When you find yourself in a very conflicted situation that requires that you lie (necessarily), what do you do?
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When you find yourself in a very conflicted situation that requires that you lie (necessarily), what do you do?
If lying never had a justifiable purpose, lying probably wouldn’t have been an evolutionary development. Sure, lying is often used to boost oneself to the detriment of others, but generally that kind of deceit can only last so long before it backfires as it exhausts goodwill others may have for you. Lying in order to preserve life is understandable, if not necessarily moral, and that’s why it can be okay. The problem is that situations where lying is advantageous but not really justifiable are more common than lying in terms of survival and stuff. So, justified lying is probably a rare event compared to the lying that most will be familiar with.
Lying is a big deception. When you lie, you are hurting the person you lie to, because the person expects that what you say is true when, in fact, it is not. I think this makes lying always morally wrong. However, there are times when the morally wrong choice is the lesser evil. I think you have the right idea that there are some times when lying is a better course of action than not lying, but I think it’s still morally wrong in those cases; it’s just that not lying is morally even more wrong.