Lying To Nazis

[Mr.Cat]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1480766' date='Mar 20 2008, 02:55 PM']playing mental gymnastics to get out of admitting there are plausible situations where the only way to save a life do exist and you said they might not, doesn't count as an argument.
if i misunderstood you... and you were only, and only this and nothing else, saying that we can never know the outcome of the action, and so by that techincallity cannot be held culpable or held less culpable, that doesn't count as an argument either. because it's so certain in many of these sitautions the outcome, that even that is simply dodging the arguments.

just admit that you're either justifying the mean, or more choosing what does or does not justify the mean on a case by case basis, such that the propositio doesn't do a whole lot in terms of definitively guiding actions.

also... i said we both sucked at thinking of situtaions, and by the very fact you were questioing whehter the situatios exist, whatever they were, then you too by definitio can't think of any of the situtaions. (unless you were referring to situatiosn where lying would save a life and not to the not knowing the outcome situations)

there's nothing to debate, until you address the points, so i'm not sure why you're challenging me. i should be challenging you, or you should be challenging yourself, to go back and actually read what's been written and respond in good faith and reasonably.

most people here are just trying to dodge the situation.
like saying "are nazi pigs here" so you can say "no" in good faith. give me a break. it's avoiding the underlying point, missing the point.[/quote]I ask you to respond on the other thread but you respond here, without even allowing other users to read what I proposed. Then, you still refuse to actually address my proposals but rather erect straw men arguments. I claim straw men for I have time and time again addressed these matters but yet you propose them still as if I have not responded to them...

But I suppose in your mind you are right...

[Aloysius]

let me put it this way:

Q. why is deception unacceptable?
A. because humans have a right to the truth.

Q. is deception ever acceptable?
A. if the person asking the question does not have the right to that particular truth, then it is acceptable to use techniques such as mental reservation and/or evasive action which may even result in an objective mistruth, but with mental reservation one's interior honesty remains undamaged.

Q. is that the ends justifying the means?
A. no, because the means of deceiving someone who does not have a right to the truth is a good, not an evil, means... hence whatever the ends of it, the means would be good if the person did not have the right to the truth.

this applies to any situation where deception would be necessary to save a life, because no human being has the right to information by which they could kill someone.

your loophole technique has absolutely no bearing on the actual philosophic principal which says that something evil cannot be done to achieve something good, because this action is not evil... deceiving someone away from a truth they do not have a right to is not an evil act.

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote]just admit that you're either justifying the mean, or more choosing what does or does not justify the mean on a case by case basis, such that the propositio doesn't do a whole lot in terms of definitively guiding actions.[/quote]

i should not have said that to mrcatholic cause he has always said it'd be sinful and not justifying the means to lie. my apologies.

that should be said though, to most other catholics here.


also, it may have been the case when i said "we can think of no plausible situations" and he replied with "sure i can, someone puts a gun to your head and says deny God". by "plausible" i meant, there's no "how and why" situations we can think of. he might have thought i meant, there's no situations where death would be almost surely imminent.
we both cannot think of "how and why" situations. i probably could, and he probably could.... but by defiintion he hasn't yet. (unless he thinks that qualifies as a how and hwy situation, and no longer questions whether it exists)

Edited March 22, 2008 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

to al.... if he's speaking to me... i can agree that it's not an evil act. in my last post, i never said it was an evil act.

i said it misses the point.... because instead of showing how that example is not evil because of mental reservation of "he's not really a pig"... he should have been htinking more broadly about times when you'd have to lie and can't get off on techincality.
i'm not saying that the lying would be evil.... the main point... is that "the ends don't justify the means" would be so flimsy that it doesn't do much to guide actions. were torture not ocndemned by the CC, you could start asking whether it's okay to torture.
you can't just stomp your foot and magically make lying a purely inncoent act when they deserve to know the info. it's an objectively untruthful act.

now... the confusion might be that... earlier i was saying, either it's an evil act, or most things could be rationalized as not evil to begin or at least there's no definitive guidance such that the motto doesn't accomplish much.

i could accuse him of a loop holed logic... but i'll just say that he didn't try hard enough to see what was being said, read close enough.

if he was talking to me, that is...

[dairygirl4u2c]

Q. why is deception unacceptable?
v.
Q. is deception ever acceptable?

objectively reading that, these are contradictions if you answer the first one as if truly unacceptable, and the second one as if it's sometimes unacceptable.
to clarify it, it should have said..... "why is deception usually unacceptable"

i make the point... because it seems like people want to say "deception's wrong" while saying "it's not wrong" instead of "it's usually wrong or sometimes wrong". the latter would be the true statement, as it's not a contradiction in terms.
i may just be reading too literalistically, i don't know, by requiring "sometimes".

just to stress again.... the point was good "he's not really a pig" because it's better to have an excuse when stating a mistruth than not having an excuse. it wasn't entirely a bad point and objectively good from many perspectives. i am just saying it's an incidental point to the main point, and one could argue he's missing the point. truly, i should have said "he's focusing on the incidental stuff too much" i was being too literal in my speech, like when people accuse obama of being a socialist,,,, obviously he's not a socialist, just a figure of speech cuase he has socialist tendencies.

Edited March 22, 2008 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

ironic, mrcatholic says it's sinful, and al says it's not.
cause, i guess the former is saying it's not justifying cause it's evil and so there's no way to justify. but hte the latter is saying it's not justyfing cause it's not evil and so isn't an issue.

i wanna see you guys debate....
not that there's much to debate though, probably just a fundamental judgment call when it comes down to it.

Edited March 22, 2008 by dairygirl4u2c

[Mr.Cat]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1481467' date='Mar 21 2008, 11:29 PM']ironic, mrcatholic says it's sinful, and al says it's not.
cause, i guess the former is saying it's not justifying cause it's evil and so there's no way to justify. but hte the latter is saying it's not justyfing cause it's not evil and so isn't an issue.

i wanna see you guys debate....
not that there's much to debate though, probably just a fundamental judgment call when it comes down to it.[/quote]Actually, I currently find no contradiction between both our proposals. But as it was mentioned before, you refuse to actually address or acknowledge my proposals. However, I may concede that there may be a difference between vocabularies used. What would there be to debate?

[dairygirl4u2c]

i don't think there's much to debate.
i concede there's still a burden on me to show a how and why, that i insist has got to exist. i can think of some ideas but it gets thorny and i don't feel like it.
i do't know what was being challenged against me though, unless that was what was being challenged.... or the challenge was to understand your argument.
my challenge wasn't much of anything, other than to understand the argument, also.

also with al... it's plausible to say this is not an evil act.... for you to say it is an evil act.... but i insist plausible for me to say it seems like saying not evil is cherry picking what is or is not an evil act such that the motto doesn't do much to guide. ("much to guide" means that it's not defintive super clear,,, even with cherry picking it can still serve a lot of guidance in another sense)

Edited March 22, 2008 by dairygirl4u2c

[Aloysius]

is it wrong to deceive someone who has the right to the information you are deceiving them about?
yes.

there, is that iron-clad enough for ya? that is the deception which is referred to as "lying" and is considered unacceptable.

there is no case when a good ends can justify an evil means. it's not flimsy, because plenty of things are evil means which someone might think would be justified because of the good that would come out of it. torture is one example: it's an evil means. every human being has the right not to be tortured, there is no time when a person does not have the right to not be tortured. whereas a murderer does not have the right to the information which would aid him in murdering, a murderer still retains the right not to be tortured. there is no way to apply the same framework applied to the deception example to something like torture.

it's an important principal and does have serious implications, just not in this little loophole you're trying to employ.

killing is not an evil means, murder is. killing can be justified not by the ends, but by the circumstances; ie with the traditional teaching on capital punishment, a murderer has forfeited his right to life... you do not execute him for good ends as if it was worth it to kill him to deter crime, you execute him only if he deserves it. then of course we pile on all the modern teachings about showing mercy even when they deserve it, but that framework is still there to be discussed.

abortion is an evil means. you cannot directly kill a baby no matter what good might come out of it.

just for one impractical example to drive my point home: if a madman had his finger on the button of a doomsday machine which would destroy the entire world, and he told you that if you didn't murder one random person in cold blood right now (excluding him, he's behind bullet proof glass or something) he would destroy the entire planet, it would NOT be justified to do it. it would be better that the madman destroy the whole world than for you to use an evil means to stop him. it would be justified to kill the madman to stop it, because it's self defense and he deserves it by threatening the lives of everyone on the planet, but it is not justified to murder an innocent to stop it from happening; or even to murder some other guilty murderer for the wrong reason to stop it from happening. the moral option there is to let the madman destroy the world and everything in it; for what is it worth to gain the whole world but lose your soul?

[dairygirl4u2c]

that clarification i think makes it better, the cherry picking. i can see it making more sense, but would still call it cherry picking at least to a lesser degree.

i found someone who uses the the same system as al does.

[quote]I would say that the maxim that one cannot do evil so that good might result always applies, no matter the gravity of the evil or the importance of the good. So the question becomes: "what is evil?" To use your examples:

Quote:
lying to save a life

As I would define a "lie" as telling an untruth to someone with the right to that truth, I believe that telling an untruth to save a life can be morally justifiable, as the person does not have the right to that truth.

Quote:
What about stealing to save a life?

Property rights are not absolute, and thus taking the property of another is not always an intrinsically evil action. So I believe taking someone else's property could be justified in some situations. It would not technically be stealing in that situation, however.

Quote:
Infidelity to save a life?

I cannot see this ever being justifiable. As infidelity is ALWAYS an intrinsically evil act, it cannot be done to save a person's life.

Quote:
Killing to save a life?

Not justifiable as you define it here. One cannot kill one life to save another life. It might happen that one might take an action to save one person's life which also results in the death of another person. In this case, this could be justified under "double-effect", as you are not trying to kill the other person, this is just an unfortunate result of your action of saving the other life.

Quote:
Blasphemy against God to save a life?!?

Absolutely never justified. There is no higher moral law than to serve and give glory to God; thus blaspheming God is always an intrinsically evil action and cannot be justified in any circumstance.[/quote]

[dairygirl4u2c]

i'm watching other people having a similar debate. this guy responding to the other one is adding a layer of lesser of several evils argument for at least an exception. or the "common sense" rule.

[quote]--cannot see this ever being justifiable. As infidelity is ALWAYS an intrinsically evil act, it cannot be done to save a person's life.--

I'm not sure the issue here is whether infidelity becomes a good act in such a case; but rather there are instances in which a person could theoretically be faced with a decision in which all options are evil ... and in such a case, how should a person act?

For example, consider an episode of 24, in which the mother and daughter of Jack Bauer were held hostage. A captor came in to rape the daughter. The mother offered herself instead.

Technically, this was infidelity. But if it is a righteous act to offer up one's life for the sake of a friend (a greater sacrifice), would it not also be a righteous act to offer up one's body for the sake of a friend (a lesser sacrifice)? Or should the mother have simply done nothing, and allowed her daughter to be raped? (The issue here, of course, involves infidelity to save a life ... but if it were agreed that a mother giving up her body to save her daughter from being raped is a righteous act, then surely it would be righteous to do so to save her daughter's life.)[/quote]

[quote]Mathetes presented a strong example and I'm interested to hear your response to it but also how bout the one in the OP, where a Christian women has sex with a Nazi in order to protect the six Jews she was hiding? By your position, the proper thing to do would be to allow the Nazi to find the Jews and murder them (perhaps torture them first). By choosing to value her own purity over the lives of six innocent people, isn't she by default making the choice to allow such a horror to occur? Her guilt would not be the same as the perpetrator's of course, but it would be the guilt of one who has made a foolish (even selfish I would say) choice that had grave results. In the real life situation, the women did what she had to do and saved those people. I loved Prager's response to that. It was simply- "God has common sense" and he scoffed at the idea of God judging her for such a thing. I agree. I do think God has common sense and I do think that God values wisedom and sound judgment over radical adherence to black and white absolute rules.[/quote]


the guy who i quoted in the last post, sounded erriely like Al.
the quy i just quoted, while he epitiomizes my position, he said it so much better than i could have hoped for.

if you start saying "well something evil is going to occur,,, i might as well take it upon myself to do the lesser of them all" as my motto is... that could be applied to many situations, like killing an innocent person when the world is on the fringe of being blown up by a nuke for example. (or you could say it's not evil to begin with if it's the right thing to do... but)

Edited March 22, 2008 by dairygirl4u2c

[Legend Chaser]

Isn't concealment of the truth okay in situations that might endanger someone else? So couldn't you dodge the question, or reword your answer so it wasn't technically a lie?

[Autumn Dusk]

[quote name='Legend Chaser' post='1483012' date='Mar 24 2008, 12:51 PM']Isn't concealment of the truth okay in situations that might endanger someone else? So couldn't you dodge the question, or reword your answer so it wasn't technically a lie?[/quote]

yes.

However, in this thread we seem to be defining just how much we can push the issue of what is a lie.

for instance jews are in the basement and the police ask "do you have any jews here?" and answering "no" is an apparent lie, however someone might say that "here" means this exact spot and not the basement.

The again let's say you witnessed a robbery and one of the jewlers ran off with a box of his favorite items, the thief chased after him with a loaded gun, and already attemted to shoot the guy once or twice. You stand at "T" of an ally and the jewler runs past you and goes to your left. The robber then comes and sais "tell me which way he went or I'll shoot you" but you know full well that if he goes right both you and the jeweler will be spared as the poliece are awaiting him on the right side. So you would you say "he went right"? Its an outright lie

[RandomProddy]

[quote name='Autumn Dusk' post='1483050' date='Mar 24 2008, 05:56 PM']The again let's say you witnessed a robbery and one of the jewlers ran off with a box of his favorite items, the thief chased after him with a loaded gun, and already attemted to shoot the guy once or twice. You stand at "T" of an ally and the jewler runs past you and goes to your left. The robber then comes and sais "tell me which way he went or I'll shoot you" but you know full well that if he goes right both you and the jeweler will be spared as the poliece are awaiting him on the right side. So you would you say "he went right"? Its an outright lie[/quote]

Simple. Act stupid and pretend to instinctively look right whilst not saying anything. Alternatively, fiegn being terrified. Mind you, the person who keeps his composure with a gun pointed at them is a rare thing indeed...

Edit: If you were standing in front of the robber and the jeweller went to his left, to say he went right wouldn't be a lie as he went to [i]your[/i] right. Depends how deceitful you want to be.

Edited March 24, 2008 by RandomProddy

[Aloysius]

the infidelity examples are interesting. I stand by my suggestion that it is better to let the entire world blow up than to kill an innocent man, but it seems sensibilities are more offended if the evil that you're avoiding is an evil you'd take upon yourself more... people might respect you for not killing an innocent man even though it'd save the world, people might not respect you for refusing to masturbate to save the world (sorry, it was the only sin I could think of that really drives home the point of it seeming like a "selfish" thing of just protecting your own purity)

allowing yourself to be raped rather than your daughter is not wrong, it's not infidelity any more than putting yourself into the line of a bullet to save a life would be suicide. you put yourself, as it were, into the line of the rapist and he rapes you; the sin remains his and his alone. you are not engaging in an evil act, you are allowing someone to do an evil act to you without resisting. if non-resistance whilst someone did evil to you were sinful, Our Divine Founder would be guilty of it.

the having sex with a nazi to save your hidden Jews example is a bit more of a pickle. I would probably see it as a form of rape... the nazi is threatening the woman and/or other innocents if she doesn't allow him to rape her. how complicit you get in the sexual act while a gun is to your head telling you to be complicit doesn't matter that much, the sin remains the rapist's. Augustine dealt with that with the crisis of the virgins who were raped in the sacking of Rome. so basically it's "have sex with me or I'll kill these Jews"... that's rape, not infidelity, and the sin is the nazi's alone.

I certainly wouldn't endorse 'just going with the common sense principle' though.. many people have many different versions of "common sense" and often "common sense" is used to justify intrinsically evil acts... some people think it's common sense to abort a baby that resulted from a rape.

as regards all other examples, even if what you say aloud is technically an outright lie, if it is done to conceal a truth which the hearer does not have the moral right to know, then any level of interior justification to keep yourself honest is acceptable. it's not like you have to be a skilled and lawyer-like with words so that you can get away on a technicality, what matters is that you keep your heart honest whilst concealing the truth from those with no moral right to it.