Lying Is Considered An Immoral Act

There comes a time when a doctor, minister or politicians and an individual will tell a lie. It could be a white lie or big lie; most people almost generally resort to lying in certain situation. Often times a lawyer will lie in order to protect his client, or vice versa, a client will tell a lie in order to avoid being incarnated. There are many situations an individual will be placed in, and at some point in a person’s life they will need to tell a lie. Is it appropriate to lie? This is what Sissela Bok writes about in Lying: Moral choice in Public and Private Life. Bok acknowledges that despite numerous religious and moral statements against lying, people will still lie in certain situations. She will discuss and

Utilitarianism is the ethical theory that the production of happiness and reduction of happiness should be the standard by which actions are judged right or wrong and by which the rules of laws, public polices, social institutions and morality. According to utilitarianism, an act is not right or wrong merely because it is a case of lying or telling the truth; and the moral rule against lying is not in itself correct. Lying is wrong because, in general, it has bad consequences. Ethically the rule against lying can be subjected to empirical study to rationalize some cases of lying, such as to

Born in 1724 Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher whose work is considered to be the highlight of modern philosophy. His work impacted ethics in a very big way. The fact that his writing is among the most difficult to understand Kant believed the reason for this was the source of morality, and his Critique of Pure Reason. Kant’s theory, better known as deontological theory holds truth in believing that doing the right thing and good will are motivating factors in the ethical decision making process. His theory is an example of deontological theory but with several weaknesses as well as strengths. I believe that lying is wrong just like Kant but I don’t agree that lying for the right reasons makes you a bad person.

Most people when asked is it ok to lie to children would say, “of course, they don’t know the difference” and then leave it there. Think back to when you were a child and your parents told you that a man in a red suit named Santa Clause came down your chimney on Christmas and brought you presents if you were good. The agenda behind this lie was so that you would be good. Adults use lies for various reasons. Sometimes it’s so you don’t have to face consequences. Other times it’s to invoke a specific behavior. In the case of “Salvation” by Langston Hughes, lying to the children by telling “them they would see a light and something would happen to them inside wasn’t

Our government lying in these past years have been a major problem for the citizens of the United States. When the government lies sometimes its for the publics own good or when the government does not think that we can handle something. Sometimes them lying is a good thing, but sometimes it can be bad. Whether it’s the government spying on citizens without the proper authorization and without warrants, then the public finds out that they are being watched when documents surface the web and is all over the news (quigly). Then the government lies and tries to cover it up and refuse to acknowledge any involvement in what happened.

Act utilitarianism, on the other hand, judges each action individually and decides on its rightness by the resulting consequences. This approach can give situational leniency when needed as long as the action brings about the optimal results. As opposed to a rule utilitarian, an act utilitarian would say that lying is the right thing to do if it brings the best total outcome for those

The utilitarian perspective is a moral principle where the morally right course of action in any situation is the one that produces the greatest balance of benefits over harms for everyone affected. Our textbook defines utilitarian as doing the most good and the least harm. This is a difficult situation to compare because there are conflicting issues to harm from the WikiLeaks documentation release. The benefits that the impact of this informational leak had was that the public was able to read an honest story directly from a soldier’s perspective. This gives sympathy to soldiers and what they had to deal with on a daily basis. The harm of this informational leak is that anyone could have used this information to harm United States Army soldiers at that time whether it be directly or indirectly.

Utilitarianism strives for “harmony” between the interest of the individual as well as the interest of the whole (Mill 934). However, they are not mutually exclusive. One who saves someone from drowning, no matter the intent, acted morally and one who betrayed a friend who trusts him acted immorally, despite any well meaning intention (Mill 934). While Utilitarianism’s goal is to maximize happiness, it cannot do so at the expense of others. In one sense, Utilitarianism could be summed into maximizing happiness for the greatest number of people and such a system works extremely well with democracies.

This may sound like an easy task, but after scrounging through these sources, there is no one confirmed definition of what a lie entails. There are however, a few concise details that the majority of these editorials have in common, such as: the intention, the cover-up of the truth, and the ability to delude. These three aspects are the bases for a more concise meaning of the phrase: to lie. A lie from a shared standpoint is as simple as, not telling the truth, but for the purpose of this paper there is so much more to that definition that needs broadening. For starters, lets look at a more descriptive meaning of a lie according to John J. Mearsheimer. In his book, Why Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in International Politics, Mearsheimer states that a lie is,” When a person makes a statement that he knows or suspects to be false in the hope that others will think it is true” (16). This definition mentions knowing, which is another word for intention, showing that there is the aim to deceive, but it is still lacking on the other two elements that will clearly make something a lie. Which brings up Fetzer’s article on Disinformation: The Use of False Information, in this text the authors equates a lie to, the intentional, deliberate, or misleading of information, which he refers to as disinformation (Fetzer 231). Fetzer’s description of a deception brings up another key component, which is, misleading; this demonstrates that the ‘liar’ intends to lead his subject away from the truth. The final of these parts to a good definition of a lie is dishonesty, which is what Allen Wood argues in his work, Kant and the Right to Lie. In this critique, Wood attempts to make clearer what Immanuel Kant actually meant in his description of a lie as “an intentionally untruthful statement” (Wood 97). What Wood is saying here is there has to be an element of truth that the

In psychological research, deception takes place when incorrect information is presented to participants and they are not communicated everything about the research therefore they are being misled. For example, the participants could be wrongly deceived about the aim, location, or design of the experiment where the research will be gathered. Even though deception is permitted whilst conducting research, whether it should or should not be used is still the topic in many arguments.

Every person has some kind of goals, it may be such as changing people's life or even world. Like on the way to every final destination every one will have all kinds of problems that needs to be solved to reach that goal. Is it okay to lie or cheat to obtain that goal? It's really matter of goal if it's righteous or foolish, and to whom lie and cheat.

Kantianism also lessens the burden of determining the rightness or wrongness of an action by upholding the categorical imperative. Categorical imperative is a concept that determines the quality of an action from the deliberations of practical reasoning (Ware 733). When an individual lies because they are trying to protect someone from getting hurt, proponents of Kantianism call this a moral failure. On the other hand, utilitarianism upholds such a lie as ethical because the individual being deceived does not get hurt. It is highly unlikely that the lie will remain a secret before the truth comes out and this will

These ulterior motives are often political or economic in nature and can have serious consequences on the ability to help those people who are truly in need. If we take the example offered in professor Habibi's paper “Human Rights and Politicized Human Rights: A Utilitarian Critique” we can see that he offers compelling evidence suggesting that International Human Rights organizations such as the Amnesty International, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the Human Rights Watch are not acting to establish fair distribution of their resources when lending aid to countries involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.(Habibi, 2007) The concept of true human rights is diluted and ceases to hold as much importance when the cause for action is instead motivated by ulterior means. Another important consideration that people often associate Utilitarianism with is in matters of war. Counter terrorism is at the forefront of American politics and news in recent years. One might assume that Utilitarian theory would be in support of torture in order to prevent future attacks. According to Jean Maria Arrigo the opposite is true.(2004) According to him torture interrogation techniques fails as a measure against

According to Kantian theory it would be wrong to lie, even to save a life or lives. The Kantian theory strongly affirms absolutes. Morality is based on freewill according the Immanuel Kant, moral worth comes from acting from duty. Good will means acting from duty, acting from reason and that our reason for action could apply to everyone. So it would be difficult for one to lie even for a good reason.

When Sissela Bok first began her study of falsehood and truthfulness, she discovered a plethora of historical works devoted to the ethics of lying, whereas her contemporaries rarely even broached the subject. This distinct silence led her on a personal exploration into the world of deception, which resulted in her 1978 book, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life. Since the publication, lying has again become a popular topic of conversation, from the Monica Lewinsky scandal in 1998 to the IRS targeting controversy in 2013. Yet her goal in writing the book remains the same. She does not seek to prescribe the ultimate and final conclusion on lying. Instead, Bok attempts to bridge the divide between the moral philosopher and the common man, who is daily confronted with the need to make moral choices. She fulfills this task, but in the process, rejects the need for a general ruling principle, which endangers the individuals and societies she hopes to support.