But I'm up late and you're up very late. Good night. — tim wood

Was that a lie to quit the subject? ☺

No. The hazards of reading Banno or Verda(?) when it's easy enough to read the man himself, quoted by me about 26 posts above. The way I read it, lying is always wrong, but defensible under a narrow set of conditions.

I knew a man, a fellow Recon Marine, who prided himself on his brutal honesty. He said he never lied. I would have asked him if pretending to be vegetation (something he was not) was lying. I couldn't ask him because he was the administrator of a discussion forum from which I had been banned. Regardless, I think the way we painted ourselves up was intentionally deceitful. We were experts at it. Granted, we were trying to deceive "the enemy" but still, it was a lie. So, I think many would agree it is ethical to lie to your enemy.

Also, here is one of my favorite quotes:

" In some western states this technique of elaboration to the point where it merges into untruth, is called “stuffing dudes.” Every native born westerner numbers among his inalienable rights the license to use this technique upon occasion, and considers it a gross breach of hospitality if a visitor leaves without having had a few whoppers thrown in with the usual descriptions of the country and it’s customs. Several subjects are rarely discussed under such circumstances without stretching the truth, and in telling the Colter legend, by tradition, it has become almost compulsory to exaggerate. And since no one can study Colter’s accomplishments without being affected to some degree by the contagious desire to improve on truth, I have thought it wise to work off my touch of the disease in Chapter One. Stern searchers after fact are hereby directed to begin reading at Chapter Two.
. . .
The men of the frontier believed that if a yarn told with punctilious respect for the truth fell on unbelieving ears, it was proper to elaborate on the story and make it a good one.
. . .
Therefore, it is obvious that the traditional ridicule of the stories about Colter’s Hell did not originate with his contemporaries, but rather with those who preferred to rely upon the writings of cloistered, learned men and scoffed at the reports of those who told of what they had actually seen."

John Colter, His Years in the Rockies, By Burton Harris, Bison Books, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London, 1993.

In summary, the ethics of lying can be, well, elastic. LOL!

↪Cheshire No. The hazards of reading Banno or Verda(?) when it's easy enough to read the man himself, quoted by me about 26 posts above. The way I read it, lying is always wrong, but defensible under a narrow set of conditions. — tim wood

Well, I said; it was immoral and permissible in the conditions set forward in the OP regarding a man's wife asking about another woman's appearance. It falls in line with always wrong, but defensible under a set of conditions.

In regards to, "No. The hazards of reading Banno or Verda(?)"; suppose I just answer 'No' to the rest of your statements, how much weight would it carry with you? The case of the murderer at the door was a question of legal liability and not an example of ethical judgement. Kant was illustrating that telling the murderer the truth didn't constitute legal liability, because there is no way to ensure that a lie would have protected the neighbor seeking refuge. You'll notice your own quote discusses the lie and the intentions of the person using the information. It's the same basis we have now for legal fraud. Saying it's always wrong to lie (in Kant's legal sense) is the same as saying it's always wrong to commit fraud.

The wrongly established notion that Kant the grandmaster of objective morality would make such a flat footed argument is ridiculous and the popular position in academia; I've satisfied myself after looking into it in detail. Banno never offered a position, I requested reference material for a paper I was writing, so any knee jerk response to him has no bearing on the matter. So, Yes.

Here's the problem: If you accept white lies, you must either, at a minimum, condone or, at a maximum, embrace black truths (hurtful truths); they are, after all, mirror images of each other (flipped across two axes). Is everyone ok with this?

Saying it's always wrong to lie (in Kant's legal sense) is the same as saying it's always wrong to commit fraud. — Cheshire

"In Kant's legal sense." I'm not sure what that means. Kant certainly refers at times to law, but as incidental. Always I find him finding his ground on moral consideration, underlying the legal, even if contradicting the legal.

If you'll provide the link, I'll try reading it.

A point about Kant's permissible/defensible lie: he says you can't assure someone that you are telling the truth, and then lie to him. And I get it. I presume you do too.

And "defensible" because Kant seems to say that all lying is bad. From that I infer never permissible, but defensible. Like using gun to defend a home: not permissible but defensible, and all manner of evils befall the homeowner whose use is not defensible.

Was that a lie to quit the subject? — Prishon

The subject: quit lying

The subject: quit lying — TheMadFool

Why should one? Because its unethical? Why should that stop one? Because God says?

https://philpapers.org/archive/VARKAL.pdf

A point about Kant's permissible/defensible lie: he says you can't assure someone that you are telling the truth, and then lie to him. And I get it. I presume you do too.

And "defensible" because Kant seems to say that all lying is bad. From that I infer never permissible, but defensible. Like using gun to defend a home: not permissible but defensible, and all manner of evils befall the homeowner whose use is not defensible. — tim wood

It's more of a semantics matter to me when presented in this way. If you feel the precision of language achieves something, then I don't fault you. I don't see the need to prefer one term.

I agree completely. Finding counterexamples is easy and the approach is undoubtedly lazy.

I understand that the purpose of the question is validation, but isn't it unfair to assume that the person asking doesn't want the truth? In that case you're making an assumption about a lack of maturity, which, if revealed, could just as easily be as offensive as the truth. Shouldn't the person asking the question take responsibility?

Hello.

Premises:
P1: Some acts are good, e.g. honesty and saving lives, and some are evil, e.g. lying and killing.
P2: Some good acts are better than others, e.g. saving lives is better than honesty; some are worse than others, e.g. killing is worse than lying.
These premises are known through the Principle of Universal Perception: we all perceive the same value for these acts.

Now the goal is to maximize the good and minimize the evil for a given situation.
To use @Tom Storm's example: It is morally good to lie to the nazi to save the jew because lying is a lesser evil than killing.

I think it is unavoidable to say "white lies" and living in a society in which brutal honesty is expected in every waking moment would be quite taxing.

Of course, there are shades of white lies, from small ones such as saying your day was great today to bigger white lies like saying you can't meet up with a friend because you're in a meeting.

I think life is too difficult to suscribe to a "black and white" system of ethics, so to speak. Having said that little white lies pose no problem that I can see in relation to an ethical system at all.

I've never heard it quite described in that way, but I love it!

It would definitely be very taxing. And, as mentioned earlier, any "black and white" system of ethics breaks down pretty quickly.

There is nothing bad with lies which doesn't do any harm at all.
Ethics have made lying look like a "sin" but sometimes are necessary and much preferred than the "truth". At the end at many cases we don't even know what the "truth" is. We are just having opinions which we think that these are the only and absolute truth.

We always have to examine the "purpose" of the lie as to determine if it's ethical or not. Same with the truth. When truth is used just to make harm and cause sadness to others, well no that's neither ethical!

If my friend bought an expensive coat and asks me "do I look nice on it?" what's the point not to make him happy by telling him a lie even if I don't believe it?? At the end it's just a fucking coat, let him be happy about it. At that kind of questions,and in other cases too, I see no harm or something unethical with lies at all.

World is full of rude, impolite assholes that think they are "just honest" and they are proud about it.
I much prefer a polite "liar" than those wannabe "truth warriors".

Lying to someone IS cheating them. You are cheating them from the truth, which every person has a right to expect from you. To do otherwise is dissembling. If my wife were to learn that I had lied to her, no matter how lily white the lie, about an article of clothing after which she lusts, and I had told her that it looked good on her when I felt otherwise, she would be hurt by my deceit. More than that, it would damage our marriage because she would learn that I will lie to her when faced with some tension, discomfort, or desire to spare her from the truth.

Hehe. I learned that you can say «I’m not answering that question».

More than that, it would damage our marriage because she would learn that I will lie to her when faced with some tension, discomfort, or desire to spare her from the truth. — gloaming

I've heard varations of this argument over the years. One professor claimed that failing to give a movie a bad review would somehow lead to the fall of civilization. I like to think of myself as honest as the next person, but I think we omit, temper, and rationalize plenty of information. If you've never been served food you'd rather not eat by some one you care about that can't cook then you are as fortunate as you are honest.

If I give some one inaccurate information; they don't feel cheated. If I reserve the truth of the matter to spare emotions i.e. apologize when I'm not wrong, I've taken nothing. In any case Kant wouldn't suppose a duty to a murderer anyway. It's the most well defended absurdity in modern academic philosophy.

But, to the OP. Your wife has relationship attachment constancy well enough to know you aren't suddenly untrustworthy. The argument put forward isn't realistic.

Further more; listing the immoral things defeats the purpose of a catagorical imparitive. If you are correct than the whole of Kant's moral philosophy is some how redundant and for the most part unuttered. Going on, if he was going to start compiling the list of always wrong things then why start with lying? Seems battery and murder would be worth mention prior to defending the notion that misc. misdirections and polite omissions would be impermissible just cause they are impermissible. Instead, Kant hates lying on all counts; regardless if it treats a person as a means to an end. I'm not the one making the radical claim here.

I think that generally breaking the moral “code” is unethical. There are times however when they “need” to be broken and by doing so makes you more ethical. Instead of just following rules.