General Argument Essay-Lying

Prompt: Agree, Disagree, or Qualify the claim that “the truth’s always better” than
lying
Human civilization is built on a series of moral obligations, obligations that keep
our society from descending into a state of frenzied barbarism. Many of these moral
codes can be found in the byproducts of our civilization, religion, as seen with
the principles of the ten commandments and the pillars of Islam. From these
guidelines, we have created laws binding our society in place, and we have
concluded that violations of these moral codes, such as lying, can be classified as
bad actions. The problem with this purely black and white mentality is that a gray
area can form when telling the truth may violate the other rules of our society.
For this reason, I will qualify the claim that lying is always unfavorable.
In simple situations, where lying primarily stems from personal interest and
avarice, the question of lying’s validity becomes a simple duality: lying is bad
and telling the truth will be better. This can be seen frequently in the fraud of
past political institutions. Lying destroyed the lives of the members of Harding’s
Cabinet after Teapot Dome. Lying destroyed Nixon’s career after Watergate, where he
was only saved after Ford’s pardon. Lying destroyed the lives of millions of
Chinese citizens after Mao created false promises and reports of the state of the
country. Ultimately, lying without any good reason, or lying with selfish
motivation never results in any good for either party. For the most part, these
lies serve as selfish conduits that only cause ill will for the affected. Because
humans have long associated lying as a sin, it is unlikely that history will
remember these liars kindly, and thus no one benefits.
A much harder question to answer occurs when there are multiple moral factors in
place. For example, in Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, George lies to Lennie (George’s
mentally slow friend) about his fate, assuring Lennie that he was safe before
saving Lennie from lynching by shooting him with a shotgun. Here, the question of
lying is more dubious. Should George have told the truth to Lennie, revealing the
truth of his fate, or was George justified in lying? What makes this part difficult
is that multiple factors are in play; George knows that lying is bad, but if he
doesn’t lie, he will ruin Lennie’s ignorance, and as they say, ignorance is bliss.
The main problem is that there is no moral hierarchy established here; It’s not
clear if we should prioritize transparency over making others feel better. As a
result, this question becomes subjective and likely impossible to achieve consensus
on. These lies are often referred to as white lies, or protective lies, and their
validity will depend on the situation.
Another category of dubious lies is the truth-keeping lies or lies that form to
preserve trust or bonds. Back in 10th grade, I received knowledge of a cheating
ring, as well as an invitation to join. I refused to join, but when a teacher asked
our class if anyone had knowledge of this cheating ring, I didn’t speak up. While
telling the truth would have been the morally correct choice, destroying
established bonds and agreements would not have been morally correct either. These
lies become even more difficult to judge if they are also protective lies. Am I
going to rat out a friend for cheating on their essay to their dream college? Am I
going to reveal that a happy family with kids has a cheating spouse? Will I ruin
the grades of desperate kids who are only looking to pass the class, the class that
might be their only chance of getting into university? Once again, these lies prove
difficult to understand and to simply label as good or bad choices.
Lying is too complex of a process to simply assign a duality to. There are times
where lying is hurtful and should be avoided, but there are also times where lying
may be in the best interest for all.