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The moral command not to lie is among the simplest of
all moral imperatives. Yet its counterpart, to tell the truth,
is a subtle and complicated philosophical topic. Truth-telling
is usually viewed as a prima facie duty-a duty "on first sight"
which may be overruled by other prima facie duties, such
as reparation, justice, gratitude, non-maleficence, beneficence,
and self-improvement.
St.
Thomas Aquinas (following Plato,
Aristotle,
and others) understood truth to be the correspondence
between what we think and the way things really are. By contrast,
Spinoza,
Leibniz, Hegel,
and others have favored a coherence theory, where a new
truth must be logically valid and consistent with other known
truths. David
Hume and the American pragmatists emphasized
the role of experience in identifying truth. Dietrich
Bonhoeffer said truth is effective communication,
and that it exists among a community of truth seekers
(who can never reach the fullness of truth, which is
God).
The
philosopher Sissela Bok defines a lie as "any intentionally
deceptive message which is stated." However, non-disclosure
may also be a lie if it's intentionally deceptive. Secrecy
is sometimes a way of forming a special bond with another person
or group; it may be a group strategy to secure power, prestige,
or profit. Confidentiality is the protection of other
people's secrets.
Privacy
involves the access others have to our personal domain;
it involves personal affairs, while secrecy may not.
Privacy also may be seen as control over information about personal
identity and intimate or sensual contact;
it also may be seen as a standard of what is normal or legitimate
to know about one another.
The
right to privacy is fundamentally in tension with the
right to know--just as private affairs are in
tension with public affairs. Given the modern tendency to politicize
private affairs, some have proposed redefining privacy as what
one chooses to withdraw from public view.
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On
two audiotapes - about three hours in length.
Narrator: Cliff Robertson
Author: Dr. Mary Mahowald
Editor: Professor John Lachs
Publisher: Knowledge Products, Inc.
This
title is part of the Audio Classics Series by
Knowledge Products. Knowledge Products publishes a variety of
audio presentations on the great ideas and events of history.
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