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Utilitarian and Deontological Approaches to Lying
Dmitri Koryagin
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Utilitarian and Deontological Approaches to Lying
Morally, lying is said to be wrong due to two main reasons. First, lying taints the quality
that makes one human: an individual can freely make logical choices since every lie that
someone tells disconfirms a part of humanity that gives them incorruptible worth. Secondly,
lying robs individuals of their freedom to make decisions logically. This lying incident leads to
someone making a decision contrary to how they would have reacted when they knew the truth.
Thus my lie would have harmed their autonomy and human dignity. Another perspective of
ethics maintains that lying is ethically wrong, although subtler. Instead of judging right or
wrongs based on reason, virtue ethicists tend to focus on developing what moral face people
should take.
The reasoning of Utilitarian ethics is based on Utilitarians based on the claim that actions
are morally acceptable when the results achieve a supremum benefit and minimum harm. Thus,
by this argument, one could say that lying is not always unethical. When it is necessary to lie to
reduce damage and maximize benefit, it could be considered unethical not to lie. However, the
main challenge in employing utilitarian ethics in everyday decision making is of great
significance since one must estimate the outcomes of their actions before making decisions.
Using the practical approach for decision-making, one must consider the following few cases.
We are told of a son and his dying mother; the mother requests the son to sell off her
estate and place the money earned in her final resting place. But on careful consideration, the son
reasons that honoring the mother's will cannot be the best thing to do. The amount earned from
selling off the estate would be wasted or even stolen, and the poor would be denied a chance to
benefit. The son understood that the mother might ask someone else to fulfill her will if he
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showed his legitimate intentions. Therefore, he lies by promising to honor her request, which he
knew would not be the case. By lying, the son's decision to achieve a greater good can be
supported by Utilitarianism. Noble lies intending to benefit other people are therefore considered
ethically acceptable by the practical approach.
Consider a depressed patient with only a few months to live according to actual results,
while the doctor tells him that he has a high percent chance of recovering. From years of
knowledge, the doctor knows that telling his patient the truth will only lead them to fall further
into depression or even committing suicide. But with the hope of recovering, the patient is likely
to maximize his remaining time. Therefore, the Utilitarianism approach supports the doctor's
decision. Thus, consequentialism is credited with two features that are defined therein. One of
which is a definition of good, defined as happiness, well-being, and personal selections.
Secondly, there is a question or whether something is right or wrong. From the same perspective,
a decision is considered ethical if it brings about maximum satisfaction and well being. The other
feature is that everyone is regarded as equal, that one's good is as good as someone else's.
The Utilitarian approach then draws from these two features that no decision to lie is
ethically right or wrong despite the context under consideration. However, we notice that the
Utilitarian approach will say that we should lie, not because it's morally right to lie but because
we are obligated to do so. Therefore, in general, the Utilitarian approach makes decisions based
on the most significant amount of good or benefit obtained from the greater society. This can
also be referred to as the consequentialist approach as its outcomes determine whether the
intervention is ethical or not. So to an extent, there are ways to make the Utilitarian theory less
resistible when we tend to consider lying by thinking about what is meant by lying. However,
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there are indeed cases where we believe it is ethically right to lie, but there are no similar cases
for the deontological theory.
In contrast to Utilitarianism, deontology is an ethical approach based on following a set
of universal rules to show the difference between right and wrong. The deontological theory is
not hard to apply as it only requires that individuals follow the rules and do their duty, a vice that
fits well with their intuition about what is right or wrong. So in some way, upholding the
practices makes the deontological approach easy to apply, but its results may not always conform
with many people's way of thinking. This is because we have to disregard the possible outcomes
of our actions when separating right from wrong.
We take an example of a software engineer who has information that a nuclear missile
likely to start a war is about to launch. He can choose to hack the said network and stop the
release, but that is against his professional ethics since by hacking the system, he'll be cheating,
and deontology advice not to violate this rule. However, if the missile launches, thousands of
lives are lost. Following the deontological theory means disregarding the possible consequences
of one's action.
The deontological ideologies are often driven to the Utilitarian approach by those with
authority, say, in a hospital setting, hospital managers, and public health professionals who are
perceived to be utilitarian ideologists. And from the Utilitarian approach, energy, healthcare
resources, and time to be appropriately utilized for the greater good, a little harm is acceptable
while achieving good for the greater society. But from a deontological perspective, utilitarians
tend to generalize the guidelines while there may be cases that dont require such approaches.
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In conclusion, both the utilitarian and deontological can be used to determine whether a
situation is worth a lie or a truth; that is, the involved are either needed to lie or tell the truth, not
because it's acceptable but because they're obliged to do so for a greater good. Take an example
of patients with persisting consciousness disorder. These kinds of patients pose a significant
dilemma for healthcare providers as well as family members. Utilitarianism is a theory
concerned with the outcome of an action to determine its morality. On the other hand,
deontological ethics dictate that individual acts are wrong independent of their results. Therefore,
personhood can be approached from different perspectives such as relations, biological, and
psychological state. Understanding a variety of ethical frameworks helps clinicians evaluate
more clearly the reasons for their intuitions.
The two theories discussed have different responses to the question of "is it wrong to
lie?". The deontologist theory says that lying is always wrong; that is, there are no situations at
all that we'll say it is right to lie. On the other hand, the Utilitarian approach says that it depends;
if lying is better than telling the truth, left with no option but to lie. Both of these responses seem
to lead to contrast to intuition claims. Thus the best way to respond to whether lying is right or
wrong is to go back to the definition of lying and conclude that questions about the moral value
of lying arise from the incomplete understanding of what it means to tell a lie.
References
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