Such an answer to someone like the Gestapo would give up your friends - they would not be so easily thrown off. The question is if an absolute like that outweighs, say, the life of others; your only chance to save them is to lie directly for them. Do you do it?
It wasn’t a shit post, it was an example from a philosophy class I took decades ago that stuck with me.
I believe we were discussing Kant at the time, who did hold that such a lie (even to save the lives of others) was not a positive good, but I found that extremely unsatisfying answer I could not agree with. Then again it’s been enough decades for the details to be fuzzy.
It wasn’t a shit post, it was an example from a philosophy class I took decades ago that stuck with me.
I believe we were discussing Kant at the time, who did hold that such a lie (even to save the lives of others) was not a positive good, but I found that extremely unsatisfying answer I could not agree with. Then again it’s been enough decades for the details to be fuzzy.