{"id":266154,"date":"2026-07-19T00:01:50","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T21:01:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/lying-moral-choice-in-public-and-private-life-sissela-bok\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T00:01:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T21:01:50","slug":"lying-moral-choice-in-public-and-private-life-sissela-bok","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/lying-moral-choice-in-public-and-private-life-sissela-bok\/","title":{"rendered":"Lying Moral Choice In Public And Private Life – Sissela Bok"},"content":{"rendered":"
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We have already seen how the attempt to avoid serious harm can justify a lie, just as it allows the recourse to force. I would like, therefore, to take up in some greater detail the question of lying to those from whom one fears harm\u2014to adversaries and those thought to be threats.<\/p>\n

For it is because of the believed threat that Consentius and Nixon really thought that lying to their foes was right, and not just to reciprocate lies, improve liars, or buttress what they believed true. *This excuse often blends the retaliatory and the educational senses of \u201cteaching someone a lesson.\u201d *Consider the analogy here between deception and violence: A boxing match is ordinarily freely entered into and ended according to precise conventions.<\/p>\n

A duel may be voluntarily entered into, but is often socially coerced for at least one party. Once entered, it is left only with the greatest difficulty. An assault, finally, is neither freely entered by the victim, nor left except through the use of coercion in return. OceanofPDF.com When a man denominates another his enemy, his rival, his antagonist, his adversary, he is understood to speak the language of self-love, and to express sentiments peculiar to himself and arising from his particular circumstances and situation. But when he bestows on any man the epithets of vicious or odious or depraved, he then speaks another language, and expresses sentiments in which he expects all his audience are to concur with him.<\/p>\n

He must here, therefore, depart from his private and particular situation and must choose a point of view common to him with others; he must move some universal principle of the human frame and touch a string to which all mankind have an accord and symphony. \u2014David Hume, Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals The great masses of the people [\u2026] will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one. \u2014Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf I discovered in the earliest stages that pursuit of truth did not permit violence being inflicted on one\u2019s opponent, but that he must be weaned from error by patience and sympathy.<\/p>\n

\u2014Gandhi, Defense Against Charge of Sedition Giving Enemies Their Due To believe someone an enemy is to think him hostile and capable of coercion through force, threats of force, or deception. The tax evader, the hostage holder, the invading nation are enemies of a society; but private adversaries, such as competitors in cutthroat businesses, or rivals in love or politics, can be equally hostile.<\/p>\n

In all such relationships, there is more than a casual link between the concepts of \u201cenemy\u201d and \u201cliar.\u201d An enemy will often, though not always, lie to defeat you; and someone who lies to you will often, though not always, constitute an enemy in your mind.<\/p>\n

Lying to enemies serves two purposes. First, it can divert their maneuvers.<\/p>\n

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Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation A Strategy for Peace: Human Values and the Threat of War Alva Myrdal: A Daughter\u2019s Memoir Common Values Mayhem: Violence as Public Entertainment Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide (with Gerald Dworkin and R. G. Frey) EDITED BY SISSELA BOK The Dilemmas of Euthanasia (with John Behnke) Ethics Teaching in Higher Education (with Daniel Callahan) OceanofPDF.com OceanofPDF.com VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, December 1989 SECOND VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, August 1999 Copyright \u00a9 1978, 1989, 1999 by Sissela Bok All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.<\/p>\n

Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., in May 1978, and subsequently updated by Vintage Books, New York, in 1989 and 1999. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Bok, Sissela. Lying. 1.<\/p>\n

Truthfulness and falsehood. I. Title. BJ1421.B64 1979 177\u2032.3 78-21949 eISBN: 978-0-307-78911-2 Since this copyright page cannot accommodate all acknowledgments, they have been placed on the following pages. v3.1 OceanofPDF.com Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material: Lewis White Beck: Excerpt from \u201cOn a Supposed Right to Lie from Altruistic Motives\u201d in The Critique of Practical Reason and Other Writings in Moral Philosophy by Immanuel Kant, ed. and trans. by Lewis White Beck. Basil Blackwell, Publisher: Excerpt from \u201cUtilitarianism Revised\u201d by R. F.<\/p>\n

Harrod. Reprinted from Mind 45 (1936): 137\u201356. The Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc.: Excerpt from On the Law of War and Peace by Hugo Grotius, trans. by Francis W. Kelsey. Burns & Oates: Excerpt from Summa Theologica 2, 2, ques. 110, art. 2, by Thomas Aquinas, literally trans. by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Copyright Burns & Oates 1953, 1977. The Catholic University of America Press: Excerpts from \u201cLying\u201d and \u201cAgainst Lying\u201d in Treatises on Various Subjects, vols.<\/p>\n

14, 16, by St. Augustine, ed. by R. J. Deferrari, in Fathers of the Church series. Harvard University Press: Excerpt from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, ed. by Thomas H. Johnson. Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College. Copyright \u00a9 1951, 1955 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.: Excerpt from Three Plays by Jean-Paul Sartre. Copyright 1948, 1949 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. MacMillan & Co., London: Excerpt from \u201cClassification of Duties\u2014Veracity\u201d in The Method of Ethics, 7th ed., by H.<\/p>\n

Sidgwick. Macmillan Publishing Co. and SCM Press: Excerpt from \u201cWhat Is Meant by \u2018Telling the Truth\u2019?\u201d by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Ethics, ed. by Eberhard Berthge. Copyright \u00a9 1955 by Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc. \u00a9 SCM Press, Ltd., 1955 Methuen & Co. Ltd.: Excerpt from The Object of Morality by G. J. Warnock.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.<\/em><\/p>\n

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