| My sense of things is that yes, everyone lies to some extent. I don't believe someone who says they don't. The question is really what magnitude of lying are you talking about? The way I think about it is something like this: what ethical obligation do you have to be truthful? I usually assume that the obligation is to be truthful, but recognize there are some scenarios where the situation or other person's request of information from you is unethical, and so in those situation I feel under no obligation to reciprocate. My in-laws, for example, routinely inquire about my spouse and me in ways that are inappropriate and cross boundaries. To me, we should not be in the position of having to refuse to give that information; I have tried, but they ignore that, and escalate things. So now I lie, and feel no guilt because to me they violated basic social contract to begin with. That's an extreme example, but I think it extends to other more mild situations as well. I think there's some situations where the likely consequence of telling the truth or refusing to give that information is unfair or unreasonable, so I see lying as ethical. I guess I see the assumption that you should always tell the truth as being based on an assumption, in turn, that the elicitation of information itself is being done in good faith. I don't see that assumption as necessarily true. |