action is right, which, in presence of a lower principle, follows
a higher: every action is wrong, which, in presence of a higher
principle, follows a lower;" and his moral sense will not admit the
possibility of falsehood being at any time higher than truth, or of
veracity ever being lower than a lie.
[Footnote 1: _Types of Ethical Theory_, II., 270.]
Professor Thomas Fowler, of the University of Oxford, writing as a
believer in the gradual evolution of morals, and basing his philosophy
on experience without any recognition of _à priori_ principles, is
much more nearly in accord, at this point,[1] with Martineau, than
with Rothe, Hodge, and Smyth. Although he is ready to concede that
a lie may, theoretically, be justifiable, he is sure that the moral
sense of mankind is, at the present state of average development,
against its propriety. Hence, he asserts that, even when justice
might deny an answer to an improper question, "outside the limits of
justice, and irrespectively of their duty to others, many persons are
often restrained, and quite rightly so, from returning an untruthful
or ambiguous answer by purely self-regarding feelings. They feel that
to give an untruthful answer, even under such circumstances as I
have supposed, would be to burden themselves with the subsequent
consciousness of cowardice or lack of self-respect. And hence,
whatever inconvenience or annoyance it may cost them, they tell the
naked truth, rather than stand convicted to themselves of a want of
courage or dignity."
[Footnote 1: _Principles of Morals_, II., 159-161.]
"Veracity, though this was by no means always the case," Professor
Fowler continues, "has become the point of honor in the upper ranks of
modern civilized societies, and hence it is invested with a sanctity
which seems to attach to no other virtue; and to the uninstructed
conscience of the unreflective man, the duty of telling the truth
appears, of all duties, to be the only duty which never admits of
any exceptions, from the unavoidable conflict with other duties."
He ranges the moral sense of the "upper ranks of modern civilized
societies," and "the uninstructed conscience of the unreflective man,"
against any tolerance of the "lie of necessity," leaving only the
locality of Muhammad's coffin for those who are arrayed against the
rigid moralists on this question.
While he admits the theoretical possibility of the "lie of necessity,"
Professor Fowler concludes as to its practical expediency: "Without
maintaining that there are no conceivable circumstances under which a
man will be justified in committing a breach of veracity, it may at
least be said that, in the lives of most men, there is no case likely
to occur in which the greater social good would not be attained by the
observation of the general rule to tell the truth, rather than by the
recognition of an exception in favor of a lie, even though that lie
were told for purely benevolent reasons." That is nearer right than
the conclusions of many an inconsistent intuitionist!
Leslie Stephen, a consistent agnostic, and a believer in the slow
evolution of morals, in his "Science of Ethics,"[1] naturally holds,
like Herbert Spencer, to the gradual development of the custom of
truthfulness, as a necessity of society.[2] The moral sense of
primitive man, as he sees it, might seem to justify falsehood to an
_enemy_, rather than, as Rothe and Smyth would claim, to those who are
_wards of love_. In illustration of this he says: "The obligation to
truthfulness is [primarily] limited to relations with members of the
same tribe or state; and, more generally, it is curious to observe how
a kind of local or special morality is often developed in regard to
this virtue. The schoolboy thinks it a duty to his fellows to lie
to his master, the merchant to his customer, and the servant to his
employer; and, inversely, the duty is often recognized as between
members of some little clique or profession, as soon as it is seen to
be important for their corporate interest, even at the expense of the
wider social organization. There is honor among thieves, both of the
respectable and other varieties."
[Footnote 1: Leslie Stephen's _Science of Ethics_, pp. 202-209.]
[Footnote 2: See pp. 26-32, _supra_.]
But Leslie Stephen sees that, in the progress of the race, the
importance of veracity has come to a recognition, "in which it differs
from the other virtues." While the law of marriage may vary at
different periods, "the rule of truthfulness, on the other hand, seems
to possess the _a priori_ quality of a mathematical axiom.... Truth,
in short, being always the same, truthfulness must be unvarying. Thus,
'Be truthful' means, 'Speak the truth whatever the consequences,
whether the teller or the hearer receives benefit or injury.' And
hence, it is inferred, truthfulness implies a quality independent of
the organization of the agent or of society." While Mr. Stephen would
himself find a place for the "lie of necessity" under conceivable
circumstances, he is clear-minded enough to perceive that the moral
sense of the civilized world is opposed to this view; and in this he
is nearer correct than those who claim the opposite.
It is true that those who seek an approbation of their defense of
falsehoods which they deem a necessity, assume, without proof, their
agreement with the moral sense of the race. But it is also true that
there stands opposed to their theory the best moral sense of primitive
man, as shown in a wide area of investigation, and also of thinkers
all the way up from the lowest moral grade to the most rigorous
moralists, including intuitionists, utilitarians, and agnostics.
However deficient may be the practice of erring mortals, the ideal
standard in theory, is veracity, and not falsehood.
As to the opinions of purely speculative philosophers, concerning the
admissibility of the "lie of necessity," they have little value except
as personal opinions. This question is one that cannot be discussed
fairly without relation to the nature and law of God. It is of
interest, however, to note that a keen mind like Kant's insists that
"the highest violation of the duty owed by man to himself, considered
as a moral being singly (owed to the humanity subsisting in his
person), is a departure from truth, or lying."[1] And when a man
like Fichte,[2] whom Carlyle characterizes as "that cold, colossal,
adamantine spirit, standing erect like a Cato Major among degenerate
men; fit to have been the teacher of the Stoa, and to have discoursed
of beauty and virtue in the groves of Academe," declares that no
measure of evil results from truth-speaking would induce him to tell a
lie, a certain moral weight attaches to his testimony. And so with
all the other philosophers. No attempt at exhaustiveness in their
treatment is made in this work. But the fullest force of any fresh
argument made by them in favor of occasional lying is recognized so
far as it is known.
[Footnote 1: See Semple's _Kant's Metaphysic of Ethics_, p. 267.]
[Footnote 2: See Martensen's _Christian Ethics (Individual)_, § 97.]
One common misquotation from a well-known philosopher, in this line,
is, however, sufficiently noteworthy for special mention here. Jacobi,
in his intense theism, protests against the unqualified idealism of
Fichte, and the indefinite naturalism of Schelling; and, in his famous
Letter to Fichte,[1] he says vehemently: "But the Good what is it?
I have no answer if there be no God. As to me, this world of
phenomena--if it have all its truth in these phenomena, and no more
profound significance, if it have nothing beyond itself to reveal
to me--becomes a repulsive phantom, in whose presence I curse the
consciousness which has called it into existence, and I invoke against
it annihilation as a deity. Even so, also, everything that I call
good, beautiful, and sacred, turns to a chimera, disturbing my spirit,
and rending the heart out of my bosom, as soon as I assume that it
stands not in me as a relation to a higher, real Being,--not a mere
resemblance or copy of it in me;--when, in fine, I have within me an
empty and fictitious consciousness only. I admit also that I know
nothing of 'the Good _per se_,' or 'the True _per se_,' that I even
have nothing but a vague notion of what such terms stand for. I
declare that it revolts me when people seek to obtrude upon me the
Will which wills nothing, this empty nut of independence and freedom
in absolute indifference, and accuse me of atheism, the true and
proper godlessness, because I show reluctance to accept it."
[Footnote 1: F.H. Jacobi's _Werke_, IIIter Band, pp. 36-38.]
Insisting thus that he must have the will of a personal God as a
source of obligation to conform to the law of truth and virtue, and
that without such a source no assumed law can be binding on him,
Jacobi adds: "Yes I am the atheist, and the godless man who, in
opposition to the Will that wills nothing, will lie as the lying
Desdemona lied; will lie and deceive as did Pylades in passing himself
off as Orestes; will commit murder as did Timoleon; break law and oath
as did Epaminondas, as did John De Witt; will commit suicide as did
Otho; will undertake sacrilege with David; yes and rub ears of corn on
the Sabbath merely because I am an hungered, and because the law is
made for man and not man for the law."
Jacobi's reference, in this statement, to lying and other sins, was
taken by itself as the motto to one of Coleridge's essays;[1] and this
seems to have given currency to the idea that Jacobi was in favor of
lying. Hence he is unfairly cited by ethical writers[2] as having
declared himself for the lie of expediency; whereas the context shows
that that is not his position. He is simply stating the logical
consequences of a philosophy which he repudiates.
[Footnote 1: Coleridge's Works: _The Friend_, Essay XV.]
[Footnote 2: See, for instance, Martensen's _Christian Ethics
(Individual)_, §97.]
Among the false assumptions that are made by many of the advocates of
the "lie of necessity" is the claim that in war, in medical practice,
and in the legal profession, the propriety of falsehood and deceit,
in certain cases, is recognized and admitted on all sides. While the
baselessness of this claim has been pointed out, incidentally, in the
progress of the foregoing discussion,[1] it would seem desirable to
give particular attention to the matter in a fuller treatment of it,
before closing this record of centuries of discussion.
[Footnote 1: See pp. 71-75, _supra_.]
It is not true that in civilized warfare there is an entire
abrogation, or suspension, of the duty of truthfulness toward an
enemy. There is no material difference between war and peace in this
respect. Enemies, on both sides, understand that in warfare they are
to kill each other if they can, by the use of means that are allowable
as means; but this does not give them the privilege of doing what is
utterly inconsistent with true manhood.
Enemies are not bound to disclose their plans to each other. They have
a duty of concealing those plans from each other. Hence, as Dorner has
suggested, they proffer to each other's sight only appearances, not
assurances; and it is for each to guess out, if he can, the real
purpose of the other, below the appearance. An enemy can protect his
borders by pitfalls, or torpedoes, or ambushes, carefully concealed
from sight, in order to guard the life of his own people by destroying
the life of his opponents, or may make demonstrations, before the
enemy, of possible movements, in order to conceal his purposed
movements; but in doing this he does only what is allowable, in
effect, in time of peace.[1]
[Footnote 1: Several of the illustrations of Oriental warfare in the
Bible record are to be explained in accordance with this principle.
Thus with the ambush set by Joshua before Ai (Josh. 8: 1-26):
the Canaanites did not read aright the riddle of the Israelitish
commander, and they suffered accordingly. Yet Dr. Dabney (_Theology_,
p. 424) cites this as an instance of an intentional deception which
was innocent in God's sight. And again, in the case recorded at 2
Kings 7: 6, where the Lord "made the host of the Syrians to hear a
noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great
host,... and they arose and ... fled for their life," thinking that
Hittite and Egyptian forces were approaching, it is evident that God
simply caused the Syrians, who were contending with his people, to
feel that they were fighting hopelessly against God's cause. The
impression God made on their minds was a correct one. He could bring
chariots and horses as a great host against them. They did well to
realize this fact. But the Syrians' explanation of this impression was
incorrect in its details.]
A similar method of mystifying his opponent is adopted by the
base-ball pitcher in his demonstrations with the ball before letting
it drive at the batsman. The batsman holds himself responsible for
reading the riddle of the pitcher's motions. Yet the pitcher is
forbidden to deceive the batsman by a feint of delivering the ball
without delivering it.
If an enemy attempts any communication with his opponent, he has no
right to lie to, or to deceive him. He must not draw him into an
ambuscade, or over concealed torpedoes, on the plea of desiring an
amicable interview with him; and his every word given to an enemy must
be observed sacredly as an obligation of truth.
Even before the Christian era, and centuries prior to the time when
Chrysostom was confused in his mind on this point, Cicero wrote as
to the obligations of veracity upon enemies in time of war, and in
repudiation of the idea that warfare included a suspension of all
moral relations between belligerents during active hostilities.[1]
[Footnote 1: Cicero's _De Officiis_, I., 12, 13.]
He said: "The equities of war are prescribed most carefully by the
heralds' law (_lex fetialis_) of the Roman people," and he went on to
give illustrations of the recognized duty of combatants to keep within
the bounds of mutual social obligations. "Even where private persons,
under stress of circumstances, have made any promise to the enemy," he
said, "they should observe the exactest good faith, as did Regulus, in
the first Punic war, when taken prisoner and sent to Rome to treat of
the exchange of prisoners, having sworn that he would return. First,
when he had arrived, he did not vote in the Senate for the return of
the prisoners. Then, when his friends and kinsmen would have detained
him, he preferred to go back to punishment rather than evade his faith
plighted to the enemy.
"In the second Punic war also, after the battle of Cannae, of the ten
Romans whom Hannibal sent to Rome bound by an oath that they would
return unless they obtained an agreement for the redemption of
prisoners, the censors kept disfranchised those who perjured
themselves, making no exception in favor of him who had devised a
fraudulent evasion of his oath. For when by leave of Hannibal he had
departed from the camp, he went back a little later, on pretense
of having forgotten something. Then departing again from the camp
[without renewing his oath], he counted himself set free from the
obligation of his oath. And so he was free _so_ far as the words went,
but not so in reality; for always in a promise we must have regard to
the meaning of our words, rather than to the words themselves."
In modern times, when Lord Clive, in India, acted on the theory that
an utter lack of veracity and good faith on the part of an enemy
justified a suspension of all moral obligations toward him, and
practiced deceit on a Bengalee by the name of Omichund, in order to
gain an advantage over the Nabob of Bengal, he was condemned by the
moral sense of the nation for which he thus acted deceitfully; and, in
spite of the specious arguments put forth by his partisan defenders,
his name is infamous because of this transaction.
"English valor and English intelligence have done less to extend
and preserve our Oriental empire than English veracity," says Lord
Macaulay. "All that we could have gained by imitating the doublings,
the evasions, the fictions, the perjuries, which have been employed
against us, is as nothing when compared with what we have gained by
being the one power in India on whose word reliance can be placed.
No oath which superstition can devise, no hostage however precious,
inspires a hundredth part of the confidence which is produced by the
'yea, yea,' and the 'nay, nay,' of a British envoy." Therefore it is
that Lord Macaulay is sure that "looking at the question of expediency
in the lowest sense of the word, and using no arguments but such as
Machiavelli might have employed in his conferences with Borgia, we
are convinced that Clive was altogether in the wrong, and that he
committed, not merely a crime but a blunder."[1]
[Footnote 1: Macaulay's _Essay on Lord Clive_.]
So again when an English vessel of war made signals of distress,
off the coast of France, during the war with Napoleon, and thereby
deceived men from the enemy into coming to its relief, and then held
them as prisoners, the act was condemned by the moral sense of the
world. As Woolsey says, in his "International Law:"[1] "Breach of
faith between enemies has always been strongly condemned, and that
vindication of it is worthless which maintains that, without an
express or tacit promise to our enemy, we are not bound to keep faith
with him."
[Footnote 1: Sect. 133, p. 213.]
The theologian who assumes that the duty of veracity is suspended
between enemies in war time is ignorant of the very theory of
civilized warfare; or else he fails to distinguish between justifiable
concealment, by the aid of methods of mystifying, and falsehood which
is never justifiable. And that commander who should attempt to justify
falsehood and bad faith in warfare on the ground that it is held
justifiable in certain works on Christian ethics, would incur the
scorn of the civilized world for his credulity; and he would be told
that it is absurd to claim that because he is entitled to kill a man
in warfare it must be fair to lie to him.
In the treatment of the medical profession, many writers on ethics
have been as unfair, as in their misrepresentation of the general
moral sense with reference to warfare. They have spoken as if "the
ethics of the medical profession" had a recognized place for falsehood
in the treatment of the sick. But this assumption is only an
assumption. There are physicians who will lie, and there are
physicians who will not lie; and in each case the individual physician
acts in this matter on his own responsibility: he has no code of
professional ethics justifying a lie on his part as a physician, when
it would not be justifiable in a layman.
Concealment of that which he has a right to conceal, is as clearly a
duty, in many a case, on the part of a physician, as it is on the
part of any other person; but falsehood is never a legitimate, or an
allowable, means of concealment by physician or layman. As has been
already stated[1] if it be once known that a physician is ever ready
to speak words of cheer to a patient falsely, that physician is
measurably deprived of the possibility of encouraging a patient by
truthful words of cheer when he would gladly do so. And physicians
would probably be surprised to know how generally they are estimated
in the community according to their reputation in this matter. One is
known as a man who will speak falsely to his patients as a means of
encouragement, while another is known as a man who will be cautious
about giving his opinion concerning chances of recovery, but who will
never tell an untruth to a patient or to any other person. But in no
case can a physician claim that the ethics of his profession as a
profession justify him in a falsehood to any person--patient or no
patient.
[Footnote 1: See p. 75 f., _supra_.]
A distinguished professor in one of the prominent medical colleges of
this country, in denying the claim of a writer on ethics that it may
become the duty of a physician to deceive his patient as a means of
curing him, declares that a physician acting on this theory "will not
be found in accord with the best and the highest medical teaching of
the present day;" and he goes on to say:[1] "In my profession to-day,
the truth properly presented, we have found, carries with it a
convincing and adjusting element which does not fail to bring the
afflicted person to that condition of mind that is most conducive
to his physical well-being, and let me add also, I believe, to his
spiritual welfare." This statement was made in connection with the
declaration that in the hospital which was in his charge it is not
deemed right or wise to deceive a patient as to any operation to be
performed upon him. And there are other well-known physicians who
testify similarly as to the ethics of their profession.
[Footnote 1: In a personal communication to the author.]
An illustration of the possible good results of concealing an
unpleasant fact from a sick person, that has been a favorite citation
all along the centuries with writers on ethics who would justify
emergency falsehoods, is one which is given in his correspondence by
Pliny the younger, eighteen centuries ago.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Epistles of Pliny the Younger_, Book III., Epis. 16.
Pliny to Nepos.]
Caecinna Paetus and his son "were both at the same time attacked with
what seemed a mortal illness, of which the son died.... His mother
[Arria] managed his funeral so privately that Paetus did not know of
his death. Whenever she came into his bedchamber, she pretended that
her son was better, and, as often as he inquired after his health,
would answer that he had rested well, or had eaten with an appetite.
When she found she could no longer restrain her grief, but her tears
were gushing out, she would leave the room, and, having given vent to
her passion, return again with dry eyes and a serene countenance, as
if she had dismissed every sentiment of sorrow."
This Roman matron also committed suicide, as an encouragement to her
husband whom she desired to have put an end to his own life, when he
was likely to have it taken from him by the executioner; and Pliny
commends her nobleness of conduct in both cases. It is common among
ethical writers, in citing this instance in favor of lying, to say
nothing about the suicide, and to omit mention of the fact that the
mother squarely lied, by saying that her dead boy had eaten a good
breakfast, instead of employing language that might have been the
truth as far as it went, while it concealed that portion of the truth
which she thought it best to conceal. It is common to quote her as
simply saying of her son" He is better;"[1] quite a different version
from Pliny's, and presenting a different issue.
[Footnote 1: See Newman Smyth's _Christian Ethics_, p. 395, where
this case is stated with vagueness of phrase, and as thus stated is
approved.]
It was perfectly proper for that mother to conceal the signs of her
sorrow from her sick husband, who had no right to know the truth
concerning matters outside of his sick-room at such a time. And if,
indeed, she could say in all sincerity, as expressive of her feelings
in the death of her son, by the will of the gods, "He is better," it
would have been possible for her to feel that she was entitled to say
that as the truth, and not as a falsehood; and in that case she would
not have intended a deceit, but only a concealment. But when, on the
other hand, she told a deliberate lie--spoke falsely in order to
deceive--she committed a sin in so doing, and her sin was none the
less a sin because it resulted in apparent good to her husband. An
illustration does not overturn a principle, but it may misrepresent
it.