Or By JOSIAH THOMPSON Consequences tionary- -and her book is a work of ...

[Pages:2]Truth

LYING: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life. By Sissila Bok. Pantheon. 326 pp. $10.95

Or Consequences

By JOSIAH THOMPSON

ISSILA BOK's voice is the .voice of the 43 moralist--sensible, analytically keen, cautionary-_-and her book is a work of applied ethics. Her questions are "should" questions: "Should physicians lie to dying patients' so as to delay the fear and anxiety which the truth might bring thenii? 'Should professors exaggerate the excellence of their students on recom-

mendations in order to give them a better So we are left in the mid-ground with the I

chance in a tight job market? Should parents question: When is it permi'ssible to lie? This

conceal from children the fact that they were question, the axial one of the book,' opens into

adopted? . . Should journalists lie , to those a series of more particular questions: Is it per -

from whom they seek information in order to missible to lie to a liar? to an enemy? "to- aiLtS

expose corruption?" Lying is intended to child? to an insane person? to the sick and the

loosen the conceptual tangles posed by these dying? Is it permissible to lie to protect a peer

questions. As a book in applied ethics it is suc- or a client? to advance a greet public" good?,

cessful. But in being successful it exposes the Bok pursues answers to these questiOns inse-

limits of the genre.

quential chapters. Alert to, the complications

Clearly some lies are permissible. A mur- of actual situations, she insists that ambiguity

derer looking for his victim may be lied to. On must not blunt or excuse what she takes to be

the other hand, the very nature of language morally imperative.

, .

requires the maintenance of what Bok calls"' How satisfying are her answers? Consider

the "principle of veracity," the presumption the following:

that lies are (in Aristotle's phrase) "mean and Should journalists lie to those from whom

culpable," and always require a, justification. they seek information in order to expose cor-

ruption? Here. Bok uses as an example the deception practiced on Deep Throat by Woodward and Bernstein and described in their book AU the President's Men. After waffling over whether Woodward and Bernstein's deception was necessary, Bok cautions: "What is more troubling in the book than the lies themselves is the absence of any acknowledgement

of a moral dilenuna. No one seems to have

(0mtinued on page 4)

JOSIAH THOMPSON has written books on Kieckegaard and the Kennedy assassination. Until recently professor of philosophy at Haverford, he is now a private detective in San, Francisco..

K WORLD/AUGUST 13,1978

Lying

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