We have a tendency to think that our duties are smaller, simpler, and easier than they really are. It is an instance of a more general tendency we have to evade morality.
We have a duty to tell the truth—the whole truth! But it is part of that duty to make the ones to whom we tell the truth capable of hearing the truth—the whole truth.
We have a tendency to think that our duties are smaller, simpler, and easier than they really are. It is an instance of a more general tendency we have to evade morality.
36 Comments
What if you're a secret agent (and your cause is noble), or you've signed a nondisclosure agreement with the bakery you work for, not to share trade secrets (which is kind of like being a secret agent, I suppose)?
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reshef
2/27/2013 10:58:19 pm
Thanks Matt.
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Duncan
3/2/2013 02:59:37 am
What does it, or might it, mean to make a terminally ill person capable of hearing the truth? Does hearing the truth involve acceptance? And if we are not capable of doing this do we still have a duty to tell truths that we know will not be heard? I don't mean this as an attack. I'm just wondering exactly what you have in mind.
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reshef
3/2/2013 07:16:56 am
Thanks Duncan.
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reshef
3/2/2013 07:17:41 am
continued:
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Duncan
3/2/2013 10:55:37 pm
Thanks, Reshef.
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reshef
3/3/2013 12:52:20 am
Duncan,
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Duncan
3/3/2013 06:52:46 am
Thanks, Reshef.
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reshef
3/3/2013 07:34:15 pm
Duncan,
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Duncan
3/4/2013 07:35:49 am
I'm sorry if I've been obscure. I don't have an ethical theory, so I'm just trying to express whatever it is that I believe. And that is obscure. But it does not involve much reference to duties. I just don't think in those terms (I mean for the most part, not that I definitely never would). A duty seems like a demand and, without many duties, my ethics seems less demanding. Perhaps what I'm expressing is simply complacency, but I don't think that's all it is. My idea of ethics is something like this: Be good. How good? As good as you can be. Do your best. It is as simple and as vague as that. And because it is so vague it lacks the kind of black and white success/failure dichotomy that seems to be implied by talk of duties. And in that sense it is more forgiving, or sounds more forgiving to me, than an ethic that refers more often to specific duties in which one might fail. I pretty much feel my way through the ethical world and have very little certainty about it (except on the most obvious points and a few others where I happen to have explored a bit more). I doubt this helps you, I'm afraid, but I don't know what else I can say.
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reshef
3/4/2013 10:27:38 pm
Duncan,
Sorry--I missed all the action. (I guess I didn't get my notifications!)
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reshef
3/4/2013 08:30:01 am
I do actually want to say, that it is our duty to not just ignore a wrongful request. If we are living with those people in the same society, then to this extent it seems to me that we owe it to them to attempt to communicate with them, and share a moral world with them. Ignoring them is not going in the right direction. It sounds very Kantian all of a sudden. But perhaps this should not come to me as a surprise.
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MP
3/4/2013 12:27:53 pm
"...that it is our duty to not just ignore a wrongful request" I like the idea of trying to make the person capable of hearing the truth but I'm not sure of what it entails. One's ability to provide the truth in a responsible fashion is limited, and in some legal/regulatory frameworks this creates a duty not to impart the truth. E.g., in many North American jurisdictions, regulations stipulate that only medical doctors may provide new diagnostic info. Other health-care professionals might have the info about someone's condition, but they are prohibited from providing it (the thinking being that only an MD can disclose the info and then answer adequately any follow-up questions from the patient). Moreover, while it sometimes happens that a nurse (e.g.) knows and understands the relevant info and could communicate it responsibly to the patient, s/he still shouldn't do so (given the practicalities involved in making and enforcing general regulations). Here, the duty to be truthful can be upheld in only a limited way by (say) letting doctors know that one of their patients wants the relevant info ASAP. Also, there are difficult grey areas in which someone might be capable of taking in the truth in the short term only. E.g., what if an elderly person with dementia thinks her husband is still alive when, in fact, he died ten years ago? We tell her this on Tuesday but on Wednesday she again thinks her husband is alive. We shouldn't daily inform her of his death. Should we lie (going along with her delusion) or just try and speak around the issue (not saying anything that implies he's alive)? Turning to the case of someone who has a terminal illness, he should generally be informed out of respect for his autonomy -- but what about the following problem case? There's a fatal car accident; the driver will die in a matter of minutes or hours; his wife and child were killed in the accident and he now inquires about their condition. Should we tell him they're dead? He hasn't got much opportunity left to exercise any real autonomy. I don't know that I could resist the temptation to deceive him by saying, "They're recovering." I'm not sure that would be wrong, although here the initial deception might lead to more lies (e.g., we'd have to say they're unconscious or otherwise incapable of seeing him if he's expected to live for some hours). Getting away from exceptional cases, there are relationships in which I don't want to know someone else's true opinion of me and feel no duty to convey to them my own impressions of their character. E.g., I may realize that a co-worker has very different values from my own; by his standards, I'm a loser, and I may hold a low opinion of him; we're cordial and truthful with each other insofar as it conduces to completing our assignments at work, but I see neither party as having a duty to be more generally truthful with the other person. In fact, holding forth on my opinion of him would be out of place. Similar things can be said of some closer relationships. E.g., while some of my adolescent nieces and nephews may regard me as nerdy or boring or whatever, I'd say they have a duty not to let me in on this. These last cases may perhaps be more mundane illustrations of Duncan's point about someone who doesn't want the truth.
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reshef
3/4/2013 08:39:14 am
thanks praymont,
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Duncan
3/5/2013 01:51:06 am
I'm not sure where I should put my reply, so I'll quote what I'm responding to at length here.
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Duncan
3/5/2013 03:36:23 am
<i>Regarding the duty to know and tell the truth. I guess we can treat truth as a kind of abstract deity towards which we have duties. I admit that I’m not completely beyond doing that. But what I say does not have to be taken in this way. When I say we have those duties, I do indeed have in mind situations like the ones praymont described—in which there are actual concrete people in actual concrete interactions. You are taking me, however, to be saying something much more definite than I’m saying. I am indeed saying that we owe people the truth (including to ourselves); but I’m also saying that what this amounts to is something to discover, not something that we can know in advance. When I claim that we need to make sure that the people we are telling the truth to are capable of hearing it, it is implied that we have to discover what would make it possible for them to hear the truth. But this is not something that I can predict. It is something for each of us to figure out in each case for ourselves. Does that sound sensible? Does that help?</i>
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reshef
3/5/2013 07:53:34 pm
When I complained about what you say being broad, I think what I really was complaining about was that I didn’t know how to connect what you said to what I was saying. It seemed to me that you were contrasting two views. But since your view was so broad, it wasn’t clear to me how it contrasted with what I was saying. I need help here.
reshef
3/5/2013 09:12:16 pm
Matt,
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MP
3/6/2013 04:37:14 am
That's an interesting point. My examples are pressing on this issue of "sensitive information" that is, let's stipulate, kept secret for good reasons. But shouldn't it just be that I can say to a request, "I can't give you the info you're asking for because I made a promise to keep it secret...and I don't see that I have any (morally) good reasons for breaking that promise." Would that be THE WHOLE TRUTH (or closer to it, in this particular case), as opposed to just facts requested?
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reshef
3/6/2013 08:07:47 pm
What you are asking, I think, is if the duty to tell the truth can come into tension with other duties. I think it can. But—and this is the main point—I also think it shouldn’t.
Duncan
3/6/2013 12:09:42 am
Thanks, Reshef.
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reshef
3/6/2013 08:49:20 pm
I’m not sure either how to characterize the misunderstanding between us. Its nature will probably only become clear after we resolve it.
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Duncan
3/6/2013 11:34:32 pm
Thanks, Reshef. I didn't really think you were trying to do metaphysics, or claiming that we can tell the whole truth. However badly I have expressed myself, I haven't misunderstood you that badly. But I don't have a very clear idea of what you are saying. I'm tempted to say that we actually agree, but use different words to express ourselves. But that seems lazy, quite possibly false, and a bit presumptuous of me. I'll try to find better questions to ask to clarify the situation.
MP
3/7/2013 12:12:53 am
"What you are asking, I think, is if the duty to tell the truth can come into tension with other duties. I think it can. But—and this is the main point—I also think it shouldn’t."
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MP
3/7/2013 12:14:33 am
That is: my duty to tell the truth is not the same thing as my duty to provide all information requested of me.
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reshef
3/7/2013 07:51:48 pm
You say you think I need to sort out the distinction between revealing facts and telling the whole truth. I couldn’t agree more. But the task is not only mine, I think. That is, if I’m right, for the purposes of formulating the ideas I’m putting forward here, this is not something I should be able to accomplish. I would go as far as saying that what you ask of me is something that I have a duty to do, but the cogency of my ideas here does not depend on my ability or inability to do it.
j.
3/9/2013 06:45:04 am
since duncan made a point of calling attention to this post/thread, i thought i might share a thought i had at first about it when reshef originally posted, before the comments spread out. i don't mean to be especially critical, just to make an observation from the outside.
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reshef
3/9/2013 10:23:01 pm
Thanks J.
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j.
3/12/2013 08:36:52 am
'truth' seems to me like exactly the kind of concept for which a wittgensteinian consideration of it (thinking about family resemblances between instances of its use, thinking about how we learn words like 'true', etc.) should give us pause about construing much of anything about it in terms of a non-apparent unity. can't we imagine people who are deeply inhibited when it comes to lying but are sloppy when they make claims? or people who are extremely sincere but genially indifferent about accuracy? i think a multiplicity of interests goes with the multiplicity of related terms and uses i gestured at. if we do have a sense that under 'truth' in general, these could all be reconciled or sorted out some how in keeping with a basic kind of interest we have in the various things that go together with 'truth', then i'm not confident that our sense that this is so will survive a closer look at the details, because i'm not confident that it derives from them in some uniform and collective way.
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reshef
3/16/2013 10:03:02 pm
J.
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j.
3/28/2013 05:46:50 pm
reshef,
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reshef
4/4/2013 12:11:20 am
J. 1/28/2014 11:34:52 pm
Interesting post, i love to visit your blog everyday
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