Topics Philosophers

Question I guess Kant said that it is ALWAYS wrong to lie, even in the most extreme circumstances (and not only Kant, see Jonathan Westphal's answer to question 2701). I do not want to discuss that. But would you explain me why did he think that? Why didn't he just say that "in normal circumstances" it's wrong to lie. Or that it is wrong to lie "when no other value is disregarded by not lying"? Or something like that... Why did Kant (and some modern philosophers) feel he should make such an extreme claim? It's just that Kant's opinion seems to be so contrary to common sense that there must have been a good reason for him to have it... What reason was (or is) that?

Accepted:
December 30, 2010

Comments

Kant believed that you should only permit yourself to do what you could will all others to be permitted to do as well. So you are to ask yourself: what if the maxim on which I am about to act were available to all others as well?

Here is an example. Hijackers are holding 200 passengers hostage in a plane. They are threatening to kill passengers one by one unless their demands are met. Being the designated police negotiator, you might be able to win time by telling them, falsely, that the government is making arrangements toward meeting some of their demands.

Here Kant would say: suppose your proposed maxim -- lie to hijackers to postpone the execution of hostages -- were universally available. Then everyone would understand that such lies are permissible. And then hijackers could not be influenced by such lies -- they, too, would know that in a situation like the present you are permitted to lie. So the lie you are about to permit to yourself can work only because this permission isn't universal.

Now why should it matter that what you are about to permit yourself wouldn't work as a universal permission? In first approximation, it matters because the reprieve you might get for the present hostages is bought at the expense of greater risks for other hostages. If lies are part of standard police practice in response to hijackings, then lies don't work: hostage takers will not take as evidence the words of police negotiators. Conversely, if police negotiators follow a policy of being truthful even to hijackers, then their words will be credible, and this could of course be quite helpful. By lying, you are free-riding on the truthfulness of other (previous) negotiators, who built up credibility; and you are undermining the efforts of other (future) negotiators, who will lack credibility.

The previous paragraph doesn't quite state Kant's argument. What I wrote is more empirical and so subject to all sorts of empirical issues that Kant would not have deemed relevant (e.g., do hostage takers research previous hostage takings?; are their decisions about whether to trust or not rational?; and so on). Still, what I wrote does get to Kant's central thought: in constructing a morality -- rules about what I may or must not do -- I should think of the sought morality as one that would be followed not merely by myself once, or even by myself always, but by all rational agents throughout all time. A morality so constructed could organize our common life: known by all and shared by all, its rules could successfully coordinate our interactions and lead us to enrich one another's lives.