The Reasons of Lying - Term Paper Example

Human Behaviour: Lying Lying is a common behaviour that can be traced to all human beings regardless of their age, gender, education, cultural background or social status. People tend to lie on a constant basis, either consciously or unconsciously, because lying does not necessarily imply intention to deceive the others. Author Thomas L. Carson, in his book Lying and Deception: theory and practice, defines lying as a condition in which an individual through the use of words deceives his or her listener (16). Similarly, Charles Fried in Right and Wrong states that lying is the ‘deception’ that intervenes in the communication processes between a sender and a receiver (55). These simplistic definitions of lying suggest that lying is a part of the communication process; lying is originated by the information sender; lying targets the information recipient, but there are no indications of the causes of lying (the reasons of lying). Researchers have long studied the characteristics of lying, but what is most important is to trace the reasons for lying; in essence to understand why people lie. This paper focuses on three propositions for the reasons for lying: lying as a product of an individual’s intention to withhold truthful information in order to deceive others, lying as an intention to prevent others from ‘injury’ or harm and lying as an unconscious practice where the individual who lies is not aware of lying. Lying often occurs in the communication process between individuals when one of the individuals has an interest in deceiving the other. It is very common that people will tell lies in order to produce false assumptions or false beliefs in their friends, families, peers or anyone with whom they communicate. According to Carson, this is the first and most important reason for lying, because individuals have in their nature the tendency to compete with each other, and thus lying can provide a relatively better position to one person against the other (48). Paul Faulkner, in his journal What Is Wrong with Lying, agrees with the view of Carson, and states that one of the most common reasons for lying is to make the others believe that what they are told is true while in fact it is false (536). Lying under the intention to deceive the listener can be viewed from different perspectives; lying to make the other person view a subject or an issue just like the person who is lying or lying in order to avoid the other person’s realization of the truth. For example, a child may lie to his or her parents in order to avoid punishment in case of misbehavior; the child will probably lie in that case by either avoiding telling the truth or telling a false story on the basis of avoiding the punishment. Alternatively, a girl can lie to her boyfriend by telling him that they need to get married because she is pregnant; in this case, the lie of the pregnancy is intended to deceive the other and make him adopt the girl’s perspective on the need for marriage. Lying can, however, also can be driven by the willingness of an individual to protect his or her listener from harm or injury. Paul Ekman believes that in many instances people are faced with the challenge to protect others from the truth which might be hurtful (1). Likewise, Fried, in his book Right and Wrong, suggests that, too often, human beings feel the need to tell lies in order to prevent their families or friends from being ‘harmed’ by an unbearable truth (69). Although this reason for lying is viewed by many people as “justified lying” it remains a deceitful condition where the one person withholds information from the other person. Such circumstances of lying, which are traced in people’s attempt to prevent others form ahrm, can be traced to the individuals’ intention, for example, to avoid hurting their listeners. A person can lie to his family if for example that person wishes to avoid hurting their feelings in case he/she has a serious illness. Additionally, a person may withhold his or her actual feelings to his/her life partner in order to protect the other from being disappointed, harmed or hurt. In that case, lying is deceitful but, the reasons for being lying are not associated with the intention to deceive; rather, the reasons are associated with the intention to prevent harm. Lying, however, does not need to be perceived as a conscious action in which people engage into. Lying can be unconscious too. What is meant by this is that lying can easily be caused by the fact that a person is unaware of the fact of being lying to another person. (Carson, 286). Don Fallis adopts a similar perspective on this reason for lying and suggests that people in many cases are caught to be lying by the judgment of the falsehood of what they say, but in reality these people may believe that what they have told is not false (8). In this case, lying is underpinned neither by the intention to deceive, nor by the intention to protect and prevent others from harm. Lying is underpinned by the intention of the individual to communicate with another individual. If the information sender does not aim at lying, simply because he does not know that the information that is sent is false, then lying occurs as a product of the false beliefs of the individual and the intention to communicate the beliefs which are not perceived as false. For example, one person asks a colleague about the deadline of a given project and that colleague responds that the deadline is in two days but in reality the deadline is in one day. The communication process is intervened by the lie, but the reason for lie is unintentional or unconscious because the colleague believes that the deadline is in fact in two days. The three reasons for lying that were presented in the previous paragraphs are the most common drivers of lying. However, many authors such as Alan Strudler have argued that lying no matter the reasons or the drivers, remains a wrongful condition where truth, which is objective and rightfully required by each and every human being, is distorted or manipulated or withheld (173). In this view, it is stressed that people have no right to lie because regardless the reasons for doing so, they still engage into an immoral behaviour which is underlined by the final product of the lie. However, it should be noted that immoral and unethical behavior is the behaviour in which lying intends to harm others and not when it intends to prevent others from harm or even more when it is not based on the awareness of lying. Lying is literally everywhere in people’s everyday interaction and communication with each other. While lying has been labeled as a wrong, immoral and unethical behaviour on the part of human beings, the reasons for lying need to be assessed and evaluated before blaming a person for lying. In this paper, there have been three reasons identified as the most important drivers of lying: the first two relate to the intention of the individual to deceive the listener and the intention of the individual to protect or prevent the listener from being harmed, while the third relates to the unconscious lying caused by the fact that an individual may not be aware of the falsehood of what she or he communicates. The important issue in understanding why people lie is first of all to understand the reasons or the drivers behind lying. Works Cited Carson, Thomas L. Lying and Deception: Theory and Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Print. ---. “The Definition of Lying.” NOUS, 40.2 (2006): 284-306. Print. Ekman, Paul. “Reading Between the Lies.” PaulEkman.com, March 2009. Web. 25 Oct. 2010. Fallis, Don. “What Is Lying”, N.p., December 2007. Web. 24 Oct. 2010. Faulkner, Paul. “What Is Wrong With Lying.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 75.3 (2007): 535-557. Fried, Charles. Right And Wrong. USA: Harvard College Publishings, 1978. Print. Strudler, Alan. “The Distinctive Wrong of Lying.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice. 13.2 (2010): 171-179. Read More