White Lies and Secret Birthday Parties

[Trotter332]

Hey peeps!

 

So for a little while I've been contemplating the idea of how you can go about surprising someone for say, a surprise birthday party, without lying or manipulating.

 

What I want to know is do you guys think there is an exception for "white lies". For an example if my friend asks "Is there something going on this weekend?" and you know that the surprise birthday party is this weekend, is it right to say "Nah, there's nothing going on."?

 

If not, do you resort to manipulation (I assume not), half truths, "Yeah there's a party going on.", but if they ask "Oh, who for?" what would you reply with?

 

Thanks for any contributions to the topic

[shirgall]

You can answer "that would spoil the surprise" to a number of questions and feel pretty smug. I admit that I have done the white lie in the other direction where I feign a surprise in one direction to cover up a real surprise in another.

[dsayers]

Lying is not immoral. The truth about YOUR life is like any other property of yours: you can give it and withhold it however you see fit.

 

When you plan a surprise party, you're taking somebody else's time without their consent. Obviously it's not a sinister thing, but if you're looking for moral clarity, there you go.

[vlbk]

Why a surprise? I mean, does it really have to be a surprise party? Is it somehow worse if it's planned out? Is the food tastier, and the presents better when sprinkled with the unexpected?

 

Now imagine you're in a room with three doors. One door is the entrance/exit, the second door is a room with Andy, the last door leads to an all steel room that automatically locks when someone enters. A man with a ski mask and a gun walks in and screams "Where's Andy?," What would you do? Obviously you'd choose the locked steel room(right....). Does that lie make you evil? I know, I know, it's a lifeboat scenario . I just wanted to you to ponder the question the morality of lies, instead of assuming their inherently evil.

 

While I was typing this I thought of a way to prevent this scenario. Ask them about surprise parties. Do they like them, are they dead set against them, if someone else is planning one what should you do? And what about you? Obliviously it won't work if you're too close to the event, but prevention once again sounds like the best cure(to me).

[Trotter332]

So we can say that lying is not moral or immoral, because it is dependent of the intention and result of the lie. We can use lying as a tool like we can use a gun. A gun isn't moral or immoral, but simply a tool and how the person uses the gun, determines the morality of the action.

[dsayers]

Not exactly. For moral consideration, a behavior has to be binding upon another. Lying to somebody is not binding upon them. Suppose you tell me it's warm outside when it is in fact cold. If I choose to leave the house without a coat, and I feel that a coat is necessary when it's cold, then it's MY responsibility to determine whether or not it's cold.

 

Lying has no moral consideration. Though it is widely considered to be an undesirable behavior just the same.

 

Off the top of my head, if you committed to verbally helping a blind man across the street and fail to do so, this is the only scenario I can think of where dishonesty is the initiation of the use of force since your words directly put him in harm's way.

[Psychophant]

When you plan a surprise party, you're taking somebody else's time without their consent. Obviously it's not a sinister thing, but if you're looking for moral clarity, there you go.

 

You cannot take someone's time since everybody owns his own schedule. Unless you would take him hostage or were a prison guard who rules over other peoples' time, there is no way to do it.

 

Lying is not immoral. The truth about YOUR life is like any other property of yours: you can give it and withhold it however you see fit.

 

No, you don't. Otherwise leaking some information about your life without consent would be theft by default. Information is not scarce by any means. One major property of property is scarcity. Unless someone restrained you and violently measured your brain activity in order to extract information about your personal life, I don't say any violation of the in-high-esteem held NAP.

 

If someone values honesty in personal interactions, it is hypocritical to tell people blatant lies.

[dsayers]

You are right to clarify that it is only an attempt to take somebody's time. You are wrong to suggest this alters a behavior's moral identity since consent is a requisite and an attempt comes after.

 

As for your 2nd point, I offer an example of the kind of thing I mean. Once upon a time, I was poor to the point of being unable to afford car insurance despite living in a state where I'm threatened with aggression if I do not possess car insurance. A cop pulled me over not long after my prior valid car insurance had expired. When I was asked for insurance and provided an outdated proof, it was pointed out to me that it was outdated. At which point I claimed that I had renewed and must've left the new version on my desk at home. I did not owe this person the truth, especially given the coercive nature of our interaction.

 

Yes, somebody else could publish this information and it would not be theft. That does not change the fact that my honesty is mine to give/withhold however I see fit.