What is your view of liars.....

[Serial_Apologist]

I totally disagree with your last paragraph. Children should always be taught that lying is wrong and have plenty of time to learn about 'moral dilemmas' and very rare exceptions to the rule later in life.

Well I agree with your second sentence scotty, but I sometimes wonder how many children went through much of their early life in utter fear that any untruth they spoke would be immediately apparent to God, or ones parents or teachers, as I for instance did? I really did expect the roof to fall on me if I told a porky; later on I reacted by going through a kind of "what the hell if no one believes me" phase. That was the point I was making - that's all.

[scottycelt]

Fortunately, scotty, there are not many assassins around asking you to finger a victim hiding behind a wall. But if there happened to be one, I would argue that the situation would not be one which required the truth - a greater obligation would be on you.
I find it difficult to imagine that a person can sincerely believe that lying is 'the right thing'. They might choose to lie as the lesser of two evils, which is what I think we may all do from time to time. But again, you have to look into your own soul and question your own reasons. Only you can tell.

If by telling a lie to a terrorist it would save human life that would be the 'lesser of two evils' and therefore the 'right thing' to do, imho, Patrick.
Even after a lot of soul-searching I come to the same conclusion, and it would be even more 'right' if I were being threatened by the terrorist at the same time.
Though in such a nightmarish scenario I, sadly, may well tell the truth ...

[Serial_Apologist]

Slightly off-topic, but what never ceases to stagger me is the sheer bravery of people who, under torture, refuse to divulge information to an enemy. I'm not sure how I would fare under such pressure, tbh.

[mangerton]

My parents brought me up telling lies. They told me there was an old man dressed in red and white, wth a white beard, who drove a sleigh pulled by a reindeer across the sky and brought good boys and girls presents on Christmas Day. When I lost my first tooth... you know the rest.

But I survived, and they never told me the one about the stork.

Yes, my parents did the same, and similarly my wife and I lied to our daughter. Oddly enough I remember a conversation I had with a friend who was a "born again" Christian, when our children were aged about five. He said he would never lie to his son, even about Santa Claus.

More generally, my view of liars...... If a politician, of any political party, told me it was raining, I would always look out of the window to check. I have found it saves time, and disappointment, if one takes every statement emanating from a politician's mouth, to be a lie.

Eg: "The pound in your pocket will not be devalued". And much worse, thatch's use of S Francis' prayer in 1979 when she became pm.

[cavatina]

I can't recall in which of his books now, but RD Laing made an interesting spin on the old existentialist truism about truth being disclosure - that one can find out all that is possible to discover by means of eg scientific or evidential verification, yet never know directly the contents of another person's thinking.
S-A

You must be thinking of "The Divided Self" or "Self and Other". In any event, intersubjectivity is quite a thorny problem, isn't it?
A couple of fascinating papers you might enjoy:

The Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity M. Guy Thompson
The Intersubjective Dynamics of Trust, Distrust, and Manipulation Alex Gillespie

When I was in graduate school, one of the areas of research analysis I enjoyed most was the field of deception studies. If you're interested in the nitty gritty of the philosophy, sociology, and psychology of deception (and how to spot it), look no further than Bella Depaulo--put her name in the search box here:

BELLA DEPAULO

http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=search.advancedSearchForm

Great stuff! Even though I'm not in the academic/policy world anymore, all this applied knowledge (nonverbal cues, etc.) is extremely useful...goodness knows there's more than enough BS to go around everywhere.

If you're interested, here's a white paper done on behalf of the National Intelligence Council's Foreign Denial & Deception Committee in Washington DC which provides a comprehensive overview of literature on the subject... I used to eat this stuff up for hours and hours at a time.

DETECTING DECEPTION: A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF COUNTERDECEPTION
ACROSS TIME, CULTURES, AND DISCIPLINES", Barton Whaley 2006.

[cavatina]

Lying is one of the great attributes of being a human being. Not just politics and diplomacy, but art, literature, and - more importantly - normal complex human interaction are predicated on the human's ability to lie.

Well, we all have to maintain the veneer of civility somehow, don't we.
As usual, Schopenhauer said it best:

It is a wise thing to be polite; consequently, it is a stupid thing to be rude. To make enemies by unnecessary and willful incivility, is just as insane a proceeding as to set your house on fire. For politeness is like a counter — an avowedly false coin, with which it is foolish to be stingy. A sensible man will be generous in the use of it. [...]

Of course, it is no easy matter to be polite; in so far, I mean, as it requires us to show great respect for everybody, whereas most people deserve none at all; and again in so far as it demands that we should feign the most lively interest in people, when we must be very glad that we have nothing to do with them. To combine politeness with pride is a masterpiece of wisdom.

On the other hand, one might say that using politeness as a social strategy is predicated on being in a position of weakness and fear. After all, all low-status primates use their "appeasement grin" to avoid being ostracized and getting the stuffing beaten out of them, which is what it all comes down to in the end. Going around currying favour with two-faced people you can't stand is a horribly inauthentic way to live, isn't it.

Bah. Perhaps Diogenes in his barrel had the right idea all along.

[Chris Newman]

cavatina,

I think I do know what you mean but I cannot avoid thinking on Hoffnung's immortal words:

"Half way up, I met the barrel coming down...."