[lit-ideas] Re: When Did You Last See Your Father?

  • From: "Veronica Caley" <molleo1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 17 May 2010 10:47:07 -0400

I have to know. What would you do if you were the one hiding the Jew and the Gestapo came for him?


Veronica

Milford, MI


----- Original Message ----- From: "Phil Enns" <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, May 17, 2010 10:12 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: When Did You Last See Your Father?


Mike Geary wrote:

"It seems to me that you stripped 'morally wrong' of all meaning. I
would say the opposite, that in certain circumstances it's a moral
imperative to lie."


I find it odd that the claim that dissembling the truth is always
morally wrong is understood as making 'morally wrong' less meaningful.
Yet, Mike acknowledges that there is a lie involved, but he seems to
be saying that it isn't a lie.  That is, that there isn't a moral
wrong to be found in the moral wrong of dissembling the truth.  And I
am stripping 'morally wrong' of all meaning?

In the case of the murderer, there are two distinct, yet related,
activities.  First, there is the matter of answering the murderer, and
then there is the matter of protecting the innocent person.  One may
choose to lie in order to protect the innocent person, but that
doesn't change the fact that one lies.  One may justify the lie by
pointing to a specific outcome, but that outcome doesn't change the
fact that one lied.

Moral wrongs are not determined by outcomes, as though one needs to
see how things turn out to find out if one did something wrong.


Sincerely,

Phil Enns
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