighed more extreme than fartheming truths, is a society of inequality and no accountability for situationship. No justice, no understanding, only suns dropping from the sky.
