Remember the last time you lied? Was it okay to lie in that situation? Lies are quite a slippery and obscure topic. On the one hand, you can always find a more-or-less comprehensible excuse to lie, on the other — deep inside you understand that lying is not a good thing to do. So let’s delve into the topic that confuses us from child- till adulthood — the morality of lying.
What does it mean to lie? The Oxford Dictionary gives a neutral and simple explanation, “[lie is] a statement made by someone knowing that it is not true”. Okay, we can state that without context, lies are neutral. And so it is safe to say that you have a chance of doing something good by lying, but it is just a chance. So, by definition, lying is simply not telling the truth, while being aware of what you are doing.
But what about “good” and “bad” lies, what about lying in context? In context, lies can have serious consequences. The Trojan Horse is a great lie that ultimately brought victory to the Greeks but destruction to the Trojans. Socrates’ life ended because of lies, but it was a victory for his enemies. We lie to our wives about their beautiful new hair colour just because we want to live to see another day, our desires are pure.
So is it possible to say that some lies are good and some are bad? First of all, what is “good” and “bad”? Simply perspectives. What is good for many may be bad for one, and vice versa. Imagine a serial killer. Would he kill someone if he thought it was totally bad? Can you yourself remember deciding to do something of your own free will, seeing absolutely no point in it? Doubtful. Even insane people act for a reason. Whatever we decide to do, we do it for a reason. The serial killer kills people because he thinks it is a good thing to do, or because it makes him feel good. But his actions are against our interests, they are bad for us. So we hate him and do everything we can to stop him. If someone does charity work, or fixes our computer, or maybe kills someone we don’t like, we say they’re a good person, and may even reward them with something.
It is exactly the same with lies. Lies can be very beneficial, good, for a particular individual or group of individuals, sure. But they are generally regarded as something negative, evil, for a reason. First of all, lies can be discovered and lead to a total loss of trust, of credibility. This is certainly an unimaginable loss for anyone. We live in a society, we depend on it, so it is unwise to play games with it. More than that, lying is almost always about somehow abusing the system, gaining or saving all sorts of resources without giving anything in return. It’s just a big bubble that looks nice from the outside, but when it finally pops, the stinking inside ruins everything.
The main problem with any kind of lie is that over time it becomes harder and harder to hide, harder and harder not to mess up, and this often leads to more and more lies. In the end, this avalanche of lies can bring down any person, any company, even huge countries are vulnerable to lies. The USSR at some point created an economic system where you had to achieve an absolutely unrealistic goal or suffer greatly. So factories, farms, whatever, had to lie about their performance. That led to lies. Politicians believed these lies, or pretended to believe them, which led to even more unrealistic targets. But in reality the nation was suffering greatly. It is impossible to feed people with lies. After countless deaths, nationwide poverty and starvation, the country fell and is considered to be a tragic example of statecraft.
Therefore, even though “good” and “bad” are relative concepts, lying turns out to be universally bad, bad for both the liar and those who believe him.
The astute reader may have noticed that I have avoided saying that all lies are bad. And for good reason. Our world is a bit complicated. And it may be that the man who was executed because of the lies that were told against him, the man who is supposed to have virtue and willpower, was actually pretty good at lying. Yes, he actually actively lied himself, or at least his loyal and rather clever disciple portrayed him so. I am talking about Socrates and Plato, his pupil. Socrates lies all the time in his “Apology” (defence speech in court), he also lies in some other dialogues. This is beautifully demonstrated and explained by David Leibowitz in his book “The Ironic Defence of Socrates”.
But there was more to him and his lies than personal gain. Being a man of virtue and immense willpower, as mentioned above, he lied in a special way, sometimes even weakening his arguments for innocence. His aim was not to deceive everyone, but only the inattentive and unprepared listener, while giving very obvious signs that he was actually lying to those who were actually interested in listening to him.
This way Socrates created two different speeches at the same time. He wanted to give as much valuable information as possible to others. But he also understood that it would be impossible to speak to thinkers, highly educated people and much less educated people with the same words and be understood by all of them. So he had to lie about some of his opinions to make his truth bearable for simpler people. And he miraculously managed to give everyone as much as they could bite off. For example, his thesis that everyone should be able to defend themselves in court. That being a good orator or having a great fortune should be irrelevant to justice. He said that he himself went to court unprepared and that he would speak randomly, naturally, without prior planning. These are lies mixed with truth and marks that he is lying.
Socrates lied about his level of preparation and skills just because too little people were prepared for the whole truth. But he made his lies quite obvious to an attentive listener. His speech is brilliantly composed and every word is in its place and has great meaning. Educated, attentive listeners would see this and understand deeper truth, inattentive listeners would hear some basic truth and have some food for thought. If we imagine Socrates as a school teacher, he would come up with an exercise that would teach both first graders and graduates at the same time. This is what Leibowitz calls Socratic irony.
So yes, some lies can actually be good, they can be useful. It is a question of your skill and intention. If your lies are used to help people understand the truth and are made clear to those who want to dissect your speech, if your only desire is to lead others to a better life, even if it means that you might get hurt or die, then I guess lying is justified. But if you think that now is the time to lie, ask yourself, just in case, are you sure that Socrates would have done the same? Are you sure you have reached a level of understanding of the situation of a book character written by his brilliant student after his death and all the cards are revealed? Ask yourself, is it humanly possible to tell a good lie?
So what did we find out? First of all, we found out that lying is deliberately not telling the truth, and that it is neutral without context. Then we understood that despite the fact that concepts of “good” and “bad” are relative, in most situations lying turns out to be bad for both the liar and those they lie to. And finally, even if you think you have constructed a perfect, virtuous lie, it is still better to tell the truth or say nothing at all; it is almost impossible to construct a really good, justified lie.
So no, it is not okay to lie, better try telling the truth, maybe the world will become a little better that way.
