The Case of Benevolent Lies In “Autonomy and Benevolent Lies” Thomas Hill presents the case of benevolent lies and if they are morally troublesome. Philosophers have been debating the moral difference between a malicious lie, told in order to hurt people, and a benevolent lie. According to Hill benevolent lies are “intended to benefit the person deceived, for no ulterior motives, and they actually succeed in giving comfort without causing main” (Thomas E. Hill). Many argue that benevolent lies are no different from a malicious lie because telling a lie is morally wrong. Others argue benevolent lies and malicious lies differ because of the deliberate intentions. Hill provides the reader with three cases of a benevolent lies. The three cases he presents are the possible suicide of a student which a Professor lies to the student’s mother, the …show more content…
In cases involving benevolent lies many argue these lies are “good lies” because they aren’t causing immediate harm or danger to anyone. Hill contends benevolent lies are wrong not only because they’re a lie, but they violate autonomy. Hill points out autonomy is morally important because it helps explain the right and wrong of different actions. When a benevolent lie is told it interferes with a person’s autonomy by depriving them of knowledge. The knowledge deprives them from the options open to them in the given situation. Hill’s argument is plausible because benevolent lies are troublesome. It is important for someone to have autonomy because if you’re making the decision for someone you can never know if it’s the right one. In the “Mother of Lies” case the mother has violated her daughter’s autonomy because she hasn’t given her the opportunity to decide if she wants to meet her real father. I believe in the right of autonomy; therefore, I object benevolent lies. Furthermore, benevolent lies go against what is morally
Actions are either classified as right or wrong with no allowance for a gray area. Furthermore, the strict guidelines tend to conflict with commonly accepted actions. For example, lying is always considered morally wrong--even a “white lie.” Therefore, one must not lie even if it does more good. In our society although individuals accept lying as being morally wrong, “white lies” have become an exception.
In Robert Dahl’s Who Governs?, he relates the political structure of the United States to that of New Haven, CT. This form of government is pluralistic. The author reports that the shift to pluralism was not random. Oligarchies that involved people who were very powerful and had all the resources they needed transitioned to pluralistic societies where power was not concentrated. While power is allocated across a larger range, all people do not have the same opportunities.
American writer and speaker, Dorothy Allison, once said “things come apart so easily when they have been held together by lies” (Allison). One of the first lessons that kids are taught is to be honest and always tell the truth. Being honest is not always easy, but the result of lying is much worse then telling the truth. In Animal Farm, George Orwell demonstrates how lies and deceit will ruin society if everyone always believes what the leader says, people lie to themself, and if laws are changed to benefit the group in power.
In “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person”, Harry Frankfurt illustrates the concepts of freedom of will and freedom of action, but more importantly, Frankfurt has refined the compatibilism theory. Compatibilism allows the freedom of will to exist in the deterministic world. According to determinism theory, the future state of worlds is determined by some events in the distant past (E) and the laws of nature (L). More specifically, E refers to the history, such as experiences or states whereas L refers to scientific or physical law like gravity. For example, an alcoholic’s action is determined that he will not stop drinking. Here E is that he had been drinking in the past, and L is the physiological addiction effect caused by alcohol. As we can control neither E nor L, then it follows that we can never act free. The thesis of compatibilist, however, states that we may have free will, even if all of our actions are determined by forces beyond our controls.
Richard Gunderman asks the question, "Isn 't there something inherently wrong with lying, and “in his article” Is Lying Bad for Us?" Similarly, Stephanie Ericsson states, "Sure I lie, but it doesn 't hurt anything. Or does it?" in her essay, "The Ways We Lie.” Both Gunderman and Ericsson hold strong opinions in regards to lying and they appeal to their audience by incorporating personal experiences as well as references to answer the questions that so many long to confirm.
People often state moral claims thinking that they are stating the truth. But is it really the truth or is it just a statement backed by emotions and opinions? A.J. Ayer believed that moral claims are neither true nor false. How do you tell a person that the statement that they believe is true is actually just a moral claim and really has no truth to it? They believe it, so to them it is true, so can a moral claim be true? Ayer says that for a statement to be true it needs to be able to be verified by facts and uses the scientific method to get to the facts. So if it cannot be observed then it must not be true? From this belief, Ayer comes to the conclusion that moral claims are not true, but he also comes to the conclusion that they are not false either. This essay will explore Ayer’s view on this topic, but also provide objections to Ayer’s beliefs.
Robert D. Hare’s book Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of Psychopaths Among Us focuses on psychopathy in our society. In the book, the author highlights the characteristics of psychopaths in a simple manner that are understandable to an everyday reader. Psychopaths are individuals who are deceitful and manipulative and they don’t care who they hurt. Hare points out his personal experience with psychopath in prison that eventually lead him to create The Psychopathy Checklist-Revised. In the Checklist, Hare emphasizes characteristics that makes someone a psychopath such as “shallow emotions, deceitful and manipulative behavior, lack of guilt, lack of empathy, impulsiveness, poor behavior control, lack of responsibility, need for excitement, early behavior problems, glib and grandiose behavior” (Hare 1993, p. 34). The author employs detailed interviews and a close study of psychopaths to research and create an instrument that could help detect psychopathy. In the book, Hare goes further to provide
This essay is my attempt to lay down in plain terms the expressivist position advanced by Charles Taylor as an alternative to the dominant approach to the study of man, based upon an influential shift in philosophers’ understanding of language. Taylor adopts a view of man as the language animal, an animal whose very conscious experience is constituted by its capacity for speech and expression. This position reveals faults with the dominant approach, and leads to a holistic conception of language and meaning. Subsequent progression down this path leads to intriguing accounts of human nature and the source of our ancient notion of God.
Kay as to not get her hopes up. There are a couple of principles, theories, and models that can be used to argue that Dr. Cee did the right thing, such as the greatest happiness principle and the putative exceptions on deception and lying. The first one we will examine in reference to this case is the greatest happiness principle under act utilitarianism, which states: one ought to seek to produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. This principle can be used for this argument because by Dr. Cee deciding to do the treatment on Sandy without letting Ms. Kay know, he was attempting to fix the problem without getting Ms. Kay’s hopes up on whether or not he could actually help her dog. This causes the greatest happiness because in the end Ms. Kay got her dog back, but did not have to worry about it while the treatment was occurring. The other idea that can be used for this argument are the putative exceptions on paternalistic deception and lying. However, to discuss the exceptions on deception and lying, it is important to know what lying and deception actually mean. Deception is defined as acting in a way that would lead someone to a belief with the intent of deceiving them, and lying can be defined as stating something wrong with an intent of deceiving someone. With these definitions we can talk about the exceptions. There are multiple theories that help this argument. The first one is an exception under utilitarianism which states that by acting in the best interests of the patient, lying is not detrimental to the wellbeing of the patient. Dr. Cee, as stated above, was clearly acting in Ms. Kay’s best interest. The next theory is the contractarianism exception which is that the patient agrees to any action that promotes their interests. Again, by taking Sandy to Dr. Cee, Ms. Kay has agreed that he should do what
The level of lies and the purpose of the untruth determine which one that will be. While we take pride in being honest in our daily lives, relationships, working environments, and ethical and moral standards, we do appear to tell untruths often in the course of life. Many people will admit to chopping down the cherry tree, but will tell the "white lie" to someone to keep them from the bitter truth that may cause them distress or discomfort. So, as a population, we understand, participate and condone lies for the greater good, but condemn those that tell lies for personal gain in any form or fashion. Does that make lying okay? Does it make the lie null and void? Lies, they are a part of life and part of human nature. They are measured in distress inflicted, personal gain, and purpose and intent by the teller. To lie is to be human and the "white lie" is necessary at times for the greater good, to alleviate distress, to cause less damage, and to maintain and promote
Determinism states that natural laws determine the way things will be. Therefore, if one day all the laws of nature and fundamental particles in the universe are understood, it would be possible to apply these laws and characteristics to determine how everything will be, including how each decision made will turn out. If everything can be determined in this way, and the result of a decision is already known, then it is not possible to have free will, because there is no option not to choose the choice already predicted.
However even among carers, there is ethical conflict surrounding respond to their relatives expressing challenging behaviour. Evidence suggests that there is a trend of carers struggling to acknowledge distressing emotions exhibited by patients with Dementia, as Lützau-Hohlbein et al (2014) notes often carers will ignore the original problem or offer false reassurance. Tranvag et al (2013) found in their metasynthesis on studies of preserving dignity in Dementia patients, that the most common method of dealing with the patient’s emotional distress was to employ distraction techniques to promote contentment. This is shown in ‘The Father’ by Anne dodging Andre’s questions ‘’. One of the key points of Kitwood’s model of person-centred care is that the person with dementia should experience ‘…relative well-being’ (Kitwood 1993:51). However this emphasis upon contentment over integrity must be evaluated, as in Andre’s case it can be argued that employing this method of person-centred care contradicts itself as being empathetic, as by deceiving Andre the values of respect and valuing him as an individual are
What about the more serious ones such as the mother lying to the police officer to cover up her son’s crime; or the doctor lying to the patient about his incurable disease; or the parents lying about the fact that their child is adopted? All of these lies fit into the category of “deceiving and intentional”, and no doubt there will be a lot of consequences involved once the truth is figured out. How do you explain this?” – some people might argue. Such cases are the reason why this matter remains as a “moral dilemma” since there is no absolute solution. Let’s trace back to the reasons why we lie first. What kind of power has the ability to prompt them into lying? Why do they decide choose the path that is considered morally wrong even though they are fully aware of the consequences? According to Jeff Fenske, we lie because of two reasons: we fear and we care. “What does that even have anything to do with this?” – you might be wondering. It does relatively, for somehow these two reasons have the ability to prompt people to go against their righteousness and commit the wrongdoing. Let’s take the story of Granny lying to Colonel Dick as an example. When the Yankees search the house to look for the boys, Colonel Dick interrogates Granny multiple questions in order to find out about the truth she is covering up. His presumptions that she has a grandchild and a nigger playfellow and they are hiding about her somewhere
When is lying acceptable: sometimes, always or never? The background of lying is that utilitarian philosophers have supported lies which achieve good outcomes such as white lies. My thesis statement is that lying is sometimes acceptable when is can be used to protect and care for others.
If one chose to lie, would they do it themselves, or go through a mediator first? This way the mediator is the one to take the fall. The design of the experiment in all three article was to play a game where people are assigned a role such as sender (person who sends a message), receiver (person who gets the advice or message from the sender), and the agent (the person the sender can use to communicate to the receiver with and if the receiver is lied to, then the agent takes the punishment). The receiver can choose to not take the advice of the sender. Erat (2013) found that it was women who chose to use the agent. When the risk of harm to the receiver is greater, then most people will try to avoid the blame. Gneezy’s (2013) main point of his article was to introduce a new method for measuring people’s decision to lie. He attempted to take the works of Erat (2013) and Childs (2012), and improve it, so the study is a more useful way of measuring these factors. He did so by breaking people up into categories: those who never lie, always lie, and those who lie based off the incentive introduced to