Permissible lies?  (from unit 6)

When, if ever, are lies permissible? Is there ever any excuse for lying? The argument for the view that it is always wrong to tell a lie is not based on mere consideration of the possible harm caused by lies. If it were, then we could compare the harm done by a lie on a particular occasion with the harm or bad consequences which the lie avoids and decide in this case that the lie was justified. It was right to tell a lie, given that the consequences of not lying would have been worse.

However, as we have seen, that line of reasoning is inherently flawed. Any attempt to rationally justify lying in any circumstances whatsoever is self-defeating. Excusing a lie on the grounds of its supposed benefits, to oneself or others — or even negatively as the 'lesser of two evils' — only succeeds in raising the stakes. In order to gain the same benefit or avoid the same harm next time in similar circumstances, one must tell a bigger lie.

You want to own up to a lie, and yet you want your words to be treated as the truth. Maybe you're lying now. How can you ask someone to believe you when you admit that you are prepared to tell a lie as and when you deem it necessary? One doesn't need to have read Kant or even studied philosophy to appreciate the intuitive force of that argument.

And yet, despite all this, we lie. Most would accept that there are circumstances sufficiently extreme which would leave us no other choice. Make this occurrence as rare as you like; from the standpoint of logic it makes no difference. To admit a single lie contradicts the argument that it is always wrong to lie

One possible reaction to the paradox would be that there are limits to reason which human beings sometimes have to go beyond. In the vacuum that exists outside the realm of reason and logic there might yet be methods for deciding when and how to lie, but at best these can only be useful rules of thumb.

Or you might conclude that the world is not yet ready (and perhaps never will be) for ethics in the truest sense, Kant's vision of a 'kingdom of ends' where all human actions are ruled by reason. We have to face up to the world as we find it, and not as we would wish it to be; and that means do the best we can, even if this necessarily falls short of our moral ideals. [contd.]