I love being lied to: it makes me feel important

Many years ago Baltasar Gracian declaimed, "a single lie destroys a whole reputation for integrity." Of course, being a Jesuit, what he really meant was that getting caught in a lie destroys your reputation for integrity (which may just be why he also recommended, "do not hold your views too firmly.")¹ Those of us who aren't fortunate enough to be clinical psychopaths are already well aware of why lying is immoral, regardless of the motive-- for one thing, it's an insult to other people's intelligence² (which I suspect is the real reason why most of us object to being lied to, never mind all our lofty moralising); for another, it's a flagrant contemnation of the essential human need to understand and qualify our existence, via the pursuit of irreducible fact and the concept of 'truth.'

As such, I guess I have difficulty with the reasoning that a lie which causes nobody any direct harm is simply a more advantageous substitute for an unpalatable truth. I think it goes beyond interpersonal trust or propinquity; in a very real sense, when we lie we're actually dehumanising ourselves, and each other, by generating deliberate contraventions (or obstructions) to 'the truth.'³

That said, one can weigh the impact of said dehumanisation (and/or the risk of getting caught in a lie, which is honestly less of a big deal to me) against the potential negative consequences of telling the truth. When the latter is clearly likely to cause more harm or grief than the former, then it's reasonable to lie. In other words, Kevin has it right about the concept of lying with integrity: if you're going to do it, do it for a good reason, and know exactly why you're doing it. Obviously that doesn't make it moral, and a good reason doesn't automatically make it a 'good' thing to do. But honesty is not the same thing as integrity. The former is telling other people the truth; the latter is telling yourself the truth.

If I really have to lie-- and it does take a pretty dire imperative to make me consider it-- that doesn't stop me feeling dismal about it afterwards. Even so, I'll do whatever's necessary to make damn sure I don't get found out-- not least because if I do, all the agonising and self-loathing has been for nothing. And let's face it: it's easier to cope with a bad conscience than with a bad reputation.



¹ On the other hand, it's also worth bearing in mind that a reputation for integrity is easily acquired if you happen to be very good at lying-- a fact which, as someone pointed out in last night's lecture, is vital to the operation of most modern electoral systems.
² Which raises the question: do you feel less bad about lying to stupid people? I know a lot of people have mentioned that they consider it less offensive to lie to strangers than to friends, which I really don't get at all; but what about dumb people compared with smart people? Maybe if we perceive someone's understanding as being more limited, we assume that they don't have as much 'use' for the truth and hence it doesn't matter as much if we lie to them for our own benefit?
³ The quotation marks are because the concept of 'truth' itself, obviously, is often subjective... but that fact doesn't have any moral bearing on its presentation or misrepresentation.