Suzanne asked:

Can you tell me whether it is more morally correct and spiritually rewarding to tell your truth even if it
hurts another? and is there anything within philosophy that tells about loyalty to particular people and
not to others, e.g. is it ever right to tell a lie to protect another?

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You're mixing two things up here. One question is whether, or under what circumstances, it is right to
tell a lie. The other question is whether moral philosophy can justify partiality to a particular person or
persons. If you are faced with a situation where you feel the need to tell a lie to one person in order to
protect another, then you need to answer both questions. Let's deal with them one at a time.

Can lying every be morally justified? There is an excellent book which you should read by Sisella
Bok, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private LifeQuartet 1980, in which she musters some
powerful arguments against the view that it is all right to lie when it serves a better end. I won't try to
summarize her arguments. Instead, I would invite you to consider how you would react to the
following statement:

I sometimes tell a lie, when it serves a better end.

If you believethat it's all right to tell a lie when it serves a better end, then surely it must be all right to
saywhat you believe. But nobody but a fool would say this. To admit to lying undermines other
people's faith in one's word. Suppose you are known as a morally upright person who would never do
wrong knowingly. In order to decide whether or not to believe you, a listener would first have calculate
whether, in your judgement, the best ends would be served by telling the truth or a lie. An intolerable
situation, don't you agree?

It is never all right to tell a lie, but some times we have to, all the same. You tell the axe-man pursuing
his intended victim, 'He went that-a-way.' Very few real life situations are this clear cut. All the same,
we sometimes find ourselves facing a dilemma in which it is impossible to do the right thing. Since we
have to act, we cannot be blamed for choosing the lesser of two evils. But the fact that you had to
make the choice that you made, doesn't make the action you chose 'right'.

Can moral philosophy justify partiality to a person or group of persons? I believe it can. Here, I am
strongly in agreement with the line taken by Bernard Williams in his writings (see, for example, his
book Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy1985). Rights, for example, the right not to be lied to, are
non-negotiable, but the claims that other persons make on us depend upon our commitments. These
are matters to be negotiated through moral dialogue. There are no human beings who do not 'count',
with whom I am not required to engage in moral dialogue, should the appropriate circumstances
arise. It does not follow, however, that every person whom I engage in dialogue deserves equal
consideration. It is acceptable, for example, under certain circumstances to put one's own family
before others.

Interestingly, in both these questions, the question of lying and the question of partiality, the line I
have taken is diametrically opposed to the line taken by the utilitarian philosophy of 'the greatest
happiness for the greatest number'. In utilitarianism, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with lying,
apart from the bad consequences that would follow if it got around that your word was not to be
trusted. On the question of partiality, faced with the life-boat scenario where I can either save my
family, or fifty other people, the utilitarian would insist that I leave my family to drown in order to save
the others. That is something I do not believe any of us is morally required to do.

What follows from this? If you lie to protect a friend, then you will be doing something wrong. If you
are disloyal to your friend, then you will also be doing something wrong. I'm afraid there is no easy
answer to this dilemma, you have to decide.

Geoffrey Klempner