Types of lying

 Lying is probably one of the most common wrong acts that we carry out (one researcher has said 'lying is an unavoidable part of human nature'), so it's worth spending time thinking about it. Most people would say that lying is always wrong, except when there's a good reason for it - which means that it's not always wrong!

Let's discuss the types of lies that have been researched so far;
     

Mental reservations

This legalistic device divides a statement into two parts: the first part is misleading, the two parts together are true - however only the first part is said aloud, the second part is a 'mental reservation'.

Here are some examples:

• "I have never cheated on my wife" (except last Thursday)
• "I did not steal the cakes" (on Thursday afternoon)
• "I did not touch the painting" (but my glove did)

This device seems outrageous to the modern mind, but a few centuries ago it was much used.

One common occasion for mental reservations was in court, when a person had sworn an oath to tell the truth and expected God to punish them if they lied.

If they'd stolen some sheep on Tuesday they could safely tell the court "I did not steal those sheep" as long as they added in their mind "on Monday". Since God was believed to know every thought, God would hear the mental reservation as well as the public statement and therefore would not have been lied to.

Sissela Bok says that this device is recommended to doctors by one textbook. If a feverish patient, for example, asks what his temperature is, the doctor is advised to answer "your temperature is normal today" while making the mental reservation that it is normal for a person in the patient's precise physical condition.

Lying to those with no right to the truth

The Dutch philosopher and lawyer Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) taught that a lie is not really wrong if the person being lied to has no right to the truth.

This stemmed from his idea that what made a wrong or unjust action wrong was that it violated someone else's rights. If someone has no right to the truth, their rights aren't violated if they're told a lie.

This argument would seem to teach that it's not an unethical lie to tell a mugger that you have no money (although it is a very unwise thing to do), and it is not an unethical lie to tell a death squad that you don't know where their potential victim is hiding.

In practice, most people would regard this as a very legalistic and 'small print' sort of argument and not think it much of a justification for telling lies, except in certain extreme cases that can probably be justified on other grounds.

Lying to liars

If someone lies to you, are you entitled to lie to them in return? Has the liar lost the right to be told the truth? Human behaviour suggests that we do feel less obliged to be truthful to liars than to people who deal with us honestly.

Most moral philosophers would say that you are not justified in lying to another person because they have lied to you.

From an ethical point of view, the first thing is that a lie is still a lie - even if told to a liar.

Secondly, while the liar may be regarded as having lost the right to be told the truth, society as a whole still retains some sort of right that its members should use language truthfully.

But is it a pardonable lie? The old maxim 'two wrongs don't make a right' suggests that it isn't, and it's clear that even if the liar has lost their right to be told the truth, all the other reasons why lying is bad are still valid.

But there is a real change in the ethics of the situation; this is not that a lie to a liar is forgivable, but that the liar himself is not in a morally strong position to complain about being lied to.

But - and it's a big 'but' - even this probably only applies in a particular context - if I tell you lies about the number of children I have, that doesn't entitle you to lie to me about the time of the next train to London, although it would make it very hard for me to complain if you were to lie to me about the number of children in your family.

Nor does it justify lying to someone because you know they are an habitual liar - once again all the other arguments against lying are still valid.

Mutual agreed deception

There are cases where two people (or groups of people) willingly engage in a mutual deception, because they think it will benefit them. Such deception can resemble a game where both partners know the rules and play by them. It resembles, then, a pact of sorts, whereby what each can do, what each gains by the arrangement, is clearly understood.

Sissela Bok, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life, 1978