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Thanks to Stone readers who submitted a response — there were more than 10,000 — to my article, “Are These 10 Lies Justified?” Judging from the number of replies, the task of determining when it is or is not acceptable to lie is obviously one that many people have faced in their own lives. Many of you gave your own examples of lies told and why you believed they were or were not justified. It was heartening to find so many people prepared to reason thoughtfully about important moral issues.

With few exceptions, readers disagreed with me about the legitimacy of one or more of the lies, all of which I believe are justified. (You can revisit the original article, here.)

The results, as well as the original scenarios that you were asked to respond to, are below.

A man lies to his wife about where they are going in order to get her to a place where a surprise birthday party has been organized.

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I am negotiating for a car with a salesperson. He asks me what the maximum I am prepared to pay is. I say $15,000. It is actually $20,000.

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Your father suffers from severe dementia and is in a nursing home. When it is time for you to leave he becomes extremely agitated and often has to be restrained. On the occasions when you have said you would be back tomorrow he was quite peaceful about your leaving. You tell him now every time you leave that you will be back tomorrow knowing that in a very short time after you leave he will have forgotten what you said.

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In an effort to enforce rules against racial discrimination “testers” were sent out to rent a house. First, an African-American couple claiming to be married with two children and an income that was sufficient to pay the rent would try to rent a house. If they were told that the house was not available, a white tester couple with the same family and economic profile would be sent. If they were offered the rental there would be persuasive evidence of racial discrimination.

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In order to test whether arthroscopic surgery improved the conditions of patients’ knees a study was done in which half the patients were told the procedure was being done but it was not. Little cuts were made in the knees, the doctors talked as if it were being done, sounds were produced as if the operation were being done. The patients were under light anesthesia. It turned out that the same percentage of patients reported pain relief and increased mobility in the real and sham operations. The patients were informed in advance that they either would receive a real or a sham operation.

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We heap exaggerated praise on our children all the time about their earliest attempts to sing or dance or paint or write poems. For some children this encouragement leads to future practice, which in turn promotes the development–in some — of genuine achievement.

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A young child is rescued from a plane crash in a very weakened state. His parents have been killed in the crash but he is unaware of this. He asks about his parents and the attending physician says they are O.K. He intends to tell the truth once the child is stronger.

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A woman interviewing for a job in a small philosophy department is asked if she intends to have children. Believing that if she says (politely) it’s none of their business she will not get the job, she lies and says she does not intend to have a family.

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In November of 1962, during the Cuban Missile crisis, President Kennedy gave a conference. When asked whether he had discussed any matters other than Cuban missiles with the Soviets he absolutely denied it. In fact, he had promised that the United States would remove missiles from Turkey.

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A woman’s husband drowned in a car accident when the car plunged off a bridge into a body of water. It was clear from the physical evidence that he desperately tried to get out of the car and died a dreadful death. At the hospital where his body was brought his wife asked the physician in attendance what kind of death her husband suffered. He replied, “He died immediately from the impact of the crash. He did not suffer.”

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I had a chance to read through a selection of the comments that went along with your answers and I’d like to reply to some of them here, and in some cases, question those answers. In cases where I quote responses, we’ve edited slightly for clarity and continuity.

The Definition of ‘Lie’

Some of the disagreements arose from the stated definition of a lie I used. A lie is saying something that one believes to be false with the intention of getting someone else to believe it is true. Some people challenged the definition; others accepted it but claimed that, according to it, some of my lies were not lies.

Here is an example:

I would urge that none of these cases constitute lying in the philosophically relevant sense. In ordinary discourse we might indeed refer to any or all of these actions as “lying.” The original definition is too broad: if I “lie” in the morally unacceptable sense I do not merely intend that the other believes something false, but I do so primarily to serve my own purposes, not his.

I would not claim that my definition is the only legitimate way of defining a lie. One objection is that it cannot encompass “baldfaced lies” — like the child with his hand caught in the cookie jar who insists he is not taking a cookie. But I do think that on methodological grounds we should not build into our definition the judgment that lies are wrong. In the reader’s proposed definition it is built into the definition of an unacceptable lie that it serves the liar’s purposes not the hearers. Since the well-known theoretical lie to the Nazi at the front door does not serve his nefarious interest this makes the lie unacceptable by the reader’s definition. That sort of moral judgment that should not be settled by a definition.

Here one reader accepted my definition, but claimed that my lies do not fall under it:

Many of your examples are actually not lies by your own definition. [Many of your scenarios] are situations where the person being told the mistruth is not expected to believe in the long run, but only temporarily. If we intend that the misdirection be only temporary and be done for justifiable reasons, most people wouldn’t consider it a lie.

I regard this as a very important point about the justification of lies but one that should not be built into the definition of a lie. Yes, the lie told to the wife about where she was going (to her surprise party) will be revealed as a lie very shortly, and that may be an important part of its justification. But why say it is not a lie at all?

Lies and Morality

Now to the substantive disagreements. Let me start with the scenario where a woman lies at a job interview about planning to have a family, since I was fairly confident about it and was much less so after reading the responses. Here are two that made me think:

One wrote:

I was a bit conflicted on how to answer this, being a woman who has been asked this very question when I was in my 20s, I could easily side with either answer and would not consider it a lie of terrible consequence — but I think that it bodes well for us to deal with difficult situations in truthful ways, facing discomfort, so that we build on forging a stronger, more secure voice. I now say answer “yes” then query the heck out of the questioner. “How will this affect my chances of securing the position?” “How many other women have you hired that have answered yes?” etc.

And another wrote:

In responding to the questions as she did, the woman is tacitly accepting an institutional structure that is unfair to women. She may get the job in the specific instance, but other women applying for similar positions might still have such inappropriate questions asked to them. If, instead, the woman responded that it was none of the department’s business, and was denied the position on what appears to be discriminatory grounds, she can bring a discrimination lawsuit.

I do not think this is a case where the woman is obliged to lie. At most it is permissible for her to lie and permissible for her to tell the truth. To argue that it is not permissible to lie means that she must put more general considerations, such as challenging unjust situations, ahead of her own legitimate career ambitions. But I do appreciate the first reader’s views about building a voice, and character, to deal with difficult and uncomfortable situations.

The lie which dealt with the decision of a doctor to tell a woman that her husband died painfully — was the one that received the most dissenting votes. It was close to a 50/50 split. I was pretty ambivalent as well about this one.

Another reader wrote: “The wife would be unlikely to find out the true circumstances of her husband’s death, but we cannot be certain and I am unsure I have the right to decide whether she should have the information.”

Another person wrote: The doctor lies out of a paternalistic instinct to protect, denying the woman agency and dignity.”

A third person: “I cannot know whether in such a situation the woman would prefer the truth or the lie: I cannot make that decision for her.” Others spoke of damaging the trust between doctors and patients.

What is interesting here is that people can have quite different bases for thinking the lie impermissible. The first person is worried about the trust issue even though it is unlikely this lie would be found out. But she adds to her argument that she may not have the right to determine whether the woman should know the truth or not. The second person appeals to a Kantian theme of respecting the agency and dignity of any rational agent. The third person raises what for me is the crucial issue: Is the woman’s request a genuine appeal for the truth or does she really want to be told what would cause her the least suffering going forward? This then leads to the further question of whether, if she wants to be lied to, we ought to act in accordance with her wishes or not. My own view is that the case is difficult because of our uncertainty about what the woman is really asking. If we were certain she wanted the truth, and that she would not be haunted for years by re-enactments in her mind of the death, we ought not to lie. But if it were certain she wanted her own hopes for an instant death to be confirmed, it is permissible to do so.

Some Empirical Issues

The scenario concerning what to tell a child about his parents’ death is a case in which some people disagreed because of their views of what is likely to happen to the child in the future. One reader said that telling the weakened child that his parents were alive was “a devastating lie that can do a lot of psychological damage later, even though it may help in the short term.” Another wrote, “telling him the truth at this juncture does nothing for him. There is no harm to him from having this knowledge delayed, and there may be great benefit.” A middle ground (withholding information) was suggested by another, who said that lying to the child “gives conflicting information which will confuse his recovery further down the road. It would be more appropriate to delay giving any information, rather than providing false information.”

Note that the readers disagree among themselves about whether the consequences for the child’s welfare would be promoted or hindered by being lied to. My own view is heavily influenced by what I believe about the consequences of the lie. But, in my case, there is a further issue.

NOW IN PRINT The Stone Reader: Modern Philosophy in 133 Arguments An anthology of essays from The Times’s philosophy series, published by Liveright.

One of the major reasons for opposing lying is that it is an interference with the autonomy or agency of the person being lied to. In the case of a young child — and here there may be disagreements about where to draw the line in terms of age — the child is either not autonomous at all or has relatively little autonomy. Therefore, I am much more willing to consider the issue in terms of the good or bad consequences of lying.

Some readers suggested alternative things that the child could be told. “Let’s talk about it when you are feeling stronger.” I agree that if that would satisfy the child until he was stronger it would be better than lying.

The general point here is that two people who seem to have a moral disagreement about the morality of lying may be instead having an empirical disagreement about what the consequences are of a particular lie.

Ethical Frameworks

Many readers reasoned in terms of general frameworks for thinking about the morality of lying.

• [The lie about the job interview] brings up the concept of lying for self-benefit, and the idea that perhaps being truly moral for its own sake is a pointless endeavor. I believe the actual value of being moral needs to be investigated. • I would hold that these lies increase happiness and diminish suffering, so are warranted. • As for the lie told by President Kennedy, it seems to me perfectly clear that an official acting in that capacity is duty-bound to his post. • The woman who lies in the job interview lies for her own sake out of a belief that her employer will be unable or unwilling to act morally, implicitly denying the employer’s ability to make a moral choice. She treats the employer as a means to employment only, rather than as a fellow human being. • For me truth seeking/making isn’t so much about right or wrong but what works for being a satisfied, competent and substantially rich human being. • What we tell other humans in the course of our lives ought to be the truth, even when it is painful, because they deserve to live in a real world where they know as much as possible. • The debate is really about how an action is described in the first place — a determination that depends crucially on an assessment of the actor’s motivation

Another reader referenced the great essay by Adrienne Rich, “On Lies, Secrets and Silence.” Rich emphasizes the importance of truth-telling for being in an “honorable” relationship with another person. “It means that most of the time I am eager, longing for the possibility of telling you, we both know that we are trying, all the time, to extend the possibilities of truth between us.”

We find here almost every position that has ever been put forward by philosophers to explain what is wrong with lies, when they are wrong. The first comment suggests a strategy that has not been examined sufficiently – the idea that one way of justifying a lie is to accept that it cannot be morally justified but that we sometimes are permitted to ignore morality in the pursuit of certain valuable ends that are fundamental to our life.

My own view is that there is no one factor that makes all wrongful lies wrong. Some lies are wrong because they have bad consequences; some lies are wrong because they betray trust; some are wrong because they are the outcome of vicious traits such as cowardice or selfishness; some are wrong because they deny the autonomy of rational agents. This makes the development of ethical theories more complicated than one would wish. But as Einstein (quoting the physicist Ludwig Boltzmann), once observed, if you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.

Gerald Dworkin is distinguished professor of philosophy, emeritus at University of California, Davis.

NOW IN PRINT: “The Stone Reader: Modern Philosophy in 133 Arguments,” An anthology of essays from The Times’s philosophy series, edited by Peter Catapano and Simon Critchley, published by Liveright Books.

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