McClatchy Newspapers

February 27, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Voices of Faith: Is lying all right for a greater good or always wrong?

The Rev. Duke Tufty, Unity Temple on the Plaza, Kansas City, Mo.: My immediate response was truth should always prevail and lying is always wrong. But then, what about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, planning a surprise party for someone or when lying is necessary to save a life, such as the people who lied to the Nazi soldiers about hiding Anne Frank in the attic.

If one is lying to cover up a wrongdoing, deceive another person or gain something at another’s expense, three things should be considered. The first is the Golden Rule. If you are going to lie to someone, would you feel OK if that person lied to you about a similar circumstance? If you don’t want to be lied to, don’t lie to others.

The second thing to consider is the effect the lie will have on another if the truth comes out. A lie that has the potential to hurt another is always wrong.

The third consideration is how the lie is going to affect how you feel about yourself. Do you want to see yourself as an honest or dishonest person? As truthful or a liar? You have to live with yourself every moment of every day. If you are expressing deceit to anybody, there is deceit within you. You are going to feel like a deceitful person, and that is a very sad and sorrowful way to live.

The Rev. Pat Rush, pastor, Visitation Catholic Church, Kansas City, Mo.: The requirement of honesty or truth-telling is based on the moral principle that the other person has a right to the knowledge and information that is requested of us. Although we should practice the virtue of integrity between our knowledge and our communicative expressions, words and deeds, not everyone at all times has a moral right to the knowledge that we are asked to impart. In those cases we are not obligated to convey the information.

Doctors and counselors, for example, may at times invoke the principle of “therapeutic privilege,” which is the right to withhold information, when telling the patient the whole truth at a time deemed premature could be detrimental to the patient’s welfare. In this case, the patient’s welfare is the greater good. Comparable principles are invoked by other professionals for similar reasons.

On a more mundane level, taking our children to see Santa Claus, an action that conveys a non-truth, is justified by the greater good of the well-being of childhood. However, there does come a time when every child has a right to forthright information about Santa.

The requirement of full, honest disclosure of information, therefore, is conditioned by the right of the other to that information, the propriety of the timing and my certainty of the accuracy of the information I am conveying. Assessing all that properly requires mature integrity.