Lies, Lies, Tell Me Sweet Little Lies

Apologies for the long break between posts, but I've been busy these last few days and have just now taken a look at this blog and realized I should write something! Today's topic has to do with lies (and, perhaps, the lying liars who tell them). More specifically, I want to consider the idea of white lies, those tiny untruths people tell mostly to try and make others feel better.

Let's start by considering a situation you've probably found yourself in:

Sofia, a co-worker of yours, comes by your desk and asks if you like her new dress. Maybe what she's wearing isn't quite as bad as this, but it's still something you don't think makes her too appealing. You also happen to know that Sofia herself really likes her new look, and would be hurt if you gave her your honest opinion. Is it okay to lie?

Most people who are really trying to answer ethically are going to say that no, you can't lie: after all, the truth sometimes hurts, but lying is wrong. But I don't think that this is exactly right.

Let's start by all agreeing that, generally speaking, people are obligated to be truthful to each other and that only some kind of special circumstance could justify or excuse lying. In the case of Sofia, the answer to whether or not you may lie has to do with what you think the answer to this question is: Does Sofia expect that you will tell the truth?

Let's assume that Sofia does not expect you to be brutally honest with her in your response. In that case, she's probably asking you in order to gauge the way that you frame your response. If you say "You look fantastic!", she'll think you like her new dress; if you say "you look fine" or "that's certainly an interesting choice," she's likely to read between the lines and understand that you don't think she looks fine, or that by "interesting" you really mean "stupid." If, on the other hand, she does expect you to tell her the truth, then, uncomfortable as it may be, you do need to be more literally honest (which of course doesn't mean you have to say "you look hideous!" One can be truthful and tactful at the same time).

To put it another way, Sofia is looking for you to be honest, which doesn't necessarily mean she wants you to be truthful. The concept of sarcasm acts in much the same way: if I make a comment like "that business meeting certainly did not make me want to shove my head into an oven!" my listener will probably realize my real intent. In both cases, it's the message I'm communicating that's important, and not necessarily the literal meaning of the words I employ.

Which of course brings us to an important point about the ethics of lying: namely, that our obligation to the truth has much more to do with communication, not the words that we use. I have to make an honest effort to ensure the idea I'm communicating to you is true, and I can do that through a number of different means, including some where I tell a lie.

Do You Feel Lucky?

Well do you?

No, seriously, today's post, like this one from a few days ago, has to do with the problem of moral luck, which is just when we blame a person for something that isn't under her control. In the last post, it looked like we were blaming Bob more than we were Fred, even though the only difference between their two situations was totally outside their control. To push that same intuition even more, consider this:

When Germany was controlled by the Nazi's in the 1930's, many ordinary citizens were faced with a difficult dilemma: cooperate with the current regime and in some small way aid in their evil acts, or refuse and be persecuted and ostracized from their community. Consider someone, let's call her Mary, who was placed in this situation and made the wrong moral choice: she helped the Nazis.

We're assuming in this case that Mary made the unethical choice (fill in the details how you like to make that true), and as a result she clearly deserves some blame for what she did.

Fair enough. But what do we have to say about the person (calling him Joe) who would have done just as Mary did, but never had to face that difficult moral decision? Mary's certainly to blame--after all, she did something wrong. But do we just let Joe off the hook because he got lucky and never had to make a tough choice in his life? It doesn't seem fair to throw Mary to the wolves but give Joe the Ethical Guy Award if we know he would have done just as Mary did.

Here's what I think: the two are equally blameworthy.

***

Briefly, here's my reasoning: people aren't responsible for their actions per-se--luck plays too large a role in determining what we do--but for their moral character, which is their set of conditional dispositions, a fancy way of saying the way you would act if placed in different situations.

Check out this Wikipedia article if you want to read a bit more about moral luck.

Uh Oh, the A-Word!!!

What? One of the first posts and I'm already going after that most dreaded of ethical quandaries, that insufferably unanswerable issue which has for decades torn apart political blocs, turned family members against each other and even led to murder--Abortion?? Well, not quite...

This post isn't a pro- or anti-abortion piece (I'm not even going to reveal my personal beliefs in the hopes that it won't affect anyone's thoughts on this argument), but rather one where I try to clarify what, exactly, it is that pro-lifers and pro-choicers are, or should be, arguing about:

Most people tend to think the life v. choice debate boils down to whether or not you agree with the following argument:

P1: A fetus is an innocent person with a right to life.
P2: Abortion causes the death of a fetus.
C1: Therefore, abortion is morally wrong.

If you're pro-life, you think this argument is sound; if you're pro-choice, you deny P1--that a fetus has a right to life.

I thought this was pretty much right on, until I read what is likely the single most anthologized writing on the subject of abortion: A Defense of Abortion, by Judith Jarvis Thomson. Thomson, for the purposes of the paper, grants a fetus has a right to life, and then goes on to argue that that still doesn't make abortion immoral under all circumstances. This highly surprising conclusion is motivated by (what else, in moral philosophy!?) a counterexample:

A famous violinist suffers a serious attack, and falls into a coma. The venerable Society of Music Lovers determines that you and you only can save this brilliant musician by being hooked up to him on some kind of medical contraption for nine months. These music lovers break into your home while you are asleep, drug you, take you to the hospital, and hook you up to the violinist. You wake up and demand to be unhooked, but the Society offers this argument:

P1: The violinist is an innocent person with a right to life.
P2: Unhooking you from him would cause the death of the violinist.
C1: Therefore, unhooking you from the violinist is morally wrong.

The example, of course, is meant to be a corollary to a woman's becoming pregnant by rape. Needless to say, this paper has been attacked & defended to death, but that doesn't mean it's not worth talking about: do you think this argument works? Are you really in the same position as woman impregnated by rape? Does allowing abortion in the case of rape open the door to permitting it in other circumstances?

I'll refrain from offering any opinions here, not wanting to beceome too controversial too early, but still (to anyone who's actually reading this), what do you think?

Moral Luck

The subject of moral luck (which just happened to be a major component of my senior thesis) was first discussed in an important paper written by Bernard Williams, appropriately titled "Moral Luck." He asks us to consider two similar circumstances:

Circumstance A: Fred overslept this morning and is very late to work. He gets in his car and decides to drive 30 mph over the speed limit to try to get to an important 9:00 am meeting on time. Just as he's rounding a particular turn on a road, a police officer sees Fred speeding, pulls him over and gives him a ticket.

Circumstance B: Bob also overslept this morning and is very late to work. He gets in his car and decides to drive 30 mph over the speed limit to try to get to an important 9:00 am meeting on time. Just has he's round a particular turn on a road, a small child darts in front of his path, and Bob's car strikes and kills that child. The police come and Bob is charge with involuntary manslaughter.

Question: Are we justified in treating Fred and Bob differently?

Initially I think most peoples' response is YES! Bob killed a child, Fred just drove too fast. Throw Bob to the wolves! But before we let Fred off the hook, consider this:

Fred and Bob did exactly the same actions for exactly the same reasons. They drove down the same road at the same speed at the same time under the same conditions. Neither Bob nor Fred had any control over whether or not a child would run onto the road, and so there's a real sense in which it was just a matter of luck that Bob hit a child and Fred got off light with a speeding ticket. Since neither person had any control over whether or not their actions caused someone's death, shouldn't their equal level of recklessness be treated equally?