Droplets from the Inkwell

Blog Prompt: I'll Lie to You

From "Blogging Circle of Friends " :

Is it ever okay to lie?

While I know that conventional wisdom says that honesty is the best policy and most situations bear out that wisdom, I do believe that there are those cases when dishonesty is not only okay, but the more appropriate response. The classic example of this is the hypothetical (not as hypothetical as you might think) question of whether it was okay to lie to SS soldiers in 1940's Germany if they asked you about any Jews living in your neighborhood. Obviously, telling them, "Oh yes, the Morgansteins are over on Hall Street," would be unthinkable. Not only would most people think it okay to lie in such a situation, many people (myself included) would see it as a moral imperative. No principle lives in a isolation, and that means that situations sometimes arrive in which principles come into conflict with one another. I'd say saving a life is worth a black mark on my honesty record.

In fact, I'd say that lying to protect another person's safety or well-being in general is an acceptable and even necessary thing. One real example in my own life was when my friend, P left her abusive husband. P's husband immediately contacted me and asked if I knew what had happened to her and where she had gone. Telling him where P was certainly was not an option, for obvious reasons. That left me telling him up-front that I knew where she was but was unwilling to tell him or simply lie and say I was clueless. I chose the latter, as it kept him from harassing me in his ongoing attempt to get to P and definitely protected P. I feel no guilt over that.

I'd also note that if the very conservative parents ever asked me if I knew whether their child was gay, I would lie to them if necessary. That child is still financially dependent on and vulnerable to those parents. Again, that child's well-being -- being allowed to continue relying on hir parents for hir needs and not being coerced into some situation -- is more important than my honesty in such a situation.

JarredH

Give me pen and paper and I shall create entire worlds and fill them with adventures.