When looking into the topic of lying I decided to investigate the ethics of lying, and whether there are clear definitions between which lies are not morally acceptable and which are, if any.
My first challenge was finding distinct types of lies and if they were considered right or wrong ethically. There were lists and list of different categories that were considered ranging for social lies (white lies), quantities, qualitative, malicious etc. But upon investigation of each of these ‘categories’ there was always an exception for some categories. In this first link (1), the author talks about a different range of incidences and cases of lying, he argue that sometimes, even a bad lie that can prevent 10 other lies being told is considered morally correct. This confused my aim even more as the more I went along the more exception I found, in this next link (2) there was a medical case under discussion as to what information as doctor should disclose about certain details.
So here I was trying to find a clear black and white on the ethics of lying, and now I am faced with one giant grey area. To me this shows that lying is a vast topic of analysis and is distinguished by personal morals, for instance, one person may think that lying to a child about certain things is wrong and another may think it is morally acceptable. It would appear the lying is therefore ‘an unavoidable part of human nature'
(1) http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/lying/lying_1.shtml
(2) http://www.medhelp.org/ais/articles/WHOLE.HTM
Picture from: http://www.truthdig.com/images/eartothegrounduploads/fingers_crossed_300.jpg
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