Is Lying Immoral (Sinful, Illegal)?

Is Lying Immoral (Sinful, Illegal)?

I was raised in a Catholic family and went to Catholic schools and was taught by nuns that lying was a sin. To me and my fellow Catholic kids lying was the most serious sin we could imagine. We were taught that we had to “examine our conscience” before confession and to tell the priest of our sins in the confessional.

How does a kid tell the difference between a “white lie” and a “sin lie” or any of the other forms of “lies” that we saw adults indulge in? Surly Mom and Dad did not lie! It was all a great puzzlement!

The nuns taught us all about moral concepts; of course, they did not use such big words. I have later learned that the nuns taught us in accordance with a classical, also called objectivist, theory of categorical structure.

“According to the classical or objectivist theory of categorical structure, there must be a set of necessary and sufficient conditions the possession of which alone makes a speech act a lie…As a Moral Law theorist and an absolutist, Alan Donagan defines the essential features of a lie as “any free linguistic utterance expressing something contrary to the speaker’s mind”.”

Linda Coleman and Paul Kay have discovered facts that indicate that “the category of lie exhibits prototype effects; that is, there are certain central instances of speech acts that speakers easily and noncontroversial recognize as lies.”

What are these prototype effects that Coleman and Kay speak of?

Lie is a concept that displays a core structure surrounded by a “fuzzy” penumbra (fringe) of less clear-cut cases about which the speaker may be justifiably unsure as to their moral objectionability: such a penumbra might contain such things as mistakes, jokes, exaggerations, white lies, social lies, and over simplifications.

Coleman and Kay found that these core cases that everyone could easily agree upon as being lies, i.e. those prototypical cases of clear-cut lies, fulfilled all three of the following conditions: 1) the speaker is confident that the statement is erroneous, 2) the speaker is intent upon deceiving the listener, and 3) the statement is in fact erroneous.

The less prototypical instances of lying fulfilled one or two conditions but not all three. Furthermore, tests were run and it was discovered that subjects typically rated the conditions in order of “importance”: 1) being most important and 3) being the least important. Subjects seemed to agree on the relative weights given to the individual elements.

We see here that lie does not follow the classical objectivist strict categorization. A fixed set of essential conditions do not exist and there is considerable internal structure to the concept that are of a great deal of importance in determining whether a statement qualifies as a lie or not.

Quotes from Moral Imagination by Mark Johnson

 

If any nun said to my kid: "I won't lie to you, there is no santaclause" - I'd tell her to go to hell.
I don't consider lying a sin but I am not religous...it really shouldn't be seen that way.
Imho, religous people have their own set of benchmarks for what they consider to be a sin and I leave them to it however stupid I think they are.
I'd even not stretch to lying being Immoral but I do appreciate even aethiests have some form of moral code.
I'd just say: "It aint cool to lie dout sometimes it is required and smoothes the path to a greater truth"

 

Is lying to a raging drunk that his arch-enemy is right in the next room a sin? Or back in the day lying about an underground speakeasy? I wouldn't think so.
Lying as a sin in an absolutist sense is absolutely ridiculous. Use it at your best discretion, but in 99% of situations I would personally say it's wrong.

 

I try to avoid outright lies but sometimes skirt around the whole truth when necessary. But usually the truth is so much more interesting, isn't it?

 

We would be much better off if people did not lie.
Truth is important. Be who you are, say what you think.
Deceit causes suffering, both to the deceiver and the deceived.

 

The purpose of this OP was to compare the nature of categorization in traditional objectivist thinking and the thinking that is recognized by new cognitive science theories.

Traditional objectivist, one might call it positivist, thinking considers that the world is made up of things that fit neatly and completely within containers and that these categories express that which is necessary and sufficient for any object that fits into that category.

SGCS (Second Generation Cognitive Science) has developed revolutionary new theories about the functioning of the mind. SGCS informs us that in many cases categories do not fit neatly into containers. Lying is one such category fits sloppily within containers. There exists fuzzy overlap and difficult things that must be considered.

All this is to say that if SGCS is correct then we are all very far off base when we think of categories as always fitting neatly within containers.

One has to read the OP and think about it a bit in order to get the idea. The idea is very important. Reading is fundamental.

 

Q: Is Lying Immoral ?
A: Depends on moral maxim used as a stanfard


Q: Sinful ?
A: Depends on definition of "Sin" and whether "Lie" is one of the acts defined as "Sinful"


Q: Illegal ?
A: Depends on applicable law.

 

Be a real person. Lying, white or any other shade is not real, it's a lie.

There is a wholesome feeling of integrity that comes from living truths and noticable lack of the fear of discovery.

It's verreh nihce.

 

Tell this to politicians

 

.

 

we tell lies all the time, volunteerly or not. ofcourse we should all do our best to share what we believe is the truth, but in some situations our truth is not always appropriate, or not always the best approach, if telling the truth comes hand in hand with causing nothing then pain, then its not always the most moral appraoch. personally i would find a person who believes that always telling the truth and exposing the truth as in some kind of divine justice, kinda creepy.

 

Grow up.
I am an honest man , perhaps more honest than 99.98% of anyone I could ever encounter in my life.
Study biology.
Study Nature.
Is not about what you beleive in.
Is about what it IS.
And it IS what it IS.

Best regards.

 

meh, removed my bad mooded post.

yea..but what is is,

good and evil don't exist, but with both truth and lies you can either bring good or pain, its all about how you handle it.
telling lies isn't a sin..but if you tell lies to bring uncomfort and whatever..doesn't makes you look to good. your either someone who thinks before he speaks, or someone who says everything flat out as he believes..i don't know wich one is better.

 

Don't lie. You'll go straight to hell for forever!

 

I think lying is essential to most people and may actually be the only path to happiness.

Why is that? Well our whole world is based on lies, the economy is a lie, we keep our children sheltered from reality, religions are all lies. Even if say Christianity wasn't the big fat lie that it is, God is lying to us by withholding truth from us, just like we shelter our children from truth. That's essentially the same thing as lying. Original sin is a lie and if it's not a lie then LYING is an inherent property of humanity, which actually turns out to be true. Religion got the property itself correct but are wrong about all the reasons why. Sin is a lie, misery and happiness are real. The happiest people on the planet are often the most detached from reality. Ignorance is bliss, the truth shall set you free, the path to happiness is the truth that is a lie but you must lie to yourself and have faith that it is true.

 

Lying usually is immoral IMHO. Sadly today there are far too many people who lie almost without thinking, and set a bad example.

 

I think its classed as 'sinful' in the fact that its a direct violation of the eight heavenly virtue which is 'Justice'.


I believe also morally it may be classed as wrong but it really depends on which point of view you are looking in from. I mean I personally try not to lie as much as possible but even i'll say that someones ass looks skinny when it infact looks fat......

That kind of lying is for the greater good and its just consideration at the end of it all.

I think when you know you have done something wrong and you use the excuse of 'I lied so it wouldnt hurt you'.......Thats bullshit, total and complete bullshit, you really lied so that you didnt have to face the consequences of your actions. That is wrong.

 

A lie is a delusion, it is an intentional misrepresentation of reality. It inspires behavior that is not reality-oriented.

 

Lies and truth are less absolute than most people realize. It's certainly not illegal to lie. To knowingly lie in a way that will hurt someone is immoral in my book. I don't believe in sin.

To tell the "truth" in a way that you know will hurt someone is also immoral in my book. I've seen so called truths used as weapons and that's absolute crap.

 

Truth and poetry, one without the other is a violation of both.