CSflim

The following is an extract from The Meaning Of Things, by the British philosopher A. C. Grayling.

I post it not as being necessarily representative of my own views, but because it is well written, and is related to the topic on hand.

<HR>
"That lies should be necessary to life is part and parcel of the terrible and questionable character of existence"
-Nietzsche


In the related arts of politics and government, judicious economies with truth are a stock-in-trade; neither art would be
possible without them. We accept the necessity at times for evasions, equivocations, dissemblings and downright falsehoods in the practices of public life, and regard as naive anyone who insists otherwise. At the same time it is universally agreed
that lying is in itself wrong, and the discovery of a lie always impugns the liar - indeed, a single lie can destroy a whole
reputation on for integrity.

Plato said that lies are not only evil in themselves, but infect the soul of those who utter them. He thereby states the uncompromising view that a moral life has room only for truth. And the point generalises to social life: 'In plain truth, lying is an accursed vice,' wrote Montaigne; 'we have no tie upon one another, other than the reliability of our word. 'But these austere views are not universally shared. Lying finds champions in those who recognise that without lies people would have no inner privacy that life might be infected with boredom and despair, much evil could result.

We second Homer's applause for Odysseus's cunning and famously foxy deceits - he was a liar consummate in word and deed, elevated to heroic stature, who could outwit sirens, the giant Polyphemus, the witch Circe, and assorted denizens of Hades.
Yet we agree that society can only operate on an assumption of probity; for the ordinary transactions of daily life we have to believe that most people are telling the truth most of the time. In thus having a deeply divided attitude to lying ~ accepting its utility, even necessity, but maintaining a strong background disapproval of it as if to keep it somehow within limits - we imply that there are sometimes justifications for lying. And that means we disagree with Plato.

Some argue that lies are justified when truth would gratuitously cause or heighten conflict. Moreover, they say, lies
can be merciful, in protecting people from agonising knowledge; as when a doctor tells a terrified patient that all is well. And we can think of countless cases where lies promote harmony, restore justice, remedy injustice, counteract worse lies, and
protect important truths. In all these cases what justifies the lie is the benefit of its outcome; if more good than harm flows from its telling, it is justified.

What troubles those like Plato who find lying unacceptable no matter what the consequences, is this: to tell a lie you have to know the truth but deliberately intend to communicate its very opposite to your audience. (If you tell your audience something which is false but which you do not know is so, you are not lying.) You thus commit a double crime: of knowing but
concealing truth, a precious possession; and of purposefully leading others away from it. The hard justice of this view led
later philosophers, notably Kant, to box clever in the way only philosophers know how. Lying is always wholly unacceptable,
he said, but it is all right sometimes to tell an untruth, which is a different and lesser thing; where lying outright is like poisoning someone, telling him an untruth is like attacking him in the street (these are Kant's own similes) - a more honest thing, so to say. It is accordingly acceptable to tell an untruth when it protects the other from injury, to his feelings or otherwise. 'Am I ugly?' asks your neighbour, who makes Quasimodo look like a beauty queen. 'I wouldn't use the word "ugly",' you reply; 'you have a distinctive face.' Even religious moralists agree; they say that the Bible cautiously licenses Kantian untruths, as when Proverbs say, 'When words are many, transgression is not lacking; but the prudent are restrained in speech', and the Kirk in Scotland teaches that it is a sin to tell an untimely truth.

So we accept, even sometimes applaud, 'white lies', and recognise that the truth need not always be the whole truth. In the end, though, one is left with the feeling that Nietzsche is right: the fact that lies are necessary says much that is uncomplimentary to life, for it means that human relationships are never truly free of the unease and tension which sensitivities, jealousies and uncertainties bring.

__________________