Sam Harris

The ebook has a good example under “Lies in Extremis” of hiding a child from a murderer, and I accept his conclusion that you can tell the truth of “I won’t tell you” rather than acquiesce when the murderer says “Is he here?”  And yes, someone stronger, esp. if packing a handy weapon, can do better against this one guy than lying “Nope, haven’t seen him”.

However:  what I’d like is a plausible justification for ANYTHING other than saying “No Jews hiding here, sir!” in the following situation, one or more of which apparently Sam heard in his college class:

Even with Nazis at the door and Anne Frank in the attic, [professor Ronald A.] Howard always seemed to find truths worth telling and paths to even greater catastrophe that could be opened by lying.

Are there *any* valid criticisms of this response, or (even microscopically) better options than this particular lie to a squad of SS troops?  (This isn’t a completely academic question:  the situation continues to occur - see Bosnia, Rwanda, Congo, southern Sudan…)

sam says himself that he can’t take kant seriously on this point and that to truly stick to that principle would lead to results that only a psychopath would choose.  and similarly, if you agree with violence in self-defence in certain circumstances then it seems nonsensical to rule out lying in similar situations.

perhaps kant’s position makes more sense when combined with another of his formulations that “maxims be chosen as though they should hold as universal laws of nature”.  in other words - if everybody in the world were to stand up to the SS soldiers then they would eventually be overthrown., therefore that is the better way to behave in that situation.

in the grand scheme of things that would be better than lying to protect your own house while allowing the SS to continue murdering, but in the particular situation where to try that on your own would only result in you being killed and then your house searched and everyone inside killed as well, then i suppose you would have to allow the exception to lie in self-defence.

I’d agree ^^

I don’t know that he would ever say that lying will always bring about more ethical consequences in all situations, although there will still be things to worry about it no matter what. The Kant part and that example of extremis weren’t directly told in relation, but i think that that’s what he means by saying you can’t possibly believe one should never ever lie. I found lying to only make me more consciously aware of the ethics involved when about to lie, rather than make me seriously never tell another lie.

End of time remix - Remixed by me, Kris Shades. I’m best know for my release called ‘I Haven’t Told You Everything’, which can be found on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31fdzCjKnnQ I wrote both the music and lyrics for the track, while the vocals have been recorded with pop star Iza Szeles. I never stop in my strides to produce the next hit and you will be able to find more productions from me on either Youtube or Soundcloud. It was a very pleasurable experience to remix ‘End of Time’ with Beyonce’s fantastic vocals, so I hope you will enjoy it ->> http://endoftime.beyonceonline.com/tracks/1118