Sometimes All Lying Is Not Wrong

One of Kant’s more controversial cases in which he stuck to the idea that lying would be wrong is that of the murderer at the door. If some murderer set on killing your roommate were to come to your door and ask

Kant argues the it is never permissible to lie as it is immoral. He believes a lie harms humanity and our entire social life. He then states "it is never permissible to lie, even if by lying we could save a friend from being murdered. Although Kant believes it is immoral to lie, it may sometimes be immoral to speak the truth. When speaking the truth it may improve their life but that is not always the case. If we speak the truth to cause pointless embarrassment or harm to one another it is just as bad as lying to them. The truth is sometimes more damaging than useful and will make that person rethink of what they have been doing and a worse life experience. Sometimes the truth should be avoided if it is to cause pointless pain and

Honesty; a responsibility crowned upon each person. In any circumstances, lying is never necessary nor acceptable. There are many pieces of evidence to support this claim in the articles “Rejecting All Lies: Immanuel Kant” by Sissela Bok and “Brad Blanton: Honestly, Tell the Truth” by Barbara Ballinger. Unlike honesty, lying harms one’s worth and mental state.

Kant gives an example for why lying is not a right action. He states that there is a man who needs money even though he knows he will not be able to pay it back, his maxim is “’I will borrow money and promise to pay it back, though I know that this will never be done’” (Kant 534). Kant explains that this maxim would not work as a universal law because every banker would not believe someone who says they are going to pay money back, therefore would never give out any loads. He goes on to explain how people should treat each other. He argues that it is not acceptable to treat someone as “a merely as a means but “at the same time as an ends” (Kant 536). He says that to treat someone as a merely a means is to treat them merely as a machine in ones plan and involving them without their ability to consent. He argued that people needed to be treated as an ends meaning that people needed to be able to enter agreements of their own free will and without manipulation (Kant 537). Kant believed that treating people merely as a means was without good will and therefore could never produce a right action.

When I briefly studied Kant in college, it made me furious because Kant says lying is always unacceptable and impermissible. Which means this would happen:

Mill: Well Kant, I must disagree with you about the “lying is always prohibited” bit. To my way of thinking, lying is only okay when it brings more happiness

`As St. Augustine wrote, "To me, however, it seems certain that every lie is a sin... “(St. Augustine, 421). Later, philosophers like Immanuel Kant (1787) again adopted this uncompromising moral stance when arguing against lying. (Gneezy, 2005, p.384)`

Lying is a bad thing, and everyone should be aware of that. Humans lie that’s just the truth. Although, we lie there are some lies that are acceptable.

With Kant’s ethical code, an individual is only responsible for their decision, but they need to make that decision based on the consideration that everyone else made the same decision they did. Kant was a stanch believer that no one should lie under any circumstance, because if someone did lie while following his code of ethics, that would mean that that person would be okay with a world where absolutely everyone lied at every moment of every day, and it should be obvious that a life like that would most likely not be desired by anyone. Individuals who disagree with Kant’s code point to the idea that there are some cases where it should be okay to lie even if the individual would not wan to live in a world where people lied all the time. Say

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.

I do agree that lying is wrong, but is permissible at times. The utilitarian theory would suggest that lying would be permissible as long as it gave the greatest number of people pleasure and only hindered the minority. With children I feel that this is especially true because their fragile minds may not be able to comprehend the truth. Furthermore, telling the truth to your children may not be beneficial to either you or the child. However, I do try to tell my children the truth on most things, but feel that some things are best kept covered up. Do you feel that lying to your child assists them in taking in the world as a better place? When I was deployed I did not lie to my children when they asked me “daddy will you going to die at war.”

Kids lie about horrible grades , adults lie about being busy. Everyone lies , don’t we? A lie is an untruthful declaration told to another person stated by Immanuel Kant. Kids , Adults, people world wide lie on a daily basis.Lying can be justified when it creates more positive results than negative ones.

Kant's theory is known as a deontological moral theory. According to these theories, the rightness or wrongness of actions does not depend on their consequences but on whether they fulfill our duty. Kant believed that there was a supreme principle of morality, and he referred to it as The Categorical Imperative. “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law” (Kant, 30). A maxim is the rule or principle on which you act. The command states, you are not allowed to do anything yourself that you would not be willing to allow everyone else to do as well. You are not allowed to make exceptions for yourself. For example, if you expect other people to keep their promises, then you are obligated to keep your own promises. More accurately, it commands that every maxim you act on must be such that you are willing to make it the case that everyone always act on that maxim when in a similar situation. For example, if I wanted to lie to get something I wanted, I would have to be willing to make it the case that everyone always lied to get what they wanted. If this were to happen, no one would ever believe you, so the lie would not work and you would not get what you wanted. So, if you willed that this maxim should become a universal law, then you would never achieve your goal. It is too bad to lie, according to the categorical imperative. It is impermissible because

mother was brutally murdered and tortured.I would just tell the kid that his mother got

From a young age we all learn that lying is wrong and that we should always tell the truth. Yet we have all told a lie at one point in our lives. I certainty have, but not the type of lies that would ever hurt someone besides myself. Couple years ago at my first job I got involved in an ethical dilemma and witnessed what can happen when someone lies or practice fraudulent activities at the work place. For starters, I worked as a front desk receptionist/ office manager, and one of my responsibilities was to act as the bookkeeper for one of the office physicians. However, I was not the only one having access to the physician’s books and money, her personal assistant was also involved in the process of collecting and recording accounts receivables.