Re: Ask The Mineshaft Special Edition: An Ethical Inquiry

1

The ethical thing to do is to kill and part your interlocutor, if only to prevent him from bothering other members of the community down the road.

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Lie, lie, lie.

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3

Although I think a scornful, "That's none of your business," wouldn't be seen as an admission in most cases. Politicians get treated differently.

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Any philosophers out there want to take a whack at it?

I'm not going to dignify that with an answer. "Whack", indeed.

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5

In general, nobody has an ethical right to keep a secret. All knowledge should be in common; everybody's life should be an open book. By arrogating to yourself the right to keep secrets, you are furthering the decline of humanity. Lying and refusing to answer are equally deserving of scorn. Reprobate!

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Re: 3. Yes, the private sphere can be different.

My grandfather perfected an affronted, "That's personal!" that usually managed to convey his intended, "And where were *you* raised that such questions are considered appropriate?" and cause the questioner to retreat, abashed.

It only works in certain situations, though - you have to have the moral authority (or, I suppose, the social class weight) to be able to cow the other person.

When confronted with a situation where this kind of answer won't work, I think it's appropriate to use your best judgment to do what is necessary to protect the person in question. I recall a letter to Miss Manners a long while back, in which a person asked whether it was permissible to lie about why she never wanted to have photos taken of her (by friends, in social situations, etc.). The real answer was that she had been abused as a child and photos had been part of it. Miss Manners said (IIRC), absolutely. The writer had no obligation to tell the entire world about her difficult childhood.

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7

It depends on who is asking the question, right? There are some people to whom you owe no duty to answer personal questions truthfully, and there are some people to whom you should never lie, no matter how intrusive the question.

I am in the second group, just so you know.

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8

Let me just understand what the rules are of this strange new world in which the only options are to tell the truth or to lie. Besides telling people that the question was out of bounds or simply not responding at all until they get the hint, can I answer in a way that is obviously a joke and then not followup with the truth? Can I just change the topic? If not, can I say true things that imply teh false, or do I really have to just lie?

I also think there's basically no one in either of text's categories, and rather there are many people on a continuum between them. I mean, you have to be in Kantian murderer at the door land for me to think you have no duty towards truth, and Kant of course thinks you do in that place as well.

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9

Besides telling people that the question was out of bounds or simply not responding at all until they get the hint, can I answer in a way that is obviously a joke and then not followup with the truth? Can I just change the topic?

You can do any of those things -- the question is whether they will work, or whether they will be taken as an implicit admission.

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10

I agree, there's probably a continuum. But I don't think I owe any duty of truthfulness regarding personal questions asked by a complete stranger on the street. Likewise, I think one owes a duty to one's spouse to never lie about personal secrets, if only for the reason that lies between spouses damage the relationship. Maybe nobody fully meets that duty. Small lies probably don't do noticeable damage, but with regard solely to what we should do, we should never lie to our spouses about personal secrets.

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11

whether they will work

That's context-dependent in a lot of ways. The issue of what belief the above possible responses will cause in your questioner is context dependent. The issue of how confident your questioner wants to be in the answer to their question is context dependent, and the issue of what consequences might befall you if your questioner believes some answer with some level of confidence is context dependent. All of those go into whether one of those responses above, or lying, or telling the truth, is the right response.

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If you are in a situation where you can't get out of revealing a secret, offer a blow job.

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Just remember, any time you are in a room with me, you are in a situation where you can't get out of revealing a secret.

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14

Can I give you a blow job instead, Tia?

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15

We need to get Tia in a room with Abu Zubaydah.

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16

I don't think I owe any duty of truthfulness regarding personal questions asked by a complete stranger on the street.

You don't have any duty, and probably no reason at all, to answer them, yet alone answer in a way that appears to be informative. If you do answer in such a way, you have a duty not to intentionally cause people to believe false things.

I think one owes a duty to one's spouse to never lie about personal secrets

This situation, with provisos like: it's not an abusive relationship, it was entered in a truly consensual manner, it doesn't have weird power hierarchies (not denying that all relationship have power hierarchies or power games or what have you, just that this relationship doesn't have more extreme than normal ones), the people in it haven't decided that it's a failed relationship and they're just trying to live through it, is trickier. Married people, thoughts?

[Did the site just break for 10 minutes?]

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17

The Lying Baptists say yes. The Honest Baptists say no.

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Yeah, the site broke for about 10 minutes. Still not sure why.

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19

We'd been on such a roll!

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20

I think that everyone has a duty to lie to their spouse whenever telling the truth would cause some kind of problem. It's a form of respect.

They may say that they want you always to be truthful, in which case you say, "I will always be truthful". Easy.

If they find out that you were lying, say "It was because I love you so much".

If they get mad about your lying, they probably would have got mad about something or another (for example, the truth) anyway, and probably it means that they don't really love you.

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21

14: That would be revealing a secret.

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22

Hey, I remember playing Truth or Blow Job in high school.

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23

I wonder what percentage of the American population had one of their formative kisses pursuant to a Truth or Dare game?

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23: Or one of their formative blowjobs.

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25

with regard to strangers: From what source arises this duty not to mislead regarding information that has no relevance to the stranger? If a stranger asks "how many lovers have you had," and you answer three when it was, in fact, five, how is that in any meaningful way different from saying "I refuse to answer?"

with regard to spouses: if the relationship is abusive, failed, etc., there may be reasons why the duty not to lie is overcome by other considerations. But the duty is still there, and in the absence of those considerations, is informative as to how we should act. I'm not married, true.

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20: JE, will you be my marriage counselor?

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27

Sissela Bok wrote not one but two books on this & related subjects, Lying and Secrets.

I read these for class, like (stops to mentally subtract), 15 years ago, so I don't recall too much, but I believe Bok reluctantly came out in favor of the privacy-preserving white lie, for the reasons cited in the post.

The classic case, of course, is Kant's case of the axe murderer who bursts into your house, demanding the location of your friend who just fled inside & is hiding in the closet. Can you lie to the murderer? Nope, says Kant, for the same reason your kindergarten teacher wouldn't let you go to the restroom during class: what if everybody did that?

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28

I sometimes lie to make my stories better. I usually confess it after I'm done telling the story, but not always. What does Kant say about that?

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29

Text honey, do you think I've gotten fatter since the wedding?

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30

What about protecting someone else's information? If friend X asks me "is friend x seeing anyone?" and the answer is yes but friend x has explicitly asked me to keep it secret and I have agreed, I can do nothing but lie. Even "I don't know" and "Not to my knowledge" are lies.

I guess if you have an ethical duty not to lie, then you can never promise anyone to keep a secret.

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31

I used to ask Graham if he thought I'd gained weight, if I needed to lose it, and if I was high-maintenance. He answered all questions truthfully. (I know because I didn't get the "good" answer for all of them.) One of the great things about Graham was that I could be as annoying as I wanted. And then once I asked him if I was obnoxious, and he said, "By all rights you should be, but somehow you aren't."

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32

Crap. First "friend X" should be "friend y".

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33

my dear, you look ravishing. Let me offer you . . .

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34

I think that Kantian ethics can be valuable when it tells you to do the right thing, whatever the cost, in important critical situations.

I do not think that Kantian ethics is at all valuable for the smaller questions of daily life. Much to everyone's surprise, it has turned out that he did probably did have a girlfriend after all, but it's hard to think of him as a fount of worldly wisdom.

By Eichmann's time, alas, Kantian ethics had been reduced to absolute obedience to Duty without regard for one's own personal feelings. Eichmann actually did not like killing Jews but felt obligated to do it.

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35

to clarify: I think you have a duty not to lie to your spouse about personal secrets. I'm not quite so foolish to say you can never lie about anything.

With regard to keeping someone else's secrets, I'm not sure. I suspect that telling your spouse the secret is different from telling the guy in the next cubicle. It may be expected, even by the person who told you the secret.

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36

Here's a good example, if it hasn't been brought up yet: a not-obviously-homosexual job candidate gets asked about his sexual preferences at an interview. (Let's assume this is legal, and not discuss the morality of asking the question.)

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37

text, I wasn't objecting that you aren't married, I was asking if the married people have insights they wanted to share. And I think your duty not to make people believe false things doesn't arise from any relationship or, alternatively, it arises from the sentient being - sentient being relationship. Which is the same place I think your duty not to punch strangers in the face arises from, though I am not saying the duites are of equal force.

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38

I suspect that telling your spouse the secret is different from telling the guy in the next cubicle.

Why not just cut out the middle-person? We all know how gossipy women are.

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39

I think that Kantian ethics can be valuable when it tells you to do the right thing, whatever the cost, in important critical situations.

High-minded as I like to get, I ultimately have to say I'm a quasi-Kantian on utilitarian grounds. I really can't understand the notion of subscribing to a morality with no regard for its consequences.

So I end up with what I think is called rule-utilitarianism, that the greatest good is most likely achieved by never breaking certain rules and adhering to others most of the time. Act-utilitarianism, where you run the calculus on each proposed act, is (1) impossible and (2) easily perverted to justify whatever sneaky thang yo heart desires.

As for the example, I have no problem universalizing the maxim, "lie to would-be killers when they seek the location of their innocent victims," but somehow I don't think that's what Kant had in mind.

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36: Depends how much he wants the job.

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41

36: Is it a blow job he's applying for?

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42

sorry to be touchy, w/d. You probably have a more coherent approach to this; I'm just stabbing wildly.

I guess I think moral duties arise ultimately from purely pragmatic concerns. You have a duty not to lie about important things to your spouse because doing so makes your relationship worse, and could hurt your spouse. I don't see the same pragmatic concerns at work with the stranger.

Re: the legal question. I'm not sure it would be illegal to lie about sexual orientation at a job interview. In an ideal world, we would all refuse to answer such questions--straight or gay.

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43

High-minded as I like to get, I ultimately have to say I'm a quasi-Kantian on utilitarian grounds.

But that doesn't make any sense!

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44

Married people, thoughts?

Sometimes lies damage a marriage, sometimes truth damages a marriage. I don't think a blanket statement is useful here.

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45

hmmm. I think I'm a rule utilitarian also. Now I can sound informed. Thanks Anderson!

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46

I don't think a blanket statement is useful here.

Probably true of when you are "allowed" to lie or not, as well.

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47

I don't think there's any duty to truth outside of the practical difference the truth makes to the audience either. You may not always be in the best position to judge that, but still.

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48

But text, consequentialism isn't a wizard cocksucker moral theory!

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49

Looking back on that post, what Labs wrote doesn't make sense to me. I don't have an intuition against lying that exists apart from what I think the bad consequences of lying are.

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50

Whenever Kant comes up, I immediately think of that line from Hedwig: "I got kicked out of university after delivering a brilliant lecture on the aggressive influence of German philosophy on rock and roll entitled 'You, Kant, Always Get What You Want'."

That never fails to amuse me.

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51

27: I've seen the Sissela Bok book in bookstores a couple of times and considered getting it, but I though I should ask some blogger or other's opinion of it first.

Also, the murderer at the door example is teh suxx in part because what you should do isn't lie or not, it's slam the door in the murderer's face and go find something to use as a weapon, or call the police, or barricade the door, or get your friend and start running with him or her.

36: But if I were to say it's fine to lie about that, it would be because it's an unjust question and given the circumstances most evasion techniques will fail. I'm not sure I think it's all right to lie there even if the question is unjust, but following your request to not conisder the morality of the question, I couldn't possibly come to that conclusion. I don't think it would be ok to lie about the answer to the question "are you left or right handed?" in a job interview where that fact was in fact irrelevant to the job. The difference in your example is that it can be presumed that the interview unjustly cares about the answer.

43: But his point that the narrowness or broadness of maxims is never adequately explained does.

47: I'm not a Kantian, I neverheless read your statement as, "It's fine to lie to me most of the time."

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52

It makes no sense to me either. Rule-utilitarianism rules!11!!11!!!11!!

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53

Agree with Tia and text.

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47: I'm not a Kantian, I neverheless read your statement as, "It's fine to lie to me most of the time."

It's better to tell the truth than not most of the time because communication would break down if we didn't basically think people's statements corresponded to how they saw the truth. But if I'm telling a story and I want to make it flow or build better, I think it's just fine to muck around with the details.

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55

"If you do answer in such a way, you have a duty not to intentionally cause people to believe false things."

But if some stranger suspects you're, say, a homosexual, and asks you straight out, and you say "no way" in a convincing way, they still won't be convinced, because they know that it's the sort of thing that people don't admit to. So you haven't convinced them of a falsehood, you've really just given them no information.

On the other hand, if the questioner is a close friend, but you're still quite closeted and don't want to tell them, then an answer like "no way" would probably convince them that you don't think you're homosexual.

Another example. If you have some secret you want to keep from your spouse, and you have explicitly told them (in a context that doesn't give hints about what the secret is) that you *do* have some personal secrets, and they're OK with that, then is it OK to give a negative answer where a positive one would reveal the secret?

I sort of agree that many spousal relationships have some promise somewhere not to keep secrets from each other, and that if that was never discussed it's sometimes implicitly expected. But I don't think it's a universal, and definitely not a necessary feature of that type of relationship.

"And I think your duty not to make people believe false things doesn't arise from any relationship or, alternatively, it arises from the sentient being - sentient being relationship."

Do you think people have a right to keep secrets about themselves, at least in certain contexts? If so, you see that the two rights (to keep secrets, to not be told falsehoods) are in conflict in situations like these. And you think that the right not to be told a falsehood should trump the right to keep a secret?

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Becks -- I never got the fact that that line had commas in it. Now the world is so much more clear to me.

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57

1. Philosophers who are ethicists can argue for anything, including the moral permissibility of torture. None of our moral compasses work; they all point to Can I get tenure with this argument?.
2. I am horrid at ethics, judging by my (total lack of) success in ethics courses.

But hey, I impersonate a philosopher on the internets, so:

First off, let's distinguish between 'a duty to tell the truth' and 'the likelihood that anyone will believe that I am truthful if I refrain from answering the question.' Why? Because I'll put it back in later.

So, we might have a duty to tell the truth. But that duty's a pain in the ass to defend, so let's start with a weaker duty that does nearly as much work instead: the duty not to tell lies. This gives you more good options when someone asks you a question: tell truth, or keep your mouth shut.

Just because something's a duty doesn't mean it can't be trumped by another duty or obligation, of course. (Major handwaving, but this is a sketch in a fucking comment box.) So, I might have to weigh a duty not to tell lies against a duty to keep a secret, or against a right to privacy.

So we might say, as a first mangling of ethics, that: we have a general duty not to tell lies, and that duty is consistent with the right to keep personal information private. (Or we can say I have a duty to tell the truth, but it's overruled by a duty to myself or others to keep secrets.) Or we must not tell lies, but we must not reveal secrets, so lies are permissible when defending your promise to someone else.

Now we add a new condition: what's the duty of a public official regarding the truth? It doesn't seem implausible that it could be higher than that of a private citizen. So maybe, generally, we can tell people 'mind your own business' when they inquire about our private affairs, but a public official is called to a higher standard. And you might be at a higher standard if you're under oath in a courtroom.

Let's put the practical part back in. What if, by the politician's saying nothing, everyone will assume guilt? I think, if it's really true that by saying nothing you're misleading the audience, you're probably better off morally telling the truth. And I think this might be because there's just less of a expectation of privacy of personal details for public officials.

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58

I don't have an intuition against lying that exists apart from what I think the bad consequences of lying are.

Really? I think I do. How are we constraining consequences? Does "feeling ashamed" constitute a consequence? It's sort of circular, because I like when I'm ashamed, and ashamed when I lie.

But then again, having an intuition against lying that rests on the consequence of feeling ashamed because you forewent your intution against lying is pretty damn circular, too.

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59

"lie when I'm ashamed"

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60

I like your first formulation better, silvana.

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61

Sissela Bok wrote not one but two books on this & related subjects, Lying and Secrets.

Isn't her daughter some big-time blogger?

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62

with regard to pdf's spousal secret scenario:

If it is agreed that there will be some secrets in the relationship, then it should be ok to answer, "I can't tell you, it's a secret." If that in itself gives the answer, I don't know. My guess would be, for the types of secrets that answer would give away, those would not be the appropriate kind, even in a relationship that allows some secrets.

I think keeping a secret without being questioned is of a different order of magnitude from lying affirmatively to keep the secret hidden. I suppose you could have a marriage where it is stipulated "lying is ok" but I can't imagine it outside of joking.

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63

I might mention that during my wretched marriage I always told the truth. I don't think that my wife always did, but who knows?

I normally still tell the truth almost all the time, but that's because I've given up on life.

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64

What about the slippery slope, here? Surely there must be some class of secrets that are OK to protect by lying, and some class that aren't. If you break the couch by jumping up and down on it, it's not valid to keep that a secret, whether lying is involved or not. But homosexuality, or BDSM, or maybe past sexual partners, are the type of thing we consider to be more private, and thus more worthy of this kind of protection. But what's actually the difference?

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65

How many people believe that truth and falsehood are not intrinsic properties of information, but rather social constructs that overlay the information? Has anybody written a book explicating that thesis?

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66

But if some stranger suspects you're, say, a homosexual, and asks you straight out

Say you appreciate the flattery, but you don't swing that way. This really is a prober response. If you think "I don't swing that way" will still be read as informative in that context(I don't) and isn't true, say "I'm not interested."

and you say "no way" in a convincing way, they still won't be convinced, because they know that it's the sort of thing that people don't admit to.

I don't think that can be seen as anything but an attempt to cause someone to believe a falsehood, even if it happens that the stranger discounts the credibility of your statement to the point of being neutral about its truth.

Do you think people have a right to keep secrets about themselves, at least in certain contexts? If so, you see that the two rights (to keep secrets, to not be told falsehoods) are in conflict in situations like these.

I'm not sure this is a good context for "rights" talk. What's wrong with saying that in many contexts, if you have only the choice to say something that you believe to be false or reveal a secret, you are both doing wrong (if you say the thing you believe to be false) and have been wronged by the person who put you in that situation.

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67

And, yes, I think that in certain kinds of relationships, people can be held to higher standards of truth and transparency. Generally, the more power someone has, the less privacy they ought to have in a healthy democratic society.

On the other hand, I would think that even the President would have a right to hide a fact like homosexuality, so I'm not sure that the standards really change that much.

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Ben is a serious philosopher & I'm not, but I don't get his objection to consequentialism (apparently the better word for what I was calling "utilitarianism"; I guess C. is broader than U., since C. could aim at "whatever works out best for Dick Cheney").

From the post he linked: our moral intuitions strongly suggest contraints that are (at least somewhat) independent of utility.

See, when I hear "intuition," I reach for my revolver. It's useful shorthand, but where did these intuitions come from? They came from centuries, nay millenia, of applied ethics and natural selection. Which is one reason our intuitions are so messy.

As for my "Kantian utilitarianism" not making sense, well of course I put it as obnoxiously as possible. But I think it's plausible to say that killing my neighbor's kids is just plain wrong, in the sense that any good to be derived therefrom is beyond rational capacity to calculate, whereas the good from enforcing the rule "hey! don't kill your neighbor's kids!" appears easy to appreciate.

If somehow I had to kill my neighbor's kids to save my own, I might do it, but I wouldn't think I'd been especially moral in doing so; I'd plead desperation, duress, whatever.

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65: It's kind of a newish area in philosophy, and controversial, but fun: pretense theories of truth.

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70

Isn't her daughter some big-time blogger?

Yes, but she keeps it a (lightly-guarded) secret. Which I guess tells us something about how she interprets her mom's book?

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61, 70: You mean I didn't write that part of 51 for no reason at all? Interesting.

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72

"I'm not sure this is a good context for "rights" talk."

Well, one could certainly say that both the question and the misleading answer are wrong. But I have an intuition that rights have a hierarchy, and that sometimes when they come into conflict, one of them wins out. But you say, when there's a conflict, they both still apply? Needless to say, my thinking here is pretty fuzzy and cuddly and warm.

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Maybe my intuition can be started more clearly in terms of utilitarianism. I think that when two different utilitarian rules of thumb (as in rule-utilitarianism) give conflicting advice, that it doesn't mean that the action has both a positive and negative utility. Indeed, that's incoherent. And so we can sit here in comments threads and contemplate and decide, when rule A and B come into conflict, as it turns out, A is usually the better rule of thumb. So let's follow A.

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74

I think that everyone has a duty to lie to their spouse whenever telling the truth would cause some kind of problem. It's a form of respect.

John Emerson has it right.

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75

44 is right. You have a duty in a marriage to know the other person, to know yourself, to be considerate and kind, and to try to communicate honestly. Part of that involves knowing what kinds of things are sore spots, what kinds of things you may not yet be ready to discuss openly, what kinds of things are difficult, and so on. Sometimes this may involve lying, hopefully not often.

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76

74, 75: Comity!

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77

a not-obviously-homosexual job candidate gets asked about his sexual preferences at an interview

But what if he is an innocent victim of Teh Gay Bomb? Then it's like, not his fault and stuff...

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78

As a married person, I agree with 44 and B's elaboration in 75.

Yet 20 still holds an irresistable appeal for me. There is much wisdom in Emerson's words.

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79

You have a duty in a marriage to know the other person, to know yourself, to be considerate and kind, and to try to communicate honestly.

Yes, and someone able to do all those things comes along every 500 years or so, and is normally crucified.

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79: Hey, I try to do all those things and I still can't get a date. As rare as that type of man may be, so rare is that type of woman.

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81

I don't believe such a thing as a rule that tells you whether it would maximize utility (either the utility of the people in the interaction, world average utility, or world total utility) to in most cases lie about things that reasonable people would want to keep secret (or even the particular secret of homosexuality) or to reveal them is knowable nor that it would tell us anything that important if it were.

Let me also reiterate that my position on the stranger case was most simply stated when I said, "You don't have any duty, and probably no reason at all, to answer them, yet alone answer in a way that appears to be informative. If you do answer in such a way, you have a duty not to intentionally cause people to believe false things." When I said "a duty" I didn't (and don't) mean something that can't be overcome by other considerations, it's just a factor to be weighed, which text initially denied. And if it turns out to be outweighed by prudential factors, you're going to do something a little bit wrong. It's not a big deal. I don't think one's desire to keep one's own secrets creates a dilemma between different ethical factors, though as I also said earlier it could well be wrong to put someone in a situation where they must do this.

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82

Nonsense. In most good marriages, both partners do those things pretty well. Admittedly most marriages aren't that good, but good marriages aren't that rare.

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83

Wow, this conversation is moving fast. I had a little point to make following Wolfson's that I thought it was a shame that "Wizard cocksucker" in Labs' original post had been redacted in favor of "[completely satisfying]."

Also, I want to say something that has been said before. I think that John Emerson's sayings need to be put together and published. Emerson's Aphorisms might be an appropriate title, but I'm sure that the Mineshaft could come up with a better one.

I'm completely serious. It would provide income to him and provide the world with humorous, common-sense wisdom. Does anyone know anyone in publishing who might be interested? Are there ways to self-publish without it being just a vanity printing?

Okay, now I have to read the rest of teh thread.

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84

I'm having trouble reconciling I don't believe such a thing as a rule that tells you whether it would maximize utility... is knowable and didn't (and don't) mean something that can't be overcome by other considerations, it's just a factor to be weighed. Are you saying that the factors must be weighed, but it doesn't matter how the individual weighs the factors?

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85

Expanding on 83, I think that it's *essential* that in the promotional materials grisly John is pictured in a raccoon cap.

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86

84: No, though fuck! because that's a reasonable reading and not at all what I meant. Give me a minute.

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87

"I don't believe such a thing as a rule that tells you [...] is knowable nor that it would tell us anything that important if it were."

That is one huge embedded restrictive clause, dude.

So, you're saying you don't think it's possible for us to evaluate whether following such a rule would tend to increase utility? But that sounds silly. If the rule {that letting people know facts about you that will cause them to be irrationally hostile to you is very bad} is weighed against the rule {that telling people falsehoods is pretty bad}, then we have "very bad to tell them the truth" - "pretty bad to tell them a lie" = "slightly bad to tell them the truth". Now, that analysis might be flawed, but I don't think that sort of analysis is necessarily invalid, and so I think that such a rule is indeed knowable.

And it wouldn't tell us anything important? Here I'm pretty lost.

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88

85: "cap" s/b "outfit".

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89

85: "John is pictured in a raccoon cap" s/b "John is pictured in a raccoon"

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90

John is pictured in a raccoon cap

Or at very least, a mullet.

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91

apostropher wins.

Again.

Dammit.

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92

84 again: I was in the process of putting together a long really answer, but it wasn't going well. In the first part I was saying I don't think the results of a utilitarian calculus, which would determine which rule is correct, can be figured out and that if it could be figured out i wouldn't really care, because I'm not a utilitarian. That is, while I think there are questions which would be answered by calculating the world average or world total utils, I don't think that every ethical question is like that. A utilitarian does.

In the second I'm saying in our particular hypothetical of a stranger asking you if you're homosexual, it's entirely possible that your desire to keep your secret, because of the ethical or unethical things that other people might do, might rationally convince you to ignore your obligation to not intentionally cause people to believe falsehoods. This isn't a big deal, but one shouldn't believe that in doing that they didn't do anything wrong.

87: I don't think rule utilitarianism looks at conflcits of rules in coming up with new ones. And it's not at all clear that either of the rules you propose to compare in order to come up with a new rule would be generated by looking at which rule, by being applied in every case, is most likely to maximize world net or world average utility.

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"I don't think rule utilitarianism looks at conflcits of rules in coming up with new ones."

Why shouldn't it?

"And it's not at all clear that either of the rules you propose to compare in order to come up with a new rule would be generated by looking at which rule [...]"

So you're saying you don't think either of the two rule I compare to make the third are good utilitarian rules? I was taking that as a given. Perhaps you're not a utilitarian, but I think it's valid to translate your general principles into utilitarian language.

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Why shouldn't it?

Doing so is likely to not maximize either net or average utility.

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might rationally convince you to ignore your obligation to not intentionally cause people to believe falsehoods.

But what's doing the work there? Are you being convinced that there would be greater harm, if only to your own self-interests, if you told the truth? Is the important thing that you acknowledge you're still doing something wrong? It appears that you're comparing two outcomes, and choosing an action based on the weights and probabilities assigned to those outcomes. My only exposure to utilitarianism is through a polysci class or two, but that sort of comparison feels utilitarian.

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94:

If a rule you follow because, in general, it tends to maximize utility, comes into conflict with another such rule, it's obvious that one of the rules has failed to be useful. So you scrap the rules, start from a general calculus, and figure out which one comes closer to maximizing utility.

Or, maybe the rules come built in telling you how much they affect utility. It's pretty obvious that the rule to never kill anyone has a huge effect on world utility, while the rule to not lie has a much smaller effect. So if the two rules come into conflict, it's a pretty safe bet that the stronger rule is the one to follow, the one that will more likely maximize utility.

And in this case, I think that the stronger rule is that you don't have to disclose certain information about yourself.

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the one that will more likely maximize utility.

That's a funny way to spell blowjobs.

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98

There are types of utilitarianism which actually weight all preferences in coming to a conclusion. In this type of utilitarianism, if anti-homosexual bigots gain more from mistreating homosexuals than gay people and people who feel bad about gay people being harmed lose from it, than anti-gay bigots should mistreat homosexuals. This sort of utilitarianism is just stupid, though I guess some one might disagree. Then there's the better informed preference utilitarianism, which disregards some preferences in its weighting. There there's me. In this thread, I've been disregarding a ton of preferences in trying to figure out what I think is ethical, while allowing that those preferences are relevant to one's decisionmaking processing and might cause you to do something which is unethical, especially lying about your secret prerson characteristics to a stranger on the street, which is only a very minor ethical slip.

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processing s/b process
prerson s/b personal

If a rule you follow because, in general, it tends to maximize utility, comes into conflict with another such rule, it's obvious that at least one of the rules has failed to be useful. So you scrap the rules, start from a general calculus, and quite possibly come up with a completely new rule, which adequately deals with new harms and benefits in the new situation, with new levels of utility assigned to those harms and to those benefits.

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"There are types of utilitarianism which actually weight all preferences in coming to a conclusion."

You mean, that give weight to intentional preferences, preferences that the people in question have? I don't think intentional preferences should be given weight directly, though I think that they will generally end up being favored.

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I think rule utilitarianism generally collapses into act utilitarianism, but I don't have a good argument for that except that smarter people than I have made such an argument.

rationally convince you to ignore your obligation to not intentionally cause people to believe falsehoods. This isn't a big deal, but one shouldn't believe that in doing that they didn't do anything wrong.

There's a tension here, but I think it's because I'm being a little bitch about what the modifier 'rationally' entails. There's a couple ways to read this.

1) Denying that one is a homosexual, in apparent violation of a general prohibition against perpetuating falsehoods, should count as an *exception* to the rule because the expectation of personal privacy about one's sexual habits overrules the duty to tell the truth.

Short form: not a moral wrong to lie here.

2) Denying that one is a homosexual is in violation of a general prohibition against perpetuating falsehoods. But, due to the personal nature of sexual relationshps, we expect, though not condone, that people will lie if pressed on this issue.

Short form: a moral wrong, but perhaps not a very serious one.

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99: Yeah, that too. In this case it turns out to be the same difference, since the choice is binary. But that's what I should have said.

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98: It seems as if you're saying that people might do the wrong thing (lie to the stranger), describing why they might lie, and indicating that such a lie remains wrong, but not a very big wrong. But the description can be dropped, can't it? It doesn't matter how you justify the lie--maybe you just enjoy lying--because the wrongness of lying is independent of the description. Is that right?

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"I think rule utilitarianism generally collapses into act utilitarianism"

Or, "ought to collapse". That's the framework I'm working from.

"Short form: a moral wrong, but perhaps not a very serious one."

My understanding of w/d is that he endorses this one.

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101: I'm still undecided about whether I should have said "rationally." Your 2) is what I'm saying.

103: I'm not actually saying it's always wrong to lie. If your lie was in response to certain threats or coercion, or for that matter other lies, I wouldn't think it's wrong at all, as the person you're speaking to has waived your obligation not to make them think false things. Besides stuff like that and others exceptions I'm not thinking of right now, lying is bad. But it's badness can certainly depend on the circumstances, which not only include who you're lying to (stranger on the street) but what you're lying about (sexual orientation here, but what if it were where the nearest hospital is).

I'm not sure if any of that previous stuff gets at what you're now asking about though. Is your question about the motivation to tell this particularly lie to this particular person? I'm not sure if I think lying to a stranger on the street about your sexual orientation because of their and others possible reaction and it's none of their business is as bad as saying the same thing, to the same person, for pleasure. Surely I find the second more blameworthy, but perhaps I'm not following the principles I previously stated. Maybe I'm just responding that way because people who lie for pleasure are more likely to do it more often than other people.

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106

"Is your question about the motivation to tell this particularly lie to this particular person?"

As I've said, I think the nature of the thing being concealed is actually highly important, and I think that different people in different contexts differ in what they can justly expect you to not conceal. (I imagine SCMT would agree.)

I do think the motivation for the lie is important. If you justly want to conceal a certain piece of information, and you lie in order to conceal it, then it's OK. If you lie, and it happens to conceal that information, but the reason you lie is that you enjoy lying, then I don't think it is OK, because then the lie isn't *about* concealing the information, even though it has that effect.

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This is a fine discussion, but it seriously needs more cock jokes.

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What you quote is a question to SCMT, but I appreciate your answer. Does justly conceal = reasonably believe that the questioner and/or others will be hostile if you don't conceal and has no particular interest in knowing what is concealed? That's what I take it to mean and I still think it's just a kind of preference that can't justify lying absent threats, coercion, lies, or other violence from the questioner. I also still think the best thing to do is not give an informative answer. Quote the damn Onion headline or something.

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Quote the damn Onion headline or something.

But update it with some fresh language.

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I was about to comment in that other thread, which I just caught up on, that our favorite onion story was getting a lot of attention today.

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Is your question about the motivation to tell this particularly lie to this particular person?

Right. I take my 103 to be essentially the same as Cala's #2 in 102. And my question is whether due to the personal nature of sexual relationshps, we expect, though not condone is merely a description of our expectations about how you will act, with no effect on our sense of whether or not (or how much) you are wrong to so act. What changes in Cala's #2 if I replace the quoted phrase with "because you're a fucker"? It seems as everything she's written before the original phrase remains the same, as does everything after it. And those two parts seem to be the only important parts of the analysis.

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Just to clarify the issues, let's bracket out a complicating factor and ask: "Is it OK for straight people to lie?"

Also, taking Mark Twain's point into consideration, "Is it OK for straight people, who have not been asked by murderous savages whether children are hiding nearby, to lie?"

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SCMT, what would change, probably, is our estimation of the liar's character, and maybe how likely we would be to forgive the person. (Cf. Clinton and 'but who wouldn't lie about getting a blowjob?') Strictly speaking, if we're being all super-deontologisty about this, a violation of a law is a violation of a law, and it's just as bad to lie about a little thing as a big thing.

But I think we do feel a pretty strong intuitive pull towards Well, it was wrong to lie, but he had a good reason because that sort of stuff is personal. It might not excuse his guilt in lying (we conclude, all things considered, he still should have told the truth) even as we find it understandable ('but we all have moments of weakness').

I think #1 is probably a more correct, but I've not thought about it all that much.

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"and it's just as bad to lie about a little thing as a big thing."

But often this type of lie is a pretty big lie.

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Yeah, I was going to say that the guy who lies because he's a fucker is more blameworthy, except there's already a whole bunch of concepts bouncing around this thread, and adding another vague one isn't going to increase clarity. But I like most of what Cala said, except that I keep wanting to say that I don't think our hypothetical guy should have told the truth, I think he should have refused to answer in an apparently informative fashion. It's only after choosing not to use this out that it becomes a problem that he didn't tell the truth.

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Prescribing yet more rules that I make up as I go: Bigness of a lie should be judged by predictable effect on hearer, not on importance of thing lied about to speaker.

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What if one lies about the bigness of one's cock, but only by a little, and for noble purposes?

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It depends. Was the guy you were lying to really hot?

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Well, he was sweating a lot, but that could have just been 'cause he was nervous.

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But I'm notorious for having no morals whatsoever, so this may not be the most ethically defensible position. Any philosophers out there want to take a whack at it?

What's with all the philosophy shit? Aren't we supposed to be talking about LB's morals?

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What morals?

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There's just not that much else to say about them.

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Aren't we supposed to be talking about LB's morals?

What morals?

IRL, LizardBreath is a person of great integrity whom I admire greatly. This crazy LizardBreath web persona, on the other hand, . . . .

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123 -- are you saying she's just faking the Democrat thing?

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Not exactly. However, if I were to go on and say something like "Gee, she really is so sensible, she could be a Republican," she will hunt me down and break my kneecaps, which at my age is a particularly debilitating injury, so maybe I should just stick with 123.

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Probably wisest.

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"I think he should have refused to answer in an apparently informative fashion"

But then he's still trying to mislead, which is just as bad as telling a straight lie, is it not? It's not about what you say, it's about the intended effect on the speaker.

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IRL, LizardBreath is a person of great integrity whom I admire greatly. This crazy LizardBreath web persona, on the other hand, . . . .

Hmm, I like the web persona. Every now and then I look at one of her comments and think she's actually me, except that she thinks more clearly and writes a hell of a lot better.

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Lizardbreath is Dave L's Mary Sue!!!

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Wait, what? By by not apparently informative, I mean they don't appear to the questioner to be supplying the requested information. So, a response of "I'm not sure. I fucked your mother last night, so if she's a man than I guess I'm gay" or other joking responses that I've provided throughout the thread, really are what I think the best way to respond is, practically and ethically.

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Shit, now I'm lost again. Where's Wolfson?

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You must get into lots of fistfights then, w/d.

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I fail to live up to my principles, actually.

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133: I won't subscribe to any moral code that doesn't allow for me to fail it fairly constantly.

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Oh, I see. I interpreted your statement to mean that he should refuse to answer directly, and answer in an only *apparently* informative fashion, not that he should refuse to answer directly or in any apparently informative fashion.

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Oh, you thought the way in which he refused to answer should be apparently informative, rather than that the thing he should refuse to do is provide an apparently informative answer.

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134: I admire your principled stand, sir.

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128: Aw, shucks.

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83: Totally. I've made the observation (can't find the link) before that John Emerson's aphorisms need to be collected in one place, and very recently, someone else (can't remember who) independently came up with that idea.

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Also, the only thing I'm ever asked about by strangers on the street are directions, and I don't lie about them. I did once accidentally direct people to the wrong restaurant.

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140: You're missing out on a great deal of the fun in life.

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I'm also asked for money by strangers on the street, I didn't mention that. SCMT, I'm missing out on fun by not lying to tourists and New Yorkers ignorant of their current surroundings, or by not being asked other questions by strangers on the street?

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In not lying to tourists. And I am kidding.

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I know, but it does sound fun.

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I once gave some people bad directions, and only realized like an hour afterwards. I laugh maniacally.

No, actually I felt guilty. Really.

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laughed. damn

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Is it moral to tell someone who asks you can't spare some change when in reality you can?

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No.

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Is it moral to jingle the change in your pocket, and ask the requestor to "dance for it"?

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Earlier this evening I was walking down the street with two slices of pizza and a guy asked where I got them, so I told him. A few blocks later a woman (probably a tourist) saw me and said "Bon appetit!" Then I sat down on a bench and ate the slices of pizza. They were good.

(This comment apropos of nothing in particular.)

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Like Austro, I lie because I am all alone.

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Has anyone made the point that some utterances are non-assertoric because of their context? (E.g., "a guy walks into a bar..." isn't a lie because it's not really asserting something.) I wonder if our intuitions that certain questions are out of bounds could be used as part of an argument that the conventions governing such contexts make the responses non-assertoric. Not a lie, that is, because not a real assertion. (Compare "how are you?" "I'm fine" in everyday pleasantries.)

Idunno. I'm just that dude from the "what is love" video.

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Cala -- any reading suggestions for finding out about pretense theory of truth? Or is it something that will not be penetrable for a layman?

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it's too late. we're all rule utilitarians now, so we can't have a meaningful dialogue with you.

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I thought 151 was a great way to end the thread. Oh well.

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"we're all" s/b "I am."

"meaningful dialogue" s/b "painful, acrobatic sex."

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"rule utilitarians" s/b "impotent"

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Now there's a thesis for your next conference paper.

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it was a good way, eb, but we like to gild the lily here, or used to like it, before we went impotent.

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What do you mean "we," white man?

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Pretense theories of truth are kind of newish and a bit full of philosophical gamesmanship for the layman. But hey, if you like that sort of thing:

Ken/dall Wal/ton's book Mimesis as Make-Believe is a pretense theory of fiction which is pretty readable. His student J. Woo/dbridge has a couple of papers expanding it into a pretense account of truth. (It's not exactly well accepted, but it's not drawing wholly incredulous stares.)

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"white" s/b "impotent"

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Why the googleproofing, Cala?

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"impotent" s/b "not really impotent"

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Because man it would be a shame if it popped up on a serious search near a cock joke.

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"not really impotent" s/b "very, very not impotent"

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impotent s/b important

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Ok, it's readable. Is it good? Because we like theories of fiction.

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awww nuts.

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Opinions vary.

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Man, I rarely recommend philosophy books to laymen, so it's hard to know what to say. Good? It's pretty engaging, and while has some philosophical flaws, it's hard to say what they are *, and it kinda started most people talking about pretense and fiction. Pretty much everyone who does work in the area ends up citing it as a jumpingn off point, so it's a good introduction.

But it's not fiction in the comp lit sense, exactly, so if you're used to that, you might hate it. But probably not. It's not exasperating in that philosopher-who-has-never-read-fiction sense.

*This is actually pretty high praise, since little is ever settled in philosophy.

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That's a good thread.

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Indeed.

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I like Auerbach. Which I *think* counts as philosophy as well as literary studies.

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Well, this thread left me sore and unsatisfied. Well, it's time to move on anyway.

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Wal/ton's book is only readable if you can resist the urge to throw it across the room.

Cala, I'd maybe be interested in some of those papers, can you come up with some specific references? (And can you email them to me?)

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Well, this thread left me sore and unsatisfied. Well, it's time to move on anyway.

Well, I never cared for shazam anyway.

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Not to say that this thread is so great, but I think with some work, especially a couple of paragraphs explaining my methodology and transitions not based on things that other people said (though I guess I could try the form of a dialogue), cutting and pasting my comments here would be better than some things I turned in in undergrad.

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So cut and paste it together, make it coherent, and put it up on your blog. See if there's an essay there.

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b-wo, what's your e-mail?

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Richard Chappell, answering my near simultaneous requests to him and LizardBreath, responds insightfully here. A juicy quote:

Aside: such examples suggest that it would be a good public strategy for one to regularly assert one's right to privacy as a matter of principle, even when you could happily tell the truth. In other words, don't answer "no" to any question that you wouldn't also have been willing to answer "yes" to. That way, others can't employ those magical information-producing inferences when you try to withhold information from them. If you spurn intrusive questions even when you don't need to, others can no longer infer such a need from the mere fact of your silence. Conversely: an unprincipled privacy is no privacy at all, since your ad hoc silences will be revealing.
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