In general I think one should only lie when it’s clearly justified by one’s moral philosophy. In my case, as a Utilitarian, that means that my justifications for lying generally have to do an exceptional circumstance where it’s obvious that the consequences of not lying would be bad. To simplify things I generally follow four heuristic conditions where lying is acceptable:
1) To save a life.
2) To prevent unnecessary suffering or to bring happiness to someone else given that they cannot act on the information in the lie (i.e. lying to someone on their death bed about the success of one of their projects that actually failed, or if anyone has seen Code Geass, Suzaku to Euphemia).
3) If the person would understand and be happy if the lie was revealed (i.e. to keep a surprise birthday party a secret).
4) If I know the person who I am lying to intends malice with the information I am providing.
Other than that, I generally avoid lying for selfish reasons even if it is detrimental to me to tell the truth, because otherwise I might be tempted to lie way too much.
Also, I factor in a few things whenever I think about lying. First, I don’t like lying because I feel like I will be directly morally responsible if someone takes the false information I give them and does something bad or stupid. I also feel that it respects a person’s intelligence and dignity to expect that they can handle the truth. Second, every lie I tell has the potential to decrease people’s trust in others if discovered. Mutual trust is essential to well functioning society and relationships, so the danger of damaging this trust must be considered as potential consequence of any lie. Third, the more reliably honest I am, the more powerful my lies actually become when I do need to lie. After all, if I have a reputation for lying, no one is likely to believe me when I lie. But if I have a reputation for honesty, the few times when I am justified in lying will be that much more effective and convincing.
I used to be a bit paranoid about other people lying to me, but now I recognize that I shouldn’t worry so much. Generally among my friends I believe that if they are lying to me, it must be because either there is a secret they want to keep to themselves, and therefore I should respect their desire for privacy, or they probably have some moral justification or good reason for lying and I should respect their judgment of the situation.
Back when I was more paranoid, I read two books that claimed to be able to teach you how to detect lies, namely, “You Can’t Lie To Me”, and “Spy The Lie”. I wish I could say they were effective and useful, but they actually contradicted each other and I found it exceedingly hard to actually practice what they suggested in casual conversation settings.
Nevertheless, there are a number of psychology studies that purport to have discovered a number of cues that may be suggestive that a person might be lying. They usually suggest looking at body language, especially extremities, and also sudden changes in vocal pitch. Stuff like that.
In my own experience, it can be quite difficult to keep in mind all these cues that the various lie detection systems/theories suggest and still be focused enough to keep up with a conversation, so I don’t know that they don’t work or if I just wasn’t observant enough, but I’ve generally not had much success as a human lie detector. When I was in an undergrad social psychology class, they actually ran an experiment on the class where we got to guess who was lying and who was telling the truth from previously recorded experiments. Turns out most people are around 50% accurate. Has anyone else had better luck?
Just some thoughts about lying...
In general I think one should only lie when it’s clearly justified by one’s moral philosophy. In my case, as a Utilitarian, that means that my justifications for lying generally have to do an exceptional circumstance where it’s obvious that the consequences of not lying would be bad. To simplify things I generally follow four heuristic conditions where lying is acceptable: 1) To save a life. 2) To prevent unnecessary suffering or to bring happiness to someone else given that they cannot act on the information in the lie (i.e. lying to someone on their death bed about the success of one of their projects that actually failed, or if anyone has seen Code Geass, Suzaku to Euphemia). 3) If the person would understand and be happy if the lie was revealed (i.e. to keep a surprise birthday party a secret). 4) If I know the person who I am lying to intends malice with the information I am providing.
Other than that, I generally avoid lying for selfish reasons even if it is detrimental to me to tell the truth, because otherwise I might be tempted to lie way too much.
Also, I factor in a few things whenever I think about lying. First, I don’t like lying because I feel like I will be directly morally responsible if someone takes the false information I give them and does something bad or stupid. I also feel that it respects a person’s intelligence and dignity to expect that they can handle the truth. Second, every lie I tell has the potential to decrease people’s trust in others if discovered. Mutual trust is essential to well functioning society and relationships, so the danger of damaging this trust must be considered as potential consequence of any lie. Third, the more reliably honest I am, the more powerful my lies actually become when I do need to lie. After all, if I have a reputation for lying, no one is likely to believe me when I lie. But if I have a reputation for honesty, the few times when I am justified in lying will be that much more effective and convincing.
I used to be a bit paranoid about other people lying to me, but now I recognize that I shouldn’t worry so much. Generally among my friends I believe that if they are lying to me, it must be because either there is a secret they want to keep to themselves, and therefore I should respect their desire for privacy, or they probably have some moral justification or good reason for lying and I should respect their judgment of the situation.
Back when I was more paranoid, I read two books that claimed to be able to teach you how to detect lies, namely, “You Can’t Lie To Me”, and “Spy The Lie”. I wish I could say they were effective and useful, but they actually contradicted each other and I found it exceedingly hard to actually practice what they suggested in casual conversation settings.
Nevertheless, there are a number of psychology studies that purport to have discovered a number of cues that may be suggestive that a person might be lying. They usually suggest looking at body language, especially extremities, and also sudden changes in vocal pitch. Stuff like that.
There’s also this (for what its worth): http://www.blifaloo.com/info/lies_eyes.php
In my own experience, it can be quite difficult to keep in mind all these cues that the various lie detection systems/theories suggest and still be focused enough to keep up with a conversation, so I don’t know that they don’t work or if I just wasn’t observant enough, but I’ve generally not had much success as a human lie detector. When I was in an undergrad social psychology class, they actually ran an experiment on the class where we got to guess who was lying and who was telling the truth from previously recorded experiments. Turns out most people are around 50% accurate. Has anyone else had better luck?