Can telling a lie be justified if it brings greater good? - General

Obviously.

It's up to the beholder.

[QUOTE=AceOfDivine;32863065]Cause people to travel TO the infected place? What? If anything, it will cause people to move out. Sure it would be "good" but it could backfire just as easily. Uninformed people are just as scared as informed ones. If the virus starts to show it's signs, you will be in some shit.[/QUOTE] You'll have certain crazy people that'll be like "oh no don't let the people be stuck in the town let them out!" and they'll go and protest or some shit. What i'm really trying to say it's a big risk. You lie to cover up something and hope to fix whatever you covered up before the person you lied to finds out. If they do find out then well shit you look 2x worst but if you cover it up without them knowing no one feels any pain.

The government lying and people lying are different. It's up to the individual to figure out the gray area and which lies will harm, but the government should have no gray areas.

[QUOTE=Pepin;32861166]I don't quite understand the premise of this. The issue is the question is that the reasoning is inherently applicable to all matters of death as death is always certain. The only variable that changes is perceived time by a third party. The real question you're asking is "when is it acceptable to lie within the predicted time left?" which is a pretty ridiculous question and the justification for lying does not follow within the logistics of it.[/QUOTE] If the lie causes no harm whatsoever, but rather causes joy, and then goes away shortly after, what justification is there for not making the lie [editline]20th October 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=Rubs10;32869178]the government should have no gray areas.[/QUOTE] No I don't want an objectivist government, thank you very much

[QUOTE=Zeke129;32870808]If the lie causes no harm whatsoever, but rather causes joy, and then goes away shortly after, what justification is there for not making the lie [editline]20th October 2011[/editline] No I don't want an objectivist government, thank you very much[/QUOTE] as an example (I know that this isn't completely correct) Tony blair told a lie about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction and the 40 minute thing so that he could kill Sudam, now that they've wiped the threat of Sudam off the earth does that justify his lie?

[QUOTE=Zeke129;32870808]No I don't want an objectivist government, thank you very much[/QUOTE] How does honesty equate to an objectivist government? Objectivists have rational self-interest as their guiding moral object: an objectivist would more often than not hide their intentions.

[QUOTE=Zeke129;32870808]If the lie causes no harm whatsoever, but rather causes joy, and then goes away shortly after, what justification is there for not making the lie[/QUOTE] Again, the logic still fails to follow as it dictates that lying is always acceptable when it brings someone joy, and it is still dependent upon some variable of predicted time. The major fault in your claim is that it is: Lying is acceptable if it is certain someone has X time left and it brings that person joy. The fault is X time, it is impossible to define what X time would be. 1 minute, 2 minutes, 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 1 year, a decade, 2 decades, and so on. And again, you have to realize that death is certain with everyone, so this statement does apply to everyone, not just those on their deathbed. A further issue with the scenario is that what is preference of happiness over factual knowledge is not being decided by the individual (the father) but is being determined by a third party deciding what would be best for them. The father might prefer factual knowledge from the nurse over what he'd want to hear. In what position is the nurse to make a judgement about what the father's preferences are? The entire issue with this part is the presumption that it is better for someone to die happy. Some people might prefer being lied to, some people might prefer the facts, it is impossible for a third party to know unless they are told by the individual what they'd prefer.

You're reading into that very specific scenario way too much. If I hold the belief that doing X (where X is lying) will probably cause happiness I ought to do it, according to consequential ethics. If we always omitted from action every time we didn't know exactly what the outcome would be we'd do literally nothing all day every single day forever until we die.

The issue with the logic is that it infers all individuals prefer happiness over knowledge. Though I'm addressing a specific claim, I'm being sure to be general so that it also applies to political philosophy, but I'm taking an indirect approach so it's understandable why you think it is more specific.

When I speak about happiness, I'm more specifically referring to a preference hedonism framework. All individuals [I]do[/I] prefer happiness. That's what motivates all rational human action.

I'm not familiar with the specifics of that framework, but from the premise it seems that it can rationalized that some individuals may seek happiness through pursuit of the truth, and a lying to such a person would not make sense as that person would prefer truth over a lie. A third party would not know this preference unless they are told directly or if they can read minds. Even then there is at all no certainty a third party would adhere to the person's true wish for happiness. I'm not sure if that fits into the specific framework you're talking about, but there are many philosophers who make the point that there are many means of happiness. Economics is a field devoted to the subjective demand of goods to increase happiness (utility) and the means of increasing ones happiness is entirely subjective. One may demand knowledge, one may demand time at a leisure time water park, one may demand material to create some craft, one might hire a woman to tie him up and whip him. There are entirely different means for attaining happiness. If there is anything that of the old philosophers that should be thrown away, it should be anything having to do with prices.

Probably not in the end/long run

Here's a question to answer a question: Would you rather be happy, or would you rather be honest? I think it applies to the situation perfectly. [editline]23rd October 2011[/editline] In the end, I find that honesty is the key to a happy life, whether it may bring harm or not. You simply need to conduct yourself in a way that, even when you are telling the truth, the odds of harming something are minimized. Anyways, that feels a bit off-topic. I would say that, in certain situations, if you can justify that the lie is powerful enough to help a good number of people without harming others, then it can be justified.

I fail to see how lying is an inherently bad deed. It can cause harm and do quite the opposite, but so does talking and people don't complain about that. [editline]23rd October 2011[/editline] Unless it's in a court.