Transcript EECS 690

EECS 690
Critiques of Deontology
31 January 2010
On the Supposed Right to Lie…
• Common experience would seem to indicate that
if a person had to lie to save someone’s life, they
would be justified in doing so.
• Kant is criticized for not bowing to this principle,
and in “On the Supposed Right to Lie…” replies to
the criticism. At heart, Kant recognizes that a
deontological ethic can have bad consequences,
but maintains that the consequences of actions
are irrelevant to morality.
The objection:
• This kind of objection is known as the “dire
consequences objection” to deontology.
• The idea behind this objection is that when
the consequences of an action are significant
enough, they must surely be taken into
account.
Some distinctions employed by Kant:
• Uttering a falsehood vs. telling a lie: A falsehood
is something that is not the case. A lie is saying
something that you believe to be false, not
necessarily saying something that is false.
• Avoidable vs. unavoidable speech: If you must
speak, and must “say yea or nay”, only then is
speech unavoidable. (it’s not clear whether
speech is unavoidable when confronted by the
prospective murderer)
Kant’s reply
• Telling a lie is always wrong, and seriously wrong
because it damages the fabric of civil society and
morality itself.
• The consequences to truth and lies are irrelevant.
• Once consequences are admitted into the
principle for action, moral luck becomes a factor.
• In telling the truth, you are controlling the one
thing in the situation that you can control
(whether to be moral yourself or not).
• Lying to someone to manipulate their behavior
treats them as a means only.
Other objections:
1. Conflicts between duties need to be resolved
somehow. (the previously mentioned case
might be just such a conflict)
2. The “paradox of negative stringency”: If all
duties are categorical, then failure to obey
one should be just as bad as failure to obey
any of them (so lying is as bad as murder).