argumentative essay about white lie

White Lie: Is It Possible to Justify Lies? Essay

Is it possible to imagine our everyday life without lies? Can people stop telling lies and be able to tell only the truth like it happened with the characters of the movie The Invention of Lying ? In fact, such reality when people is hard to imagine because the vast majority of modern people are so absorbed in lying, and the idea that white lies may save the world and deprive many people of suffering and disappointments seems to the only rational one.

The cases on lying and liars’ destinies may be observed in many literary works. Such authors like Shakespeare, Wilde, or Crawford introduced captivating and educative stories which show how one or several lies both white and not may influence current state of affairs and even human lives.

When I observe the events in different literary works, I believe that sometimes white lies are necessary, but unfortunately, people cannot be sure about proper interpretation of situation and the decision to lie or not to lie, this is why it is impossible to interpret while lies as something pure justified or unacceptable, and people have to be very careful both with the truth and lies, especially white lies.

When people lie, they think that they improve the situation, decrease the level of suffering and disappointments, or just get a chance to avoid punishment or discontent. They lie in order to be saved, to be understood, and to be supported. It is hard to comprehend why people lie and what may happen if these lies do not happen. In fact, the style of life where all people tell the truth only ( The Invention of Lying ) is also hard to imagine because constant truth deprive the world of some kind of mystery, intrigue, and desire.

This is why it is useless to believe that absence of lies may lead to positive outcomes because such reality may have its own disadvantages. I think it is better to take some neutral position and lie only in case to please a person or save him/her against negative outcomes. In this case, when lie is for safe, it may be justified. However, more about justification of lies have to be evaluated by means of examples.

Some people use the term “white lie” as something that may be justified and comprehended by the others. As for me, I believe that some cases just require such while lies in order not to worsen the situation. However, it is still very important to define what may be regarded as white lies and what can never be taken as such.

For example, if a husband invites his wife to a theater in order to meet her demand and support her interests even if he cannot stand this type of art, he lies to her about his desire to bear a company with pleasure. And this kind of life may be regarded as a white one because no one will suffer seriously from this idea, and only satisfaction and pleasure of a person will be the result. This white lie is a good example.

A person does not make harm, break someone’s dreams, or offend somebody. However, if we remember the situations which described by Crawford in his Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell , when a person cannot even believe in his own lies and realize what happens to him because of governmental lies and empty hopes (Crawford 602), or the situation in Shakespeare’s Othello , when Iago lied about his desire to serve (Shakespeare and Somogyi 4) to be promoted, be noticed, and be recognized as a worthwhile part of the society.

In Wilde’s work, the characters are always eager to tell and know the truth, however, the idea that the main character Dorian lies to everyone: to people who love him, to people he communicates with, and even to himself. The reality was rather paradoxical, and “the way of paradoxes is the way of truth” (Wilde and Mighall 40).

Finally, those lies people tell to each other are not as great and serious as the ones said by the government. Lies in politics are very frequent, and people cannot even recognize when a politician tells the truth and why he/she lies. There is no white lie in politics because national security and war on terrorism play an important role in society. And one white lie may influence considerably the results, this is why the political arena has to be purified of lies though now it seems to be impossible.

Our life is impossible without lies; almost each conscious person lies under some conditions. There may be no reasons for lying because it is something that is inherent to people. There is some kind of necessity of lying because it fulfils this world and make this life complete. May it happen that white lie differ from ordinary lie? It may but still the essence of any lie is still about hiding the truth that is usually important for people.

Works Cited

Crawford, John. “The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell.” In Missy James and Alan P. Merickel Reading Literature and Writing Argument . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall Professional Technical, 2004, 600-604.

Shakespeare, William and Somogyi, Nick. Othello: The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice. London: Nick Hern Books Limited, 2002.

The Invention of Lying . Dir. Ricky Gervais and Mathew Robinson. Perfs. Ricky Gervais, Jennifer Garner, and Jonah Hill. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2009.

Wilde, Oscar, and Mighall, Robert. The Picture of Dorian Gray . New York: Penguin Classics, 2003.

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Do You Believe In White Lies?

Barbara is a writer and speaker who is passionate about mental health, overall wellness, and women's issues.

Rachel Goldman, PhD FTOS, is a licensed psychologist, clinical assistant professor, speaker, wellness expert specializing in eating behaviors, stress management, and health behavior change.

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White Lies vs. Real Lies

• Things to Consider

Why Do People Lie?

• Risks of Lies

Benefits of Honesty

When it’s necessary to lie.

Is it okay to lie? Or do you believe in white lies? A white lie is a lie that is considered harmless or trivial. Such lies are often told to spare hurting someone's feelings.

The term dates back to the 14th century and is linked to historical color associations that suggest that white symbolizes "morally pure" and that black symbolizes "sinister intent."

While most people agree that lies are damaging, destructive, and downright wrong, there are times when people tell what they think are harmless lies as a way to prevent further harm. If you’ve ever told a child that Santa Claus was on his way in his sleigh or that you loved the weird socks that your aunt sent as a gift, you lied. But you can let yourself off the hook.

These were more like white lies. With a real lie, the intent is malicious and the consequence is serious. While with a white lie, often more like a harmless bending of the truth, the intent is benign and positive, and usually, the consequence isn’t major.

The adage that you always should tell the truth is mostly right, but in some situations fibs or white lies have a purpose.

The question of whether it is okay to lie often comes down to whether you are telling a white lie or a real lie. White lies are often innocuous. We tell them to create a magical world for our children, or, more often, as a way to be polite and demonstrate social manners. Some examples of white lies include:

• Telling someone they look great in an outfit
• Saying that you are on your way to meet someone so you can't stay and chat
• Laughing at a joke that wasn't really funny
• Telling someone that you'll call them later
• Saying that you didn't see a text that someone sent you

Overall, white lies are for beneficial purposes. Being totally honest in some cases would create unpleasantness or be offensive. Some view white lies as a sign of civility.

Real lies tend to be more self-serving. They may result in negative consequences for yourself and others.

Told to protect others

Self-protective

Avoid awkward situations

Told to benefit the self

Self-serving

Create pain and discomfort for others

How White Lies Can Be Good for Us

If you believe in white lies, then you probably feel that such fibs serve an important purpose such as protecting someone's feelings. If we lie to benefit other people, these are considered white lies. Here’s a good illustration: A student had a hard time his first week at college and told his parents he was doing well so they wouldn’t worry.

In this situation, he was thinking about other people’s feelings and was guided by empathy and kindness. The second week he adjusted and was glad he didn’t upset his parents prematurely.

Scientists call these well-intended falsehoods prosocial lies . These differ from antisocial lies, which are told for personal gain. According to research, prosocial lies can actually build trust and a sense of benevolence between people.

How Real Lies Can Be Bad for Us

With real lies, the intent is often selfish. These are the most damaging kinds of lies. To find evidence of them, look for falsehoods that promote a person’s self-interests obviously at the expense of others.

To make it clearer, if your best girlfriend asks how she looks in her new dress and you think it’s too tight, but you say she looks great to boost her self-esteem, that’s a white lie. But complimenting her because you want to look better than her at the party, which is competitive and more indicative of selfish intent is a real lie.

When it comes to truth telling, deception and trust, real lies can be destructive. If things don’t add up or if you suspect someone of lying , there are ways to find out.

Before You Decide If It's Okay to Lie

Let's look at what you might want to think about before you decide to tell a white lie or a real lie.

Evaluate the Intention

When someone lies out of altruism to protect others or ease their pain, these lies are considered acceptable white lies. White lies usually benefit the person listening.

For example, if your neighbor is dying of cancer, rather than frighten your young son with his impending death, it’s okay to say he’s not feeling well right now.

This is an example of prosocial lying and reflects empathy and compassion . It also takes into account what is age appropriate for your son.

Consider the Long-Term Consequences

While white lies are often minor or inconsequential, real lies have far reaching effects. Real lies tend to initially benefit the liar, too.

For example, if Dan took the data his co-worker amassed and presented the project as his own, Dan blatantly lied and acted in a self-serving and clearly untruthful way. When his supervisor learned the truth, Dan was sent to human resources as a consequence.

Overall, it's important to look at the morality and societal acceptance of the type of life. White lies are acceptable and help our society function. Real lies are deemed to be universally wrong.

There are many reasons why people lie. Some common motives for lying include:

To Be Considerate

Lying out of consideration can mean protecting someone else’s feelings, for the sake of diplomacy, or to keep stability in our relationships. These are the common white lies that help us maintain harmony with our spouses, family, friends, and neighbors.

For example, if your child just began studying violin and is making a horrible racket, you might tell him he sounds fantastic to encourage him.

To Protect Our Ego and Self-Image

Another reason why we don’t tell the truth is based on psychological compensation: to protect how we're perceived by others. Rather than admit you lost your job, for example, you might tell your sibling that you quit because it was no longer challenging enough.

To Compensate for Our Sensitivity to Power

For example, rather than question your boss’s new plan which you find shaky, you feel compelled to support it. You respond by saying that you love the plan to protect your job.

People tell white lies to protect others, protect the self, and defer to those in power.

The Danger of Telling Too Many Lies

A 2016 study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience showed that the brain adapts to dishonesty. The more participants engaged in self-serving dishonesty, the more likely that behavior would increase with repetition. Small acts escalated into bigger transgressions.

That’s as good a reason as ever to stop lying. Even seemingly innocuous lies can become a habit, like second nature. In fact, it may become easier than being honest. You get to spare people’s feelings and pretend you are less flawed than you are. That can be very enticing.

The second danger of telling too many lies might result in not getting the help you need. For example, saying "I'm fine," which seems like an innocuous fib, masks the fact that you are still struggling on many fronts. This may preclude others from suggesting you get mental health counseling or you yourself from realizing that you could benefit from therapy.

You must always be honest with yourself about what you’re doing and why. Then you must try to be as honest as you can be with loved ones. We are all human, but that should be the goal.

So is it ever okay to lie to your significant other? There are times when you might tell a white lie to protect your partner, but as in other cases, telling the truth is generally the best policy . Telling lies, particularly those that involve serious deception, can erode the trust and intimacy in your relationship.

After all, if your partner doesn’t know the truth and how you are evolving as a person, that person doesn’t know the real you. You are not experiencing real intimacy then.

Intimacy demands vulnerability and honesty. You might also be depriving your family of the chance to show you that they see you for all your foibles and accept and love you as you are.

Less Lying Has Been Linked to Better Health

Evidence shows that Americans average about 11 lies per week. Another reason to strive to tell the truth and reduce lies? Anita E. Kelly, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame discovered during her research that participants who reduced lies and tried to live more honestly actually reported improved relationships and better mental and physical health.

Participants stopped making excuses for being late or not completing tasks. They also figured out other ways to avoid lying and the results were significant.

So what is a good reason to lie? Sometimes the stakes are high and lies are necessary to safeguard someone’s well-being. In these types of situations, lying for the sake of protecting yourself or loved ones is deemed acceptable:

• Lying to an abuser to escape from or protect someone from domestic abuse.
• Lying to an abuser to protect children from child abuse.
• Lying to someone who is playing with weapons.
• Lying to someone who seems intoxicated or on drugs.
• Lying to someone who seems to be experiencing a mental health issue.

Is it OK to lie to protect yourself?

While honesty is usually the best policy, it is okay to lie to protect yourself or someone else. Such lies can help ensure your safety in the moment until you are in a safer situation.

Lying to Our Loved Ones

What if our relatives are grappling with mental health problems or impairment? And it’s not an emergency situation, but it’s clear there is an ongoing problem. Sometimes lies are necessary to help them.

Meredith Gordon Resnick , LCSW, says, “Studies show that for people with severe dementia, sometimes telling an untruth, and doing it carefully and mindfully so as not to undermine trust, may be appropriate."

"Challenging someone with severe memory impairment to 'face the truth' of certain situations—even those that seem benign to someone else—can cause agitation and fear, and can break trust, too. It’s a delicate, individual balance," she also notes.

A Word From Verywell

So while honesty is usually the best policy, there are exceptions. Just about all religions and belief systems, however, extol the virtue of honesty. So while it’s okay to lie, in most cases, it’s better to strive not to.

Columbia Journalism Review. The true origins of 'white lies .'

Levine E, Schweitzer M. Prosocial lies: When deception breeds trust . Org Behav Hum Decis Process . 2015;126:88-106. doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2014.10.007

Garrett N, Lazzaro SC, Ariely D, Sharot T. The brain adapts to dishonesty .  Nat Neurosci . 2016;19(12):1727-1732. doi:10.1038/nn.4426

American Psychological Association. Lying less linked to better health, new research finds .

By Barbara Field Barbara is a writer and speaker who is passionate about mental health, overall wellness, and women's issues.

Greater Good Science Center • Magazine • In Action • In Education

What’s Good about Lying?

Do you teach children to lie?

I do. All the time. And you do, too! If you’re like most American parents, you point to presents under the Christmas tree and claim that a man named Santa Claus put them there. But your deliberate deceptions probably go beyond Santa, the Tooth Fairy, or the Easter Bunny.

How many of us tell our kids (or students) that everything is fine when, in fact, everything is totally wrong, in order to preserve their sense of security? Have you been honest about everything having to do with, say, your love life, or what happens at work? Do you praise drawings they bring home from school that you actually think are terrible?

We don’t just lie to protect our kids from hard truths, either. We actually coach them to lie, as when we ask them to express delight at tube socks from Aunt Judy or Uncle Bob’s not-so-delicious beef stew.

These are what scientists call “prosocial lies”—falsehoods told for someone else’s benefit, as opposed to “antisocial lies” that are told strictly for your own personal gain.

Most research suggests that children develop the ability to lie at about age three. By age five, almost all children can (and will) lie to avoid punishment or chores—and a minority will sporadically tell prosocial lies. From ages seven to eleven, they begin to reliably lie to protect other people or to make them feel better—and they’ll start to consider prosocial lies to be justified . They’re not just telling white lies to please adults. The research to date suggests that they are motivated by strong feelings of empathy and compassion.

Why should that be the case? What is going on in children’s minds and bodies that allows this capacity to develop? What does this developmental arc reveal about human beings—and how we take care of each other? That’s what a recent wave of studies has started to uncover.

Taken together, this research points to one message: Sometimes, lying can reveal what’s best in people.

How we learn to lie

At first, the ability to lie reflects a developmental milestone: Young children are acquiring a “theory of mind,” which is psychology’s way of describing our ability to distinguish our own beliefs, intents, desires, and knowledge from what might be in the minds of other people. Antisocial lying appears earlier than prosocial lying in children because it’s much simpler, developmentally; it mainly requires an understanding that adults can’t read your mind.

More on Honesty

Explore gender differences in prosocial lying .

Learn about the life stages of trust .

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Are you living true to your values? Discover how to cultivate ethical courage .

Take our Relationship Trust quiz .

But prosocial lying needs more than just theory of mind. It requires the ability to identify suffering in another person ( empathy ) and the desire to alleviate that suffering ( compassion ). More than that, even, it involves anticipation that our words or actions might cause suffering in a hypothetical future. Thus, prosocial lying reflects the development of at least four distinct human capacities: theory of mind, empathy, compassion, and the combination of memory and imagination that allows us to foresee the consequences of our words.

How do we know that kids have all of these capacities? Could they just be lying to get out of the negative consequences of telling the truth? Or perhaps they’re simply lazy; is it easier to lie than be honest?

For a paper published in 2015 , Harvard psychologist Felix Warneken had adults show elementary-aged children two pictures they drew—one pretty good, one terrible. If the adults didn’t show any particular pride in the picture, the kids were truthful in saying whether it was good or bad. If the grown-up acted sad about being a bad artist, most of the kids would rush to reassure her that it wasn’t too awful. In other words, they told a white lie; the older they were, they more likely the kids were to say a bad drawing was good. There were no negative consequences for telling the truth to these bad artists; the kids just wanted these strangers to feel better about themselves.

In other words, says Warneken, it’s a feeling of empathic connection that drives children to tell white lies. In fact, children are trying to resolve two conflicting norms—honesty vs. kindness—and by about age seven, his studies suggest, they start consistently coming down on the side of kindness. This reflects increasingly sophisticated moral and emotional reasoning.

“When is it right to prioritize another person’s feelings over truth?” says Warneken. “Say, if someone cooks something for you, and it just doesn’t taste good. Well, if they’re applying for cooking school somewhere, the prosocial thing is to be honest, so that they can improve. But if they just cooked it on their own just for you, then perhaps it’s better to lie and say it tastes good.”

It’s a good sign, developmentally, when kids show the ability to make that kind of calculation. Indeed, there is a great deal of evidence that we tend to see prosocial lies as the more moral choice. For example, people seem to behave more prosocially —more grateful, more generous, more compassionate—in the presence of images depicting eyes. While one would expect people to lie less under the eyes, in fact it appears to influence what kind of lie they tell: When Japanese researchers gave students an opportunity to make someone feel good with a lie, they were much more likely to do so with a pair of eyes looking down on them .

No eyes? They were more likely to tell the cold, hard truth!

How lies change as we grow

This moral self-consciousness appears to grow in tandem with the child’s self-control and cognitive ability.

Another study published last year in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology found that “children who told prosocial lies had higher performance on measures of working memory and inhibitory control.” This especially helped them to control “leakage”—a psychologist’s term for inconsistencies in a fake story.

To tell a prosocial lie, a child’s brain needs to juggle many balls—drop one, and the lie will be discovered. Some children are simply better truth-jugglers than others. Far from reflecting laziness, prosocial lying seems to entail a great deal more cognitive and emotional effort than truth-telling. In fact, one 2014 paper found tired adults are much less likely to engage in prosocial lying.

Studies by other researchers show that as kids grow older, the relationship between theory of mind and dishonesty starts to shift. Young children with high theory of mind will tell more antisocial lies than peers. This pattern flips as we age: Older children who have a stronger theory of mind start telling fewer antisocial lies—and more prosocial ones.

Kids also gradually become more likely to tell “blue lies” as they advance through adolescence: altruistic falsehoods, sometimes told at a cost to the liar, that are intended to protect a group, like family or classmates. (Think: lying about a crime committed by a sibling, or deceiving a teacher about someone else’s misbehavior.)

Though adults can (and do) teach children to tell polite lies—and in a lab context, kids can be primed by adults to tell them—Warneken says it’s more likely that successful prosocial lying is a byproduct of developing other capacities, like empathy and self-control. When kids acquire those skills, they gain the ability to start telling both white and blue lies.

But how do other people feel if these lies are found out?

The lies that bind

As they grow older, kids are also developing the ability to detect lies —and to distinguish selfish from selfless ones. The distinction comes down to intent, which studies show can be discerned through recognition of telltale signs in the face and voice of the liar.

In a study published last year, researchers used the Facial Action Coding System , developed by Paul Ekman , to map children’s faces as they told lies that served either themselves or others. The team, based at the University of Toronto and UC San Diego, found that the two different kinds of lies produced markedly different facial expressions.

“Prosocial lying reflects the development of at least four distinct human capacities: theory of mind, empathy, compassion, and the combination of memory and imagination that allows us to foresee the consequences of our words.”

Prosocial lies (which in this case involved delight in a disappointing gift) were betrayed by expressions that resembled joy—a “lip raise on the right side” that hinted at a barely concealed smile, and a blinking pattern associated with happiness. The faces of children lying to conceal a misdeed showed signs of contempt, mainly a slight lip pucker that stops short of being a smirk.

It’s almost certainly the case that we are subconsciously picking up on these signs (along with tells in the liar’s voice) when we catch someone in a lie. But research finds that the consequences of catching someone in a prosocial lie are often very different from those of an antisocial lie, or “black lie,” as they’re sometimes called. In fact, detecting a prosocial lie can increase trust and social bonds.

A series of four 2015 studies from the Wharton School had participants play economic games that involved different kinds of trust and deception. Unsurprisingly, the researchers found that black lies hurt trust. But if participants saw that the deception was altruistic in nature, trust between game-players actually increased. A complex mathematical 2014 study compared the impact of black and white lies on social networks. Again, black lies drove wedges into social networks. But white lies had precisely the opposite effect, tightening social bonds. Several studies have found that people are quick to forgive white lies, and even to appreciate them.

These differences show up in brain scans—and how different types of lies affect the brain can actually influence behavior down the road. A research team led by Neil Garrett at Princeton University assigned 80 people a financial task that allowed them to gain money at another person’s expense if they kept on lying.

“We found that people started with small lies, but slowly, over the course of the experiment, lied more and more,” they write . When they scanned the brains of participants, they found that activity lessened (mainly in the amygdala) with each new lie.

Not everyone lied or lied to their own advantage. One variation in the experiment allowed participants to lie so that another participant would gain more money—and the behavior and the brain scans of those people looked very different. Dishonesty for the benefit of others did not escalate in the same way selfish lies did; while people did lie for others, the lies did not get bigger or more frequent, as with black lies. And it did not trigger the same pattern of activity in the amygdala, which previous research has found lights up when we contemplate immoral acts. (Their methods are described more fully in the video below.)

In short, the brain’s resistance to deception remained steady after participants told prosocial lies—while self-serving lies seemed to decrease it, making black lies a slippery slope.

The upshot of all this research? Not all lies are the same, a fact we seem to recognize deep in our minds and bodies. We may indeed teach children to lie, both implicitly with our behavior and explicitly with our words; but some of those lies help to bind our families and friends together and to create feelings of trust. Other kinds of lies destroy those bonds.

This all might seem overly complex, more so than the simple prescription to not tell a lie. The trouble with do-not-lie prohibitions is that kids can plainly see lying is ubiquitous, and as they grow, they discover that not all lies have the same motivation or impact. How are we supposed to understand these nuances, and communicate them to our children?

In fact, the argument for prosocial lies is the same one against black lies: other people’s feelings matter—and empathy and kindness should be our guide.

About the Author

Jeremy Adam Smith

Uc berkeley.

Jeremy Adam Smith edits the GGSC's online magazine, Greater Good . He is also the author or coeditor of five books, including The Daddy Shift , Are We Born Racist? , and (most recently) The Gratitude Project: How the Science of Thankfulness Can Rewire Our Brains for Resilience, Optimism, and the Greater Good . Before joining the GGSC, Jeremy was a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University.

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Lying by Sam Harris

Robin davenport reviews sam harris on lying ..

You should not lie. This is the central thesis of Sam Harris’s book, Lying (2013). It seems like a straightforward enough principle to follow in pursuing the good life. Accordingly, Harris implies throughout this essay that truth and honesty should prevail in all instances of human interaction, even extending to those who with the most benevolent intentions employ ‘white lies’ to protect people from uncomfortable realities and unnecessary harm. Harris acknowledges that there may be life and death situations that require a person to lie; but he suggests that the ethically superior, noble person does not lie. He contends that lies cause irreparable rifts in relationships, causing us to distrust those on whom we had relied. So to lie is to sacrifice our integrity, and to place the possibility of deep and meaningful bonds with fellow humans at risk.

What constitutes a lie in Harris’s view? He argues that “to lie is to intentionally mislead others when they expect honest communication” (p.4), and later distinguishes two types of lies: lies of commission and lies of omission . In lies of commission, the liar is active in his or her attempt to deceive. An example would be a job applicant falsifying his credentials in an effort to land a desired position. On the other hand, a lie of omission is a more passive act, involving a person’s failing to do something – for instance, the applicant neglecting to list on his resume the job from which he was fired. While both types of lies are deceptive, in that they both present a misleading impression about the job applicant, for Harris, lies of commission are the more serious ethical violation. If Wally pushes someone in front of a moving train, that would probably cause more outrage than Wally’s failing to warn someone that she is about to be hit by a train, for instance. And so it goes with lies. If one actively misrepresents oneself by saying, “I studied for a Ph.D. at Stanford University” when one had never studied there, Harris regards this as a greater offense than having started studying there but failing to mention that one didn’t manage to complete one’s dissertation.

Skillful Truth-Avoiding

It is not hard to see why Harris takes this view. Acts of commission tend to be both more brazen and more harmful than omitting to act, in part because of their active nature. In any case, lies of commission are the focus of the essay. Harris rails against active lies in this book, arguing that we can enhance our world and prevent distrust from eroding relationships only through honest communication. At the same time, he acknowledges that tact might be required to protect a vulnerable person from harm in certain interactions. In these cases he seems to advocate for what his mentor, Ronald Howard, refers to as ‘skillful truth-telling’ (p.54).

To illustrate what this involves, Harris gives the example of his friend having to respond to an unwanted house-guest asking if he minds him staying there. He suggests that rather than misrepresenting his feelings about hosting this guest (by saying, for instance, “It’s great to have you here!”), his friend could simply state an innocuous truth such as “That’s what guest rooms are for.” Through this sleight-of-hand – or what Harris refers to as ‘finess[ing] the issue’ – an active lie can be avoided. (Harris reiterates this view later in the book when he recommends that when applying for a job at Starbucks, the applicant ought to express his love for coffee rather than admit that he’s desperate for money and will take any job.)

However, this evasive tactic of withholding one’s actual feelings by instead inserting a less relevant, albeit true, statement, is a far cry from being honest. In fact, this ‘skillful truth-telling’ is nothing more than lying by another name. Harris is therefore being disingenuous when he suggests that we can avoid lying by articulating irrelevant truths. Honesty requires that we bare our souls, so to speak, and potentially voice difficult truths, not simply avoid them. Stating verifiable facts that have little to do with our real sentiments does not let us off the hook, especially when the irrelevances are designed to hide tough underlying relevant truths. So on closer inspection, we realize that, without calling it such, Harris is suggesting here that we replace a lie of commission with a lie of omission.

A Brutal Liberation

Despite this apparent inconsistency in Harris’s argument, in his view, truly caring for another person requires that we not gloss over hard truths. He maintains that an individual who is brutally honest, avoiding ‘white lies’ and false encouragement, will have more beneficial relationships with others. He gives the example of a friend who asks him if he appears overweight. Harris responds honestly that his friend could lose twenty-five pounds. He then attributes his friend’s subsequent fifteen pound weight loss to his own willingness to speak truthfully. If instead he had falsely reassured his friend about his weight, he would have robbed him of the opportunity to squarely deal with his weight issue.

Harris goes so far to say that those who employ white lies in an effort to benefit others are demonstrating the “quintessence of arrogance” (p.18), since in such cases the liar assumes he knows what truths can be handled by the other person. Rather, we should trust that others have the wherewithal to grapple with the uncomfortable facts that apply to them. On this perspective the truth-teller is a kind of liberator, rescuing the deluded individual from his protective fantasies. Harris gives another example, of a friend striving to make a career out of acting but finding it difficult to secure roles. When the truth seems evident – in this case, that the friend is a terrible actor – Harris suggests that it is incumbent on us to convey this truth rather than falsely encourage a friend in his pursuits. There is some arrogance in Harris’s own position, however, for he complacently assumes that the beneficiary of such statements are themselves blind to reality. The implication here is that we have a better grasp of the truth than the friend, who still hasn’t figured out how bad an actor he is. Another complacent assumption is that we know what is best for the friend – that he should give up his passion and pursue something to which he is better skilled. Harris does admit that our own judgment in such matters can be flawed. Nevertheless, he believes that if we have strong convictions about the proper course of action for a friend, we should not remain silent about them.

The Truth About Honesty

Despite Harris’s hubristic views about our responsibility to free others from their self-deceits, there is much that seems reasonable in his view that we should strongly avoid lying in any of its forms. After examining Harris’s argument, the reader might find herself less willing to censor her true thoughts when speaking to others. The simple aphorism ‘honesty is the best policy’ is usually a sound principle to live by.

Harris’s major, and dubious, assumption, however, is that complete honesty is possible. The concept of unconscious motives or maladaptive psychological underpinnings that we can know nothing about, or of ‘bad faith’ (a form of self-deceit), are not considered in Harris’s analysis. But consider the example that, in an effort to be a good, honest friend, Monica overcomes her hesitancy to tell Bridgette that she looks fat in that tight-fitting dress. Although she doesn’t recognize it, Monica is jealous of Bridgette, and unconsciously feels threatened by Bridgette’s curves. Monica believes she is being honest, and that her attempts to avoid lying are genuine; but there is an underlying self-deception or simple ignorance that prevents Monica from being able to articulate the underlying truth. One might argue that it is impossible for anyone to be truly honest about many things, as long as he carries biased perspectives, hidden resentments, unresolved longings, unacknowledged insecurities, or a skewed view of self, to name just some inner human conditions.

However, if absolute honesty is impossible, then we are all liars by nature, at least to a degree. Perhaps the best we can do, then, is only to lie in ways that are intended to promote another’s well being or spare her unnecessary pain, and so further our integrity. The ‘noble liar’ is someone who tries to live by good intentions, even if that means intentionally lying to another person, if doing so is the lesser of two evils. Thus, if Winston deceives Molly by telling her that he’s taking her to a business meeting rather than her own surprise party, we can judge his actions through his good intention to provide her with a pleasant surprise rather than through the fact that he had to lie to achieve this. This is a very different ethical situation from that of the deceiver who deliberately hurts another person through his manipulations and lies. Before we cast too harsh a judgment on the liar, let’s first understand what his motives are.

© Robin Davenport 2015

Robin Davenport is the Director of Counseling Services at Caldwell University, and is also a psychotherapist in Caldwell, New Jersey.

• Lying by Sam Harris, Four Elephants Press, 2013, 108 pages, £9.99 hb, ISBN: 978-1940051000

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We're All Lying Liars: Why People Tell Lies, and Why White Lies Can Be OK

Husbands, wives, friends, even young children tell lies. Sometimes, that might be a good thing.

Why People Tell Lies (and Why Some Are OK)

Johnny Scriv | iStockphoto

Admit it: You've lied. You told a friend that his shirt looked stylish when you actually thought it was tacky and garish. Or maybe you said to your boss that her presentations were fascinating when in fact they were insipidly mindless. Or perhaps you told your landlord that the rent check was in the mail.

Don't feel bad. You're in good, dishonest company. A growing body of research shows that people lie constantly, that deception is pervasive in everyday life. One study found that people tell two to three lies every 10 minutes, and even conservative estimates indicate that we lie at least once a day. Such incessant prevarication might be a necessary social evil, and researchers have recently discovered that some fibbing might actually be good for you. "We use lies to grease the wheels of social discourse," says University of Massachusetts psychologist Robert Feldman. "It's socially useful to tell lies."

Researchers have been studying deception for decades, trying to figure out why we tell lies. It turns out that we spin facts and make up fictions for all sorts of reasons. We might want to gain a raise or a reward, for example, or to protect friends or a lover. Our capacity for deceit appears nearly endless, from embroidering stories to wearing fake eyelashes to asking "How are you?" when we don't actually care. We even lie to ourselves about how much food we eat and how often we visit the gym.

Small embellishments can have positive psychological effects, experts say. In a study released last year, researchers found that college students who exaggerated their GPA in interviews later showed improvement in their grades. Their fiction, in other words, became self-fulfilling. "Exaggerators tend to be more confident and have higher goals for achievement," explains Richard Gramzow, a psychologist at the University of Southampton in England and one of the study's coauthors. "Positive biases about the self can be beneficial."

People who deceive themselves also tend to be happier than people who do not, some research suggests. There are social payoffs, too: Studies have shown that people who lie frequently are viewed as friendlier and more amiable than their more truthful counterparts. Still, lying is generally regarded as immoral and distasteful. "No one likes being lied to," says former FBI agent and lying expert Joe Navarro. "We feel betrayed. When is it that they are telling the truth?" And people do really want to know the truth. A new Fox drama, Lie to Me, which features a steely British deception expert, has become one of the most popular shows on television.

Lying begins early. By the age of 3, most children know how to fib, and by 6, most lie a few times a day. Experts believe that children learn to lie by observing their parents do it—that they become practiced in the art of deception by imitating Mom and Dad. And parents sometimes explicitly encourage children to tell lies. Grandma Suzy will send some ugly wool socks or an itchy sweater, and parents will ask their son or daughter to say the item is lovely. As one study concluded, children "may learn to lie in the same way as they learn to speak."

Many experts don't see much difference between a little lie (telling Grandma you loved the ugly socks) and a big lie (covering up an extramarital affair). "Anything that is not accurate is a lie. You can argue that a lie done to make someone else feel better is relatively minor. But they have an effect. The bottom line is that a lie is a lie," says Feldman. "That's the great paradox here. I do believe the more lies, the more degradation. But you can't stop lies entirely. Society would grind to a halt."

Still, people act differently when they're gilding a story and when they're telling a massive whopper. When people tell a bold and blatant lie, they typically become tense and fidgety. Their heart rate speeds up. Their body temperature increases. But when telling white, or social, lies, they usually don't feel any anxiety at all. In fact, electrodes attached to the bodies of students in Gramzow's study revealed that the students who exaggerated their GPAs showed less nervous-system activity than students who were honest about their marks. "In certain situations, such as when someone asks you if you like the awful meal they just served you or the hideous outfit they are wearing, it probably takes less thinking to tell the expected polite lie than the more difficult truth," explains University of California-Santa Barbara psychologist Bella DePaulo.

That doesn't make it any easier for people to sort out fact from fiction. Studies have shown that people can identify lies only about 50 percent of the time, or about the same as chance. To be sure, researchers have been able to figure out some clues to uncovering deception. When people tell a significant lie, for instance, they typically gesture less and their arms may appear stiff. People telling lies also might have dilated pupils because they feel nervous about spinning an untruth.

[ 3 Ways to Tell if Someone Is Lying to You ]

Even with the development of such research, there's no surefire way to catch a liar. But someone with a known track record of lying is likely to pay a price. "Lies add up," says Feldman. "The more you know that someone is not telling you the truth, the less trustworthy they are. They're just telling you stuff you want to hear, and you won't listen to them anymore."

Tags: behavior , psychology , research

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Home / Essay Samples / Literature / The Ways We Lie / Understanding Lies Through Stephanie Ericcson’s The Ways We Lie

Understanding Lies Through Stephanie Ericcson’s The Ways We Lie

• Category: Literature
• Topic: Lying , The Ways We Lie

Pages: 3 (1258 words)

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Works Cited

• Ericsson, Stephanie. The Ways We Lie.
• Herbert, Bob. “Behind the Facade.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 4 July 2009, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/04/opinion/04herbert.html. 

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