[lit-ideas] Re: When Did You Last See Your Father?
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 18 May 2010 03:33:27 -0700 (PDT)
At a LSE Popper lecture evening (some years ago), Prof.O'Hear criticised P for
his lack of understanding of the need for society to limit its "honesty"
[O'Hear was taking the ruthless search for truth by critical discussion, that
underpins P's epistemology, to imply ruthless honesty in all situations - a
crass implication that is not drawn in Popper's own work afaik].
O'Hear's remarks smacked of the kind of Wittgensteinian critique of P's
advocacy of (unfortunately termed) "social engineering" that was put forward by
Peter Winch, and was similarly misguided and fatuous. Despite PE's post being
unclear on this key point, it seems clear that if we accept that telling lies
to save an innocent life is sometimes morally justified then we are accepting
that the act of lying may sometimes be the morally correct thing to do - not
perhaps in itself, not because lying is good-in-itself, but because it serves a
higher moral purpose than the value of speaking truthfully. Even the trumpeted
"value of speaking truthfully" surely depends on the motive, purpose, context,
consequences etc.
In certain situations other values, like protection of life, might trump the
value of truth-telling: so might less dramatic values like protecting or
enhancing other's feelings ["Yes, I love that dress (I couldn't care less); no,
your bottom does not look big in it (it does, but it looks big in everything);
that was delicious (if you like eating guano); this present is just what I
always wanted (you got me this book last year and didn't even notice when I
gave you it back for your birthday); you shouldn't have (you should have, and
sooner)" etc.] and a panoply of other values that are essential to "good" human
interaction. Kant's pietism and Enlightenment idealism may have undermined his
appreciation of this, at least in his philosophical treatment of the issues.
It is also hard to see, if we so value "honesty", how active lying is that much
worse than 'passive dissembling' i.e. giving a misleading impression by not
disabusing others of their false impression [the distinction between sins of
commission and omission is a tenuous one for ethics]. Yet active truth-telling
whatever the circumstances is less a basis for a sensible ethics than a Jim
Carrey movie.
So while there are circumstances, say a court of law or scientific research,
where telling the truth is generally morally imperative, there are many others
where far from imperative it is imperative we allow other considerations to
dominate.
The idea that the evolution of human intelligence, via the use of language, was
because of the possibilities of mis-reporting [so setting up an evolutionary
arms-race between the mechanisms for exploiting and detecting mis-reporting]
may be prayed in aid also:- though we often tend to think of lies in negative
terms as a means of exploitation, seen more widely the imaginative capacity to
"lie" underpins our ability to develop interesting "truth". This is surely why
only a narrow-minded Puritan would scream that it is unethical to tell children
fairy-stories, when these are part of a process from which they can extract
valuable truth from fiction and also learn to discriminate truth and falsity.
Perhaps we should even be coaching our children to lie for the sake of their
cognitive development:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/7730522/Lying-children-will-grow-up-to-be-successful-citizens.html
Donal
see my "The Truth About Lies" (forthcoming)
Okay, that was a lie
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