Are you allowed to lie?

Truth and lies

Most people will surely answer spontaneously with "no" when asked whether one is allowed to lie. At the same time, lies are constant in everyday life. Many of the untruths are so self-evident that hardly anyone thinks about them. Typical examples: Sellers assure that the item on offer is the best on the market. A partner says that he has completed a task, although he only thinks about it when he is asked about it. Even truth-loving parents lie without hesitation about Santa Claus, the Christ Child and the Easter Bunny. The claim to always be honest and reality are very different.

• The Latin church scholar Augustine of Hippo (354-430) regards every lie as a sin. He even rejects this if a falsehood can prevent a serious offense. Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 1274) and Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) also hold the view that truth is the highest good. In his 
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  Essay: "About a supposed right to lie out of philanthropy." Kant condemns any kind of lie. But even Augustine accepted some falsehoods in the Bible, such as the fact that Abraham passed off his wife Sarah as his sister. (Gene. 20,1-13). In addition, truth can also be immoral, for example when denouncing.
• The lie is judged differently by other scholars. Rudolf von Jhering (1818 - 1892) describes it as legitimate in some of his legal treatises. Joost Meerloo (1903-1976) considered language even as a means of maintaining distance. In his view, deception and lies are part of the language.

The fact is, people lie. The number of 200 untruths a day that an American psychologist named John Frazier is said to have discovered cannot be verified. Many studies suggest that every person tells two to three lies a day. The compulsory elective internship: Empirical surveys in the field of media and health psychology by Prof. Dr. H. Lukesch (University of Regensburg, Institute for Experimental Psychology) from the 2003 summer semester confirm this value.

Evaluations of falsehoods

Lies have been considered false for millennia. Nevertheless, people lie on average three times a day. The question then arises, why is he doing this.

• The ability to tell lies seems to be in the human evolution to have brought no advantage. According to Ekman (Ekman, P. (1996). Why don't we catch liars? Social Research, 63, 801-817) people find it difficult to recognize liars because recognizing an untruth was not evolutionarily useful. According to the German anthropologist and professor of evolutionary anthropology Volker Sommer (1954), the ability to deceive has always given both animals and humans advantages. (Praise the lie. Deception and self-deception in animals and humans. Munich 1992, ISBN 3-423-30415-4).
• A 1996 study by social scientist (PhD, Harvard) Bella DePaulo shows that most lies give the liar an advantage. Only a small part of the lies are useful to those who have been lied to.
• All lies that give the liar an advantage are considered reprehensible in the usual moral concepts. It does not matter whether a lie leads to an economic advantage or whether it is about making your life easier.
• If, on the other hand, a lie benefits what has been lied to, different values ​​collide. The truth can be grossly rude to hurtful or plunge the person concerned into a serious crisis. It is important to weigh up which moral values ​​are to be regarded as the higher good. A lie to a dying person that his son called and said he loved him is certainly morally justifiable. What about a lie to the police that you don't know where the person you're looking for is? It certainly plays a role here, for what reason a person is sought and whether the situation takes place in a constitutional state. You see the dilemma is great.
• The term white lie is very vague: The need can be fear of punishment or the desire not to offend someone. Neither social science nor theology is helpful in a specific case. In relationships, partners often lie to each other out of politeness or consideration. You don't want to hurt. The only question is whether it is really not a lie for one's own benefit. Imagine if your partner has cooked you a meal that you don't like and asks if you like it. It is considerate to say the food is excellent. This lie gives you the advantage that your partner does not react upset.

Are you allowed to lie in your upbringing?

Do you want to raise your child to be honest? Do you want it to tell the truth always and everywhere? Perhaps you should reconsider this maxim. The ability to lie is an important step in development.

• Children don't lie in the first few years of their life. As a rule, they cannot distinguish between truth and falsehood. Most of all, you have not yet learned that you have the power to fool another person into believing something. Between their second and fifth birthday, children learn to lie. This comes from a study and Angela Evans and Kang Lee ((2013) Emergence of Lying in Very Young Children. Developmental Psychology). During the study, the psychologists discovered that the children who lied on a test were also more intelligent. The children discover a new kind of self-determination, they consider it their right to admit an action or not. At this stage it is normal for a child to stiffly and firmly claim not to have taken a biscuit, even though they are still holding it in their hand.
• Although these falsehoods are not meant to be evil, they deeply offend parents. They show that a child is beginning to disconnect. The child builds a boundary between his or her reality and that in which the parents live.
• the Uta Reimann-Höhn, a qualified pedagogue explains that children learn to rate which lies are okay when they are about to go to school. It is now also clear to you that lies are transparent and are generally not accepted. At this age, children knowingly lie. The reasons are fear of punishment, the desire for recognition, excessive demands, courtesy and shame.
• If your child is covering up a wrongdoing because they are afraid of punishment, explain to them that if they are honest they will get little or no punishment. Try to strengthen the child's self-esteem if they repeatedly try to gain recognition by showing off. If a child keeps lying when it comes to completing their duties, they are usually completely overwhelmed with these. Offer help and make him less likely to have obligations.
• Lying out of politeness or shame is a sign of social competence. It is positive when your child thanks them for an unsuitable gift or does not tell another person that they think they are ugly. You should never stop these kinds of lies.
• Lying out of shame shows that it can empathize with other people's feelings. The child hides a bad grade, although he does not have to fear any punishment. They are ashamed and afraid of hurting you by their poor performance. A lot of tact is required here. On the one hand, the basic idea of ​​hiding something so as not to hurt another is good. On the other hand, the child must learn to face such confrontations.

Make it clear that lies destroy trust in the long term, but usually only provide a short-term advantage. The question of whether one can lie still cannot be answered unequivocally. In any case, everyone should carefully consider whether they are lying or rather facing an unpleasant truth. Whether lying is allowed or forbidden, the fact is that a society that never lies is impossible. On the other hand, honesty is important because it is the basis of trust.