Some questions about truthfulness and lying - Truth-Telling, Lying and Self-Deception

Social Research, Fall, 1996 by Mary Mothersill

Is truthfulness a moral virtue? Does it belong up there on the marquee with wisdom, courage, and temperance? Most of us would say that it does, or that was my first thought anyway. I want to be open with my friends and expect the same from them; I want children who speak their minds without subterfuge; I want to vote for candidates who are honest and honorable. Tradition sanctions this view. Moral codes, sacred as well as secular, prohibit lying. In legal proceedings, those who testify bind themselves to tell the truth. How can there be a question? But there is something puzzling: while we say that truthfulness is good and lying is bad, the way we act suggests that that is not what we really believe. We think of utterly truthful persons as a hazard, and as for lying, we all lie all the time. That there is a gulf between what we think we ought to do and what we do in fact is hardly a novel observation; the world is a wicked place. Still there is an oddity here: a person shows that she is committed to a moral rule--"Tell the truth. Do not lie"--in a variety of different ways. She follows the rule herself and encourages others to do so. She blames and perhaps tries to punish those who violate the rule. If she herself suffers a lapse, she feels guilt and remorse and sometimes a need to confess and make restitution. One can see the pattern in other elementary rules--"Keep your promises." "Help those who are in distress." "Do no harm."--but truth-telling is different. Some lies are egregious; we wince when we recollect them. But by and large we lie our ways through life with a relatively clear conscience; and we expect other people to lie, and so we make our plans accordingly. Its not just that we do not act in accord with our principles, but that we do not feel the way someone who really believed that lying is wrong would feel. If this is a fact, what explains it? It seems to me that there are two possibilities: it may be that in saying that truthfulness is a virtue we are not ourselves being truthful. Saying something is a virtue when you do not believe that it is not exactly a lie--when I get around to a definition, I will show why not--but it is disingenuous and counter-truthful. Hypocrisy, according to La Rochefoucauld, is "the homage that vice pays to virtue," and I believe that there is quite a bit of hypocrisy going around. But this complicates matters, since if I go to the trouble of pretending to value truthfulness, must it not be because I think that the genuine article really does have value? But perhaps--the second possibility--it is less hypocrisy than confusion about what belief in truthfulness really commits us to, in which case some progress may be possible.

Notice that, "Do not lie," like "Do no harm," is a command that has substance. It is not definitional and empty like, "Justice means giving every man his due," or "You ought not to do what is morally wrong." There may be hard, borderline situations, but there are plenty of clear cases. We know what it means to obey and to disobey the commandment, "Do not lie." How is it that we can be relaxed and tolerant about some lies (and not just our own) and yet greatly exercised by the iniquity of others? Is it being found out that matters? When columnist William Safire said in print that Hillary Clinton was a "congenital liar" readers who were by no means Clinton fans were genuinely shocked. "You lie!" is a strong insult.(1)

Our conflicted views about truth-telling emerge in the mixed messages we send our children. A necessary step in learning a first language is grasping the difference between a true sentence and a false one. A child who gets it right, who can identify and classify an individual, object, or person in his immediate environment, is applauded; if he gets it wrong, he is corrected. It is no great leap for him, then, to the thought that there are sentences which one would like to be true but which are false. He who utters such a sentence with the intention of inducing his hearer to believe it tells his first lie. If it is detected, retribution is swift and apt to be severe. Childish mistakes are innocent; childish lies are not. The one is getting something wrong, the other doing something wrong. I have known parents, otherwise mild-mannered and reasonable folk, who are enraged by the discovery of a lie on the part of their offspring.

The first lesson children learn is categorical: "Do not lie." That the obligation to truthfulness is unconditional is something that most adults, including most philosophers, do not believe. But there are two notable exceptions: Augustine holds that all lies are forbidden because every lie in whatever circumstances is hateful to God. Kant's view is that truthfulness is always and everywhere a duty, and that every lie violates the fundamental principle of morality and negates the self-respect and dignity of the liar as well as of his victim. Preschool children are not theologians or philosophers, but they are Kantians in spirit; they understand absolute prohibitions and often become skilled at detecting and denouncing the lies of others. This becomes a source of social embarrassment, and the child, having learned not to lie, has to learn that lying is a part of life and a requisite of good manners. Kant would say that if you do not like your relatives or the sandwich you are offered for lunch, keep quiet about it, but some parents demand more: aversion must be concealed, interest and affection simulated. This is a first lesson in hypocrisy.