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Aug. 14, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
43:11
The Truth About Lying!
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All right.
Hope you're doing well, everybody.
Stéphane Molyneux from Freedomain, freedomain.com slash denate to help out the show.
I really would appreciate that.
Freedomain.com slash tonight.
So the philosophy of lying is really important.
It is where a lot of moral theories go to die, to expire their last breath on an infinite Sahara Sea of sophistry.
It's a real challenge for moral philosophers.
Now, of course, thou shalt not bear false witness is different from don't lie, thou shalt not lie.
Thou shalt not bear false witness means in matters of particular moral or legal import, you should tell the truth.
And so it's a little bit different from some sort of white lies and so on.
So the question of lying, well, let's define it.
Of course, lying is the intentional misrepresentation of a fact.
It is the promotion of a falsehood where the falsehood is known.
There is an old joke.
It's from my big fat Greek wedding.
And the joke is that there's a guy marrying into a Greek family and he's not Greek, obviously.
And the Greek brothers teach him rude phrases in Greek while pretending that they're innocuous.
So it's a beautiful day today is nice boobs or something like that.
Right.
So the person who is honorably trying to learn Greek to impress his in-laws, the person who says nice boobs because he's been taught that that means what a lovely day is not being rude because he is not knowledgeable of what he is being taught.
He's being taught something he believes to be true, but it's not true.
And so, of course, when he says whatever, I can't remember the rude phrase is to the mother, then the mother gets angry not at him, but at her sons who've been teaching him these rude phrases under the guise of instructing him in conversational Greek.
She realizes immediately what has happened and she is not angry at her potential son-in-law or her incipient or immediate son-in-law, but she's angry at her sons who taught him these bad phrases.
So lying is an intentional misrepresentation.
You can't just say of a fact because it could be an intentional misrepresentation of a lie.
So if someone is trying to fortunately get a job as a surgeon and he puts down a reference and then a person pretends to be a reference and say, this guy's a great surgeon, he worked for me when he's not and didn't, then that is a lie that is not just saying something is false when it's true, but also saying something is true when it's false.
So it is an intentional misrepresentation of the facts of reality with knowledge of the facts.
And the fact could be that something is a lie.
Now, that's sort of immediate lying.
There are other lies that you're responsible for, even though you may believe them to be true.
I just did a show on somebody who referred to Bitcoin as a Ponzi scheme.
Now, he may believe that Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme.
He may even pass a lie detector test, should such a thing be infallible.
He may, in fact, pass a lie detector test in order to, because he genuinely believes that Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme.
However, he is responsible for knowing the facts that he is putting out into the world.
He is responsible for knowing whether these facts are true.
So if somebody says Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme, even if they genuinely believe that Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme, they're lying because Bitcoin is not a Ponzi scheme.
And so when you make a truth claim, you are responsible for knowing whether that claim is true or not.
So again, I'm no lawyer, but generally in defamation law, if you're a public figure, it has to be either actual malice, like you know it's false, but you say it anyway, or with a reckless disregard for the truth.
If someone says Bob is a murderer and they know he's not, but they just hate him, well, That's actual malice.
And if, you know, one simple internet search could have shown them that Bob is not a murderer, that's a reckless disregard for the truth.
Again, this is not legal advice.
This is just my understanding about the general ethics behind the law, at least in America.
Other laws, other countries have different laws.
So, reckless disregard for the truth.
You are responsible for falsehoods if you confidently proclaim information to be true that you have not researched.
So, if somebody says, I think Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme, then they are responsible for typing into any search engine or any AI that's competent and saying, What are the arguments for and against Bitcoin being a Ponzi scheme?
What is the definition of a Ponzi scheme and how does Bitcoin fit or not fit that?
And with AI now, again, AI may not be perfect, but it will certainly give you a case and say it is not as simple as saying that Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme.
Even if the AI is ambivalent, well, you could make this case, but then there's this case against, then you can't confidently say Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme once you have been exposed to the arguments against your position.
So, if you confidently state a position, you are responsible for knowing the counter-arguments to your position.
It's one of the things, by the by, that I just have kind of an issue with with regards to the left.
That the left says, This is true, this is the good, and they don't ever even research the counter-arguments of their position.
They have all the certainty of living in an echo chamber and a bubble.
It's a form of aristocracy.
The king is certain he's the best king because everyone around him tells him he's the best king, because people who don't tell him he's the best king don't last very long around him, either in terms of location or longevity.
So, even if you believe something to be true, if you confidently proclaim, particularly in public, something that you believe to be true, but you have not researched the counter-evidence, then you are lying.
And this is true, of course, of people who repeat other people's lies, right?
Without checking them.
Somebody says, Oh, Bob's a murderer, and somebody else says, Yeah, yeah, Bob's a murderer, and they haven't checked it, then they're lying, even though they may truly believe that Bob is a murderer because someone said it, right?
They're still lying.
When you tell your children that Santa Claus is real, you're lying.
When you tell your children that the tooth theory is real, you are lying.
So, you may say it's to preserve the magic of childhood or something like that, but you're lying.
You're lying.
Now, lying is the initiation of falsehood.
Lying is the initiation of falsehood.
So, the analogy here is self-defense.
So, if somebody runs at you with a chainsaw, you can shoot them.
I'm going to cut you and run at you with a chainsaw, you can shoot them.
In fact, you probably should, right?
So, that is self-defense.
Is shooting someone violent?
Sure.
Is it self-defense?
Yes.
Causing someone physical harm is not violence.
I mean, it happens when you get surgery, right?
So, violence, the criminal violence, is the initiation of the use of force.
The force that you use in self-defense is not evil.
In fact, I think it's pretty good.
So, in the same way, if somebody lies to you, you are no longer obligated to tell the truth in return in the same way that if somebody initiates the use of force against you, you are not obligated to be pacifist in return.
I don't feel any moral obligation to tell the truth to compulsive liars.
And so, to take an example that is often quoted in the annals of philosophy, if someone bangs on your door and says, Where's your wife?
I want to kill her, and you know where she is, what do you do?
Well, this person is threatening your wife's life, which is a crime.
To believably say, I want to kill someone, I'm going to kill someone, is a death threat, and that's illegal and immoral.
So do you tell the guy who wants to kill your wife where your wife is?
Now, Immanuel Kant says, well, yes, yes, you have to tell him because lying is good in and of itself and blah, blah, blah, right?
I don't say that at all.
In the same way, if you said, well, using force is always wrong, therefore, if someone stabs you, you can give them a stern lecture, but you can't use force to defend yourself.
Well, I think that's ridiculous.
I mean, I know ridiculous is not an argument.
I've gone through the whole arguments for self-defense in my free book, Universally Preferable Behavior, a Rational Proof of Secular Ethics.
But you are not obligated to tell the truth to people who are lying to you.
So for instance, if someone steals something of yours, and the best and easiest way for you to get that object back is to lie, there's nothing wrong with that lying.
So let's say some kid steals your bike and the easiest way for you to get it back is to say, oh, your kid asked me to fix the bike and I'm going to fix his bike and then return it.
And then that gets you the bike back in your possession.
That's fine.
I have no problem with that at all.
Lying is not as bad as stealing, right?
And stealing is usually not as bad as physical violence.
Your person is more important than your property.
And therefore, violence against your person is worse than, usually, is worse than stealing.
And this is something that I constantly reiterate, that morality is not a set of absolutes.
Morality is a relationship to other moral people.
If you've known a guy for 20 years in business and he always keeps his word and he always pays on time and he always keeps his contracts and so on, then you can probably do a handshake deal.
However, if it's someone maybe from a different culture, different language, whatever, you don't know much about them, you've heard shady things, then you're probably going to require, if you're going to do business at all, a pretty ironclad contract.
In other words, somebody who's moral and has a consistent and personally verified by you record of morality, well, that person gets special positive considerations in that you can just do a handshake deal.
And somebody who's immoral, you may not choose to do a deal with at all, or if for some reason you really need to, you're going to make a very tight and ironclad contract and so on and make sure that if they don't obey it, bad things are going to happen, all that kind of stuff, right?
So lying is like force.
It's wrong to initiate it.
It is not to respond with it.
It is wrong to initiate force.
It is fine to use force in self-defense.
It is wrong to initiate falsehood.
It is fine to lie in return.
If someone lies to you and steals your property, it is fine to lie to them to get it back because they have initiated lying.
And for you, lying to restore your property is not immoral because it's returning your property to a state of just ownership.
In the same way that somebody wants to stab you and you shoot them, you are not doing anything other than keeping your body in a state of health, of not stabbedness.
You're not gaining something.
You're just not losing something.
Somebody who threatens to stab you to get your wallet is gaining your wallet.
If you shoot them because they're about to stab you for your wallet, then you have not gained anything.
You've simply kept your wallet.
You're maintaining your ownership in its prior state.
So lying is negative if you initiate it.
It is not negative if you respond to it.
If somebody says, when are you going to be home so that I can beat you up?
It is totally fine to say, I'm just about to go on a year-long vacation.
But that's a lie, right?
But the person Who is threatening you does not deserve the truth from you?
Truth, honesty, integrity is a relationship, just as nonviolence is a relationship.
Non-violence is for the non-violent.
Non-violence is not for the violent.
So, we look at lying and say, can lying ever be universally preferable behavior?
Can everyone lie all the time?
Can everyone want to lie and be lied to?
Because lying is a relationship thing.
I guess you can lie to yourself, but it's sort of impossible to verify.
So, can everyone want to lie and be lied to for all time, under all circumstances, no matter what?
Well, no, it doesn't pass the coma test because a person in a man in a coma can't lie.
It can't really be lied to.
And also, if you want to be lied to, is it a lie?
Let's take a silly example of role-playing, right?
It could be sexual or some other thing, right?
If you want to be lied to, is it a lie?
So, for instance, it is illegal to imitate a police officer.
However, if you hire a stripper who comes in Danny DeVito style as a police officer, pretending to be a police officer, is that a lie?
Well, no, you know he's not a police officer.
You know it's not really a lie because he's not genuinely claiming to be a police officer because they generally don't strip and shake their moneymakers.
So, is it a lie if you know it's a lie and you prefer the lie?
I mean, when you go and see a play on stage, that's not really Hede Gabbler, that isn't really England, that isn't really Middle-earth, that isn't really Frodo, that's not really a dragon, right?
I mean, you know that, right?
Those aren't real dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, volume 4,000.
So, you know that it's a lie.
Is it a lie?
No.
When you read a novel, like I'm writing a novel at the moment, people who never existed, thoughts that were never recorded, I'm writing down as if they're true.
Now, of course, I'm not claiming it's a documentary at all.
So it's not a lie if you know that it's a lie and you accept it as a lie.
Let's say that you know your spouse is planning a surprise party, but they really want to have the surprise party.
And so you pretend that you don't know that there's a surprise party and then you, oh, wow, whatever, right?
It's fun for everyone.
It's not a problem.
This is not a big, bad thing.
So they say, were you surprised?
Oh, yes, you know, that was wild.
I had no idea, blah, blah, blah, right?
That's delightful.
That's fun and whatever, right?
Now, the other person doesn't know that you're lying.
But you know, right, when your spouse says, oh, I'm just kind of tired.
Let's just stop past this restaurant and grab something to go on the way.
And then you know there's like 50 people there who all want to wish you happy birthday or whatever it is.
That's a surprise party.
So you know they're lying, but it's fun and it's not a problem.
It's not negative, right?
So is it possible for lying to be universally preferable behavior?
For everyone to want to lie and be lied to at the same time?
Well, no.
Because if you know everyone's lying, then they can't lie to you.
A lie requires that you believe it.
So it is impossible for lying to be universally preferable behavior.
It is also impossible for telling the truth to be universally preferable behavior.
Because telling the truth is a positive action and doesn't pass the coma test.
Can everyone want to tell and be told the truth at the same time?
No.
No.
Because you can't both give and receive the truth at the same time.
It would be like saying giving everyone all your property is universally preferable behavior.
Well, because everyone would be giving you their property, you'd be giving them your property and it would all cancel out and it's impossible to do that.
And then you've got to go to sleep or you're not doing that.
So telling the truth is not universally preferable behavior.
Now, not lying.
Can everyone not lie at The same time.
Yes.
In the same way that giving people property can't be universally preferable behavior, but not stealing can be universally preferable behavior.
So not lying can be universally preferable behavior.
Can everyone not lie at the same time?
Well, it passes the coma test in that the guy who's in the coma is not lying.
And it is possible for everyone to not lie.
This is why negative behavior is UPB.
Thou shalt not, right?
Steal, assault, murder.
Thou shalt not is fine.
That can be universalized.
Thou shalt cannot be universalized.
It fails the coma test and it's impossible to achieve at all times and under all circumstances for all people.
It is possible for everyone to not lie.
It passes the coma test.
It is not possible for everyone to tell the truth at all times.
And what would that even mean?
I mean, I'm telling you the truth about lying.
I'm not telling you the truth that I'm a little bit hungry.
And I'm delayed.
I had an appointment, but I forgot something.
I have to go back.
So I'm not telling you all.
Oh, I guess I did now.
But I mean, so I'm withholding from you the reason why this podcast is even occurring and the fact that I'm hungry.
But then when I'm telling you that I'm hungry, I'm not telling you the truth about lying.
So it's impossible.
You can't tell the truth about everything at all times under all circumstances.
That's not.
But I cannot lie.
Everyone cannot lie.
So lying in its immoral state is when someone tells you something that is false that you believe to be true that has a negative impact on you.
And this may sound like more and more caveats and more and more complication, but it's really not.
So if you choke on something and the only way you can be saved is an emergency tracheotomy, then hopefully there's a surgeon around with a sharp knife who can do it, right?
You need that.
So he's stabbing you, but it is something that you approve of.
I mean, you can't give your approval then, but it's reasonable to expect that you would give your proof down the road, right?
You can give your proof.
You can give your approval retroactively, right?
So in the same way, if you know that your girlfriend has planned a surprise party for you, then you know she's lying to you, but it does not have a harmful impact or effect upon you.
In fact, it's probably quite delightful.
And that, of course, is the argument for telling kids about Santa Claus, that it gives them a positive response.
It makes their life better and more magical.
And therefore, it's not bad.
Now, the perception of harm is fairly important because somebody can harm you and you approve of it, right?
If you're into spanking or, I don't know, hot wax on the nipples or some weird king like that, you might, in fact, pay people to do that to you or hit you with a ping-pong paddle in the NEDS or whatever.
Not you particularly, but that guy right behind you is into you.
There are other times where you might be harmed by someone's actions and appreciative of them, not just the tracheotomy example, but if somebody whips out a gun and shoots over your shoulder, this could damage your ear.
But if a killer was just about to stab you, then you'd be grateful because you'll take the ear damage over the being stabbed or whatever, right?
So there has to be a subjective perception of harm that manifests in moral action because there's the moral theory and then there's the moral practice, right?
There is the physics and then there's the engineering, right?
The physics is equations.
The engineering is building the actual bridge.
Now, of course, engineers can't ignore physics, but physicists don't have to build things.
So we can say, well, what about if somebody is harmed, but they don't realize that they're harmed?
Well, it doesn't matter then, really, because it's never going to show up in any practical, in any practical manner, right?
So let's say that someone drops a package on someone's doorstep, they're away for the day, and then someone steals that package and the person didn't even know they were stolen from, the other person never references it, or something like that.
Was a wrong done?
Sure.
Yeah, absolutely.
Does it have any practical consequence?
Well, no, because the person didn't even know he was stolen from.
And therefore, he has not experienced the subjective process of being harmed, right?
And therefore, he's not going to act to recover property that he doesn't even know is missing, right?
So there does need to be a subjective experience of harm in order for the wrong to be manifested in any practical legal consequentialist kind of way.
So lying is when somebody says something to you that is false, you believe it to be true, and it causes harm and it causes harm.
So Bernie Madoff told people that he was going to give them these outlandish returns on investment because he was such a great investor and he was investing in all of this stuff.
Well, that was a lie.
And Bernie Madoff knew that it was a lie and people believed it, that it was true, and it caused them harm.
So that sort of fits into that, right?
And again, this is the lying thing is directly analogous to the violence thing with sort of one major, major exception.
So the major exception is the avoidability.
So rape, theft, assault, and murder, the three major categories disproven as universally preferable behavior by UPB.
So why didn't I include lying in that?
Because lying is avoidable, right?
Somebody jumps out of the bushes and punches you in the head.
That's not avoidable.
I mean, you could say good neighborhood, bad neighborhood, or whatever, right?
But that specific action is not avoidable.
If a man or a woman is walking in the woods and somebody jumps out and assaults them, steals from them, it's not really avoidable.
You say, oh, well, you could have stayed home.
It's like, yeah, but in the normal course of human behavior, that's not avoidable.
On the other hand, if I know someone wants to fight me at 3 o'clock in the morning in the local park under the statue and I go there, well, that's somewhat avoidable.
I mean, maybe I'm getting it over with, or maybe I bring the police or whatever, right?
But that's somewhat avoidable.
So people who initiate the use of force against you, that's not avoidable.
And that's why you can use force to defend yourself.
So let's look at a Ponzi scheme versus assault.
So a guy jumps out from the bushes and beats you up.
Maybe he takes your wallet too.
Okay.
That's not avoidable.
However, somebody says to you, hey, you know, if you give me $1,000, I'll give you $2,000 back within six months.
Man, that's 100% return on investment.
You're never going to get anything that good ever again, blah, blah, blah, right?
Well, is that avoidable?
Sure.
Just don't give them your money.
So usually with lying or with fraud, you have to do something in response.
You have to take a positive action with regards to lying.
Somebody lies to you and says, give me $1,000, I'll give you $2,000 back in six months.
You can avoid that.
Don't listen to the person, hang up on the person, don't give them the $1,000, right?
That's easy to avoid.
And I'm not blaming the victims here because, you know, con men can be very persuasive.
But what I am saying is that you have to take positive action to participate in the lie.
And that's not the case with regards to rape, theft, assault, and murder, which is why fraud is different from theft.
Because with fraud, you have to voluntarily, although under the duress of falsehood, but in fraud, you have to choose to hand over your property.
In theft, the property is taken without your consent or often without your knowledge.
So if Bob listens to the Ponzi scheme guy and hands over $1,000, that's a positive action.
If some thief comes in to Bob's house and takes $1,000 from him, that's not a positive action.
Bob has done nothing to positively cause the loss of his $1,000.
Whereas with fraud, you have to sign over the check.
You have to deposit the money.
You have to do this, that, or the other.
I mean, I remember I've said this before, but when I was in the business world, because I was a chief technical officer and fairly high up in the food chain, Of course, my name and phone number was published.
And so people would call me all the time trying to sell me stuff.
And I would get people from, you know, skeevy investment companies like, hey, man, this stop's going to triple in six months.
Get in now or it's gone forever.
You know, kind of stuff, right?
And I mean, obviously, I'm human and I was tempted, but I never did, right?
I never did.
And I remember once when I was scouted a couple of times for modeling as a teenager, and one place seemed pretty legit.
And I gave them $100, which is, you know, a lot of money when I was a teenager.
And, you know, they said they could get me work and so on.
And I remember the skeevy woman, man.
I kicked myself in hindsight.
But of course, you know, I was still trying to figure my way in the world.
But I gave her $100.
She's like, oh, I lost your check.
Can you give it to me again?
Right.
And then I gave her the $100 and she was supposed to get me some modeling work.
She was supposed to get me.
I mean, there were other places that didn't want money, but this person seemed pretty legit, nice office downtown and all of that.
And yeah, she never called me, never got any work.
I just lost a $100.
Was that fraudulent?
I think so.
Yeah.
I mean, I think it was fraudulent insofar as she took the money, promising me work, and when the work didn't materialize, she never called me and told me why.
Well, it's this, it's that, it's the other, right?
So, yeah, but I still had to voluntarily participate in that transfer of property.
So it's avoidable, and therefore it's not in UPB, it's in APA, aesthetically preferable actions.
Now, if it's contractual, then it's criminal.
So I didn't have a contract with this woman who ripped me off for the hundred bucks when I was a teenager.
I didn't have a contract with this woman that said, I will get you, you know, four calls or auditions or whatever for modeling work or advertising work or something like that, that I will get you four of these a month, guaranteed.
Okay, that would be a contract, right?
But if she's like, you know, man, I'll get you these, but she doesn't specify any number or when or timeframe or whatever.
Is it fraudulent?
Not really.
I mean, that to me is more in the realm of lying than criminal fraud.
And you can't use force against someone who lies to you because it's an avoidable situation, right?
In the same way that if somebody says, I'm coming through town, I've always hated you.
I'm going to be at this statue at 3 o'clock in the morning in the park and let's beat, I'm going to beat each other up.
We're going to beat each other.
I'm going to beat you up or whatever.
Well, that's avoidable.
Guy's passing through.
He's never coming back, blah, blah, blah, right?
That's avoidable.
And this is why imminent, grievous bodily harm, death or imminent death or grievous bodily harm, that's a standard for self-defense.
Somebody threatens you, you can use self-defense in the moment, but two days later, you can't hunt them down and shoot them because it's not imminent, right?
It's avoidable.
Now, some of this avoidability stuff is not particularly realistic.
So, for instance, we've all had this sort of stupid situation where there's some bully, and what do people say?
Oh, just avoid him.
Well, I mean, you're kind of forced to go to the same schools, right?
You're kind of trapped in the same school situation.
So, that's not really possible in many circumstances.
So, I mean, I did do that with a guy who wanted to beat me up once in school, and I just avoided him as best I could, and then it all just kind of faded away.
So, lying is in the category of aesthetically negative action, but it's not UPB.
UPP is that which you can use force to prevent.
Somebody wants to stab you, you can shoot them, right?
Somebody is going to rape you, you can stab them, whatever, right?
So, UPB is that which you can use force.
UPP has to be very narrowly focused.
I mean, in consequentialist terms, because it authorizes the use of force.
If somebody says, I'm going to be there at seven and then shows up at eight, can you shoot them?
I mean, instinctively, we know that's not the case.
Like, you can't just blow someone away for showing up late, right?
And that's because you chose to have that person in your life.
You chose, sorry to be annoying, you chose, But you chose to have that person in your life.
You chose to have a social meetup.
You chose to stand around and wait.
And we've all had those thoughts, right?
Haven't we?
We've all had those thoughts.
Yeah, when I was in England, I had a friend who was a lot of fun to get together, but was kind of vain.
And so this was when I was quite little.
And so I'd say, hey, you know, come over after school.
And he'd show up at like five o'clock.
Oh, he's busy, man.
And every time this happened, I was like, I should just go.
Why am I waiting here for like an hour and a half for this guy, for this kid to come by?
I mean, he's fun, but I should just go out.
And eventually I did, right?
He said, I'll come over after school.
And then at around 4:15, I just left.
And then he started showing up on time.
Everyone's had this fantasy.
It's because he says, well, where were you?
And I'm like, I got tired of waiting.
Well, you've always waited before.
And yeah, I got tired of that too.
You're going to say, well, technically it was after school.
It's like, bro, come on, you know, you know what we're talking about.
You say you're coming to come over after school.
It doesn't mean you say, can I come off to school Friday?
That doesn't mean you show up Sunday.
Technically, that's after school because there'll be no schools.
Like, no, you know, show up on time or I'm not going to stick around.
Right.
And, you know, things got better after that.
Sort of a lesson, everyone.
So, but nobody forced me to sit in my little flat for an hour and a half waiting for this kid to show up.
Nobody.
Nobody forced me to set up social engagements with him or play time with him.
Nobody forced me to stick around.
Nothing.
So I can't use force against him because he wasn't using force against me.
So, again, contract-based fraud is a form of theft, and that's a different matter.
But if there's no contract, then lying is aesthetically negative.
It's an aesthetically negative action because it has to be an action, behavior and action.
You can't moralize about what's in people's minds.
That's thought crime and that's imaginary.
But when it comes to lying, lying is aesthetically negative.
And also, it's not evil in and of itself.
Something like rape, obviously, is evil in and of itself.
However, if you're waiting for someone to show up at seven and they show up at eight and they have a great excuse, you know, I was driving along, someone ran a red and sideswiped me and I had to deal with the accident, your annoyance at them being late would turn to sympathy and wanting to find out if they're okay.
And, you know, you might even buy them dinner because they've obviously had a difficult day.
And so you go from annoyance to sympathetic, right?
So the being late is not wrong in and of itself, in that there can be very good reasons for being late.
I was kidnapped.
I had to chew my way through the cables and escape from the trunk of the car.
Okay, that's I would say that's acceptable.
Might not be someone you want to hang around with in the long run, but I mean, that's acceptable, right?
So aesthetically negative actions are not wrong in and of themselves because there can be completely legitimate excuses.
I remember working with someone once who showed up late quite consistently, and he always said car trouble.
And at some point, the CEO said, fix your car, get it fixed or get a new car.
Because the excuse became ridiculous, right?
You can't have car trouble twice a week for two months.
Like you, you are then, it is incumbent upon you to get a new car, right?
Whereas if you have a new car and it just doesn't start for whatever reason, blah, blah, blah.
Okay, that's understandable, right?
So there are actions that are evil in and of themselves, murder, rape, theft, assault.
And then there are actions that are negative, but have perfectly legitimate excuses.
Being late, being rude, even being rude, can have a legitimate excuse in that someone, like if you're just rude to someone and you call them a fat, lazy pig or whatever, well, maybe this person has told your wife that you were having an affair when you weren't and caused a huge amount of trouble in your marriage.
And right, in which case we'd say, well, I can understand why you'd be angry, right?
So there's excuses, right?
There's no excuse for rape, theft, assault, and murder.
But there are, you know, people say, well, but what about if you're starving, you steal a loaf of bread?
Well, that's not theft if the person approves of it after the fact.
It's not theft if the person approves of it after the fact.
And most people would rather give up a loaf of bread than Have someone starve to death in front of their store because they'll actually end up losing more money because of that, because people don't want to step over a dead body to get to a store.
Even if we just say there's no compassion and only economic calculation of utility, that's not, he's better off giving the guy a loaf of bread than having him die, right?
So, so lying is aesthetically negative behavior.
Lying follows all of the same patterns as self-defense, with the significant exception that you can avoid the effects of the initiation of lying.
You cannot avoid the effects of the initiation of force.
And I mean, I know that this is debated, right?
Whether they stand your ground or not, right?
So stand your ground in general, again, not legal advice.
But stand your ground is you have no duty to retreat.
Someone breaks into your house, even if you could escape through the back door, you have no duty to retreat.
Whereas in other places, you do have a duty to retreat.
And if you could reasonably escape the violence, then you are responsible, morally responsible, I guess legally responsible for the violence of self-defense.
Whereas in other states, you don't have the duty to retreat and so on, right?
So if some guy is pushing you in the chest and you could just leave the bar, but instead, you know, you clock him and break his jaw and knock out four teeth.
Well, those are interesting questions.
And those are implementation questions.
They're not moral principle questions.
Self-defense is morally legitimate.
There are gray areas in self-defense that are adjudicated by courts, right?
Black and white are different colors.
There are shades of gray that need to be adjudicated in other contexts.
So lying is aesthetically negative, but it's avoidable.
And there can be excuses, right?
The example I've given before is some guy's been in a terrible car crash.
He's dying.
He can't be saved.
And his wife and kid are dead in the back seat.
And he says, are my wife and kid okay?
I personally would say to him, they're totally fine.
They're in the ambulance.
Help is coming.
Be at peace.
I'd hold his hand.
Don't worry.
You're going to be fine.
And let him die with some peace.
I wouldn't sit there as his eyes are fading and his life is leaving his body saying, oh, yeah, they're totally dead.
Yeah, they died.
And you're going to die too.
I personally would ease the passage somewhat.
And I don't think people would say, oh, my God, you're such a filthy liar.
How awful.
That's fraudulent.
His ghost should sue you or something like that.
Right.
I mean, that's not.
So we can all think of situations where lying is reasonable and good and fine.
And that's similar to how we can also see that violence is good and fight and right and fine, right?
If it's self-defense.
Or even if it's not self-defense, if somebody does an emergency tracheotomy or something, even without the person's permission, that is harming the person against their chosen, against their express wishes.
They haven't expressed their wish that you do it because they're choking, but you could reasonably expect to get their permission after the fact and so on, right?
So the philosophy of lying is that it falls squarely into aesthetically negative action.
Again, I don't count fraud because that is lying with contract for the purpose of stealing.
But lying is avoidable in the same way that if someone is always late, you can avoid that by simply not being friends with that person, by not hanging around if they're late and negotiating with them to understand how annoying it is when they're late all the time and all of that.
So you can do all of that.
It's avoidable.
The people who wanted to sell me stocks when I was a chief technical officer in the business world, were they lying about this is the greatest stock ever and it's going to triple?
Well, to some degree, nobody knows for sure something's going to triple.
Was it a pump and dump?
I don't know.
Probably.
You just talk up the stock to get people to buy it.
And then the people you talked up early are the ones who get all of the benefit and the people you talk up late don't.
But it was avoidable.
It wasn't like they were guaranteeing me, oh, I'm going to put it in writing, man.
I'll put it in writing, 300% return in six months.
I'll put it in writing.
Well, they weren't going to do that, right?
Say, well, best guess, right?
I can't guarantee, right?
So I had to participate in that.
And they, I think, were lying.
I mean, I know that they were lying because nobody knows the future price of a stock, certainly not six months out.
And they certainly can't guarantee triple returns.
So that's a lie.
But I'm sure that they had, because of course, I can't remember these conversations from over 30 years ago, but I'm sure they had to go.
It looks like it's on the track, too, right?
Indications are, you know, our best guess is estimates predict, right?
Not it is, right?
But yeah, you have to participate in lying in the same way, in a way that you don't participate or choose in situations of violence.
And so that's why I've put lying in the category of aesthetically negative actions.
Lying and truth-telling is a relationship.
You owe the truth to those who tell you the truth in terms of basic justice and reciprocity.
And you don't owe the truth to people who lie to you.
And if people aren't giving you contractual obligations, it requires your participation to hand over goods, time, money, and resources as a result of perhaps over-promising and so on.
So, no, given that you don't owe the truth to people who tell you lies any more than you owe nonviolence to those who are initiating the use of violence, that solves that problem of, where's your wife?
I want to kill her.
I don't know.
I don't know.
All right, solves that.
And the fact that lying can be or is a valid form of self-defense against falsehood, that's fine too.
So we solve the Kantian problem and we also hook into or utilize our understanding of self-defense to further process and understand how lying ties into that and how it's perfectly valid to lie in response to restore your property to people who are lying to you already.
And I hope that that helps you understand the moral philosophy of lying.
Lying can never be UPB.
Telling the truth can never be UPB, but not lying can be UPB.
However, because nobody forces you to participate in lies, it is not something that you can use violence in response to.
So these guys were like, oh, analysts say that, you know, it's going to triple in value, blah, blah, blah.
Right.
Well, that's not a guarantee.
I have to voluntarily hand over my money, and therefore I cannot use force if the promised payouts don't come to pass.
So that's the philosophy of lying.
I hope that's helpful to you.
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