tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post7277360426683741174..comments2024-03-28T19:56:42.305-05:00Comments on Alexander Pruss's Blog: Miscellaneous thoughts on lyingAlexander R Prusshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-55967112152027106752010-02-01T08:59:12.124-06:002010-02-01T08:59:12.124-06:00A nice point one of our grad students made is that...A nice point one of our grad students made is that while my Christian-oriented argument may work against adopting the rule: <em>tell the truth except to prevent a great evil</em>, the argument is compatible with the rule: <em>tell the truth except to those who have no right to the truth</em>. (I guess everyone has a right to hear the Gospel truthfully.) I reject adopting the second rule, too, but the argument in my post doesn't show that it should be rejected.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-10409430957393934162010-01-30T13:50:18.470-06:002010-01-30T13:50:18.470-06:00Speaking with a false implicature is different fro...Speaking with a false implicature is different from lying. One can, at least sometimes, handle the false implicature with the doctrine of double effect.<br /><br />What one becomes committed to by asserting p is just p--not any implicatures of one's asserting.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-60034646134737194822010-01-29T04:18:00.381-06:002010-01-29T04:18:00.381-06:00I wonder if a problem for these thoughts is that p...I wonder if a problem for these thoughts is that people will tend to assume that other people, even clearly honest people, would probably lie to prevent a great evil (and perhaps ought to). So if someone appears to be such that she would never lie, not least because she seems to value being good so highly (e.g. because she is clearly a saint), then people will still be unlikely to presume that she would not be lying to prevent a great evil.<br /><br />In the Christian context, there is the story of Jesus going to Jerusalem after His disciples, having implied to them that He would not be going (which Iris Murdoch, for example, takes to be an instance of His lying, and not obviously to prevent a great evil), although only by not telling the whole truth. And in the atheistic context, there is reason to believe that apes (like children) naturally lie, and that honesty (and justice) developed because such virtues help to keep the tribe functioning as a unit. There is nonetheless evolutionary pressure to lie if that would prevent a great evil.Martin Cookehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11425491938517935179noreply@blogger.com