Morals Blogs: Truth Telling

White lies or the plain truth?

Human language is rarely just made up of plain mathematical type propositions. We utilise poetic expressions, sarcasm, hyperbole, idiomatic phrases, customary ways of saying things and so forth to get our message across. This means I need to revise my initial premise of truth being mathematical as in “1+1=2” being true. This is OK as far as it goes, but it does not in fact cover the whole complexity of human communication. People who think it does then find themselves doing mental gymnastics to explain “lies” by otherwise honest people, and end up with the fiction of a “white lie”. I think we can do better.

First we need to tease out a few of the complexities of human communication.

If someone is being silly and ends up spilling their drink everywhere we could say: “well that was clever!” They and everyone else knows we are being sarcastic: we mean they were emphatically not being clever. If you ignore the fact we were using a familiar figure of speech and look at our words literally, then we told a lie. Of course we did not really tell a lie, but I use this simple illustration to highlight that we have to judge what the normal person speaking those words in that context would have intended to communicate and what the reasonable hearer would have understood their meaning to have been. If that shared meaning is true then we did not lie.

If most of our companions at work are off sick with the 'flu we might say: “everyone is off sick!”. This is called hyperbole. It is a figure of speech we all use and comprehend. We would not respond “Liar!” just because we knew of one person at that workplace who was not off sick.

The weather announcer says “the sun will rise at 6.35 am tomorrow” …. No! Really it won't. The sun is just going to stay put while the earth rotates. As a scientific explanation of the universe, the announcer’s statement is a lie. But provided you and she are interested in when, given a clear sky, the sun will become visible over the horizon, then the weather girl may be telling the plain truth.

So there are a set of statements which if considered in isolation as literal logical propositions are false, but which, in context, to the average person in the street will convey the truth.

Conversely there are a set of statements which are literally true propositions which if believed would lead to false, potentially ruinous conclusions. Shakespeare's “Macbeth” provides a classic example. The witches “lie like truth” to lead the main character onto an evil path and eventually to his doom. In the final duel he taunts his adversary with the witches' prophesy that: “I can be killed by no man born of woman”. To which the hero replies: No man born of woman am I for I was from my mother's womb untimely plucked” and he proceeds to kill Macbeth.

So mere literal truth of a statement is not sufficient for it to constitute “telling the truth” One must add the Old Testament requirement of faithfulness and reliability. Is the information it would convey to "the reasonable man or woman in the street" something reliable that they can safely put their faith in?

Taking these concepts of figures of speech and faithfulness in giving reliable information together helps solve the following cases.

Start with the easy one. Two strangers fishing on a pier. One says to the other: “Nice day” the other replies “sure is” and they begin to converse. Step back …. on that pier it is cold, windy and starting to rain. So they both told lies, right? ... Wrong. They were not primarily talking about the weather they were following a social convention. The first was actually sending the message: “We don't know each other but I'd like to talk to you” the other was sending the message back: “OK I'll talk”.

So you meet a stranger. “How are you.” they say. “Fine” you reply. In fact you have a slight cold. Did you just tell a lie? ... That depends. ... If the stranger was a medical examiner at the airport screening passengers because there has been a deadly 'flu outbreak in the country you just flew out of then yes! You just told a really bad lie! On the other hand if this was an ordinary meeting of strangers then no. He was offering a polite greeting not enquiring after the exact state of your health. You gave the customary reply. In the absence if felonious intent on your part towards the stranger, you were telling the truth.

Take this case: A man greets his wife who is all dressed up for a party. “You look lovely tonight darling” says he. But she is 70 years old and was always rather plain. Some moralists jump in and claim that therefore he told a lie. They soften it but saying it is only a “white lie'”

No! I call it telling the truth!

To him she is still the girl he fell in love with all those years ago: She is beautiful to him. She always will be. In terms of expressing his feelings it is both true and reliable. Second the appraisal is reliable in that context: Her attire and make-up is as good as she can make it – his statement that she looks lovely accurately conveys that she has not miss-applied her eye shadow or has a tear in her dress but rather has clearly made the socially requisite preparations for attending a party. His compliment completes her preparations by making her feel appreciated, as she indeed is, and with his affirmation, properly confident to face the world.

However I can turn that scenario into a real lie. Suppose he sees straight away that she is still wearing her house slippers. If he fails to warn her, then by commission or omission he is telling a lie. The information he is conveying is not true, is not faithful not reliable. If she trust him she will be set up for major embarrassment.

OK do you see the big divide between telling the truth and lying here.

So by broadening out our definition a little we solve the problem. We first acknowledge that language has shared meaning. That meaning then becomes the determinant of truth or falsehood. We next see that language is part of relationship. (Bonhoeffer was big on this – see his essay from prison “telling the truth”) here the tests of appropriateness, faithfulness and reliability come to the fore. Once we do this we see the term “white lies” as an artificial and quite unnecessary device. It was just honest people telling the plain truth.

NEXT: Thin Ice: when is it right ti deceive?