Is it Permissible to Lie?

Alexiy Stolyarov

English 1101

Feb, 3, 2016

Rasheda Young

Is it Permissible to Lie

Is it permissible to lie is a question many consider today, some of us say yes while others would heavily negate lying. I would have to say yes in my opinion. First because many people may not realize that there are being lied to for their own protection. This can be expressed in many different ways and situations but typically it is because the person being lied to may not be able to handle whatever truth that lies hidden from them. Here are a few examples; let us say on a small scale subject one is an adopted child, one does not know that it is an adopted child however the mother of one does know and decides not to tell him until the time is right. Years go by and one is not a child anymore but a young adult its mother breaks it the news and one is disheartened for a while but realizes that his mother held that information for its own good. If told earlier (when a child) it may have had some detrimental consequences since children are still developing they may not be able to handle information like that. Another good example on a large scale is that lets say our government has developed or had developed a way to completely debunk religion, they know it is foolish but they do not release that information into the public because the people in our hegemony do not want to lose their power. The hegemony knows that if religion is debunked what is to stop people from committing horrible crimes and society will crumble or at least the system the hegemony created will thus also losing their power. A good real life example of this situation lies with the Holy Roman Empire. Now we need to know when it is not permissible to lie. I believe it is not permissible to lie when a lie can hurt someone unjustly. For example let us say that a classroom of children are in session of class the teacher is doing his/her job then walks up to the dry erase board and begins writing with his/her back facing the children as most are immature at the age one child decides to throw a paper ball at the teacher. The teacher turns around and passive aggressively asks who did it. The child that did it points to another innocent child the teacher believes that child because they were first to point fingers. The victim child is then yelled at and disgraced in front of the class then given a detention. Later the victim child goes home shows his/her parents the detention and they want to have none of it and proceed to discipline their child. That is why I believe it is permissible to lie but only under certain circumstances.