Customer Reviews

Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I found this book thought provoking. Through references, contrasts, and scenarios, Sissela Bok challenges the reader to consider the effects of lying on the individual, relationships and society. The author systematically covers the spectrum of lies from "little white lies" to avoid an unwanted dinner invitation to the arguably moral lies required to survive in a totalitarian state - taking the reader step by step through a journey of increasingly complex moral questions. The book argues that lying, as it is often conducted in society, often lacks the moral basis of those few case where it can be justified.

This book is about something we all do but rarely think about - lying. It is densely packed, hard to get through but well worth the effort. It changed the way I thought about lying and told lies, and therefore my life.

Even its structure of the discussion about lying around started me thinking in new ways about the topic. The analysis presented was organized and orderly on a topic that deals with much of human interaction.

This book is a must read - you will lie less after reading it.

Can any lie be justifiable? Is it ok for a Doctor to lie to a patient, or is it ok for a person to lie - to get out of a date? These scenerios are examined in _Lying_. Bok examines the effects that lying has upon society and individuals.

It is rare to read a book, where the author is critical of society because of thier choice to allow and accept little white lies as normal behavior. After finishing this book, the reader can take this information and begin to think of ethical and moral problems in our society and why we accept certain actions.

Bok continued choice to tackle ethical issues is a noteworthy endeavor - especially when she writes quality work such as _Lying_.

"Lying" is a thought-provoking exercise in applied ethics. The author, Sissela Bok, applies her razor-sharp intelligence to a variety of common deceptive practices, such as dishonest social science research or official deceptions about foreign policy. She believes that analyzing specific cases is a far better way to advance ethical knowledge than developing grandiose philosophical theories. (She's certainly right about that!)

Bok could be described as an enlightened utilitarian: she concedes that the benefits of lying can occasionally outweigh the costs, but she insists that the costs be weighed realistically and sensitively. To do so, she proposes the use of a hypothetical "publicity test" to consider how reasonable people would discuss and evaluate the broad, long-run effects of a deceptive practice. The test would cast its net widely and assess the impact of deception on duped individuals, the level of social trust, and the characters of liars themselves. When considered this way, the costs of deception almost always outweigh the benefits, Bok believes. She concludes that any ethical evaluation of a deceptive practice should proceed from a strong presumption that lying is wrong.

Her book is great. It's clearly written, filled with references to classic philosophical literature, and savvy about the routine deceptions practiced in government and the professions. As she puts it, if knowledge is power, then lying alters the balance of power. I definitely want to read the companion volume on "Secrets." I knocked off one star only because some sections of "Lying" tend to meander and reach no clear conclusions. Maybe that's a problem inherent in casuistry.

In "Lying," Sissela Bok analyzes the mechanics of deceit. She does a masterful job of analyzing the implications, motivations, justifications and rationalizations that precede or follow deceitful acts or passivity that renders a deceitful result or intention.

Some may argue that it is a treatise on how to lie, but for me the book has the opposite effect. By shredding the craft of lying to its bare core and singular components, it is easier to know what to avoid--granted one seeks truth.

In an age where honesty seems to be treated like a smelly sock, it is refreshing to find an expert who knows the topic so well, and who teaches without preaching.

I recommend this book to all. It has stretched my mind. It challenges many of the notions many of us have, and is a good ethical wake-up call for any reader.

I think one of the greatest parts of this book is that Bok did not just state her ideas and opinions on the issues being discussed. If you think you are pretty honest person, read this book and see just how honest you really are. After reading this book, I thought a whole lot about my own actions. I realized just how many times in my life I am not completely honest. I am a college student and in the week I was reading this book, I had two roommates ask me to lie for them. The first one asked me to tell someone on the phone who was not there. The guy was an ex-boyfriend who just didn't get the point that she didn't want to talk to him, so I justified that I was helping out my friend by lying for her. Before I read this book, I probably wouldn't have felt that bad lying to guy, but this book made me rethink what I was doing. In the other instance, one of my other roommates asked me to pretend to be her mom so she could change her cell phone plan. Her mother knew she was chaning to plan, so I justified it by thinking that, but it was hard when the person on the other end asked me if I really was who I claimed to be.

My advice is that if you don't want to know how dishonest or unethical you are in your life, don't read this book, but if you want to see where you are going wrong or you think you are really ethical, read this book to see just how ethical and honest you are in your life. I think you will be amazed at the results.

Another thing I can say about this book is that I am currently in a media ethics and mroal reasoning class, and I have read a few books in this class, but I personally think this is the best one I have read in the class.

I read this book years ago and have referred to it in teaching medical students about the ethics of medical practice. With the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, it is time for this book to be ressurected into public awareness. I would like to know Bok's interpretation of Clinton's grand jury testimony and the impact of his "lying" on his ability to conduct the national business.

There are certain books whose subjects seem so important that when one comes across them one immediately takes interest in them. Fortunate and wise is the writer who is able to find or define such a subject. Sissela Bok does this in her philosophical consideration of the subject of 'lying'.
She defines a lie this way, " an intentionally deceptive message in the form of a 'statement'.
But her examination of the subject is broader than this definition would imply.
In the first four chapters she considers the 'nature of lying , how it affects human choice, and basic a;pproaches to evaluating lies'. In chapter 5 she takes a look at 'white lies'. In chapters 6 and 7 she 'considers in detail what circumstances help to excuse lies, and whether some can actually be justified in advance. Chapters 8 to 15 consider 'in greater detail certain kinds of lies commonly thought justifiable:lies in wartime, for example, or to children; lies told to protect confidentiality, or to conduct research.'
I especially appreciated her consideration and in some sense, refutation of the arguments of Augustine and Kant who consider it forbidden and wrong to lie in each and every case. Such draconian virtue is of course taken exception to, and I think wisely, by the great majority of mankind.
At the background of Bok's investigation is her sense of a decline in integrity in public life, and even in public expectation of honesty from politicians.
But while she does make an argument and plea for greater honesty in public life, the heart of her work is in a richly exampled and carefully thought out of 'lying' in all its forms.
This is a thought - provoking book in which I believe each and every reader will learn something important about themselves, and their own occasional tendency to ' stretch it' for one reason or another.

so that procedures can be put in place to reduce it, or at least keep it to a minimum?

Professor Sissela Bok thinks so.

Sissela Bok was born in Sweden and educated in Europe and the United States, and is the daughter of Gunnar Myrdal who wrote the highly influential study on African American segregation which was instrumental in bringing about the Civil Rights movement in the United States in the 1950's. Myrdal also shared a Nobel Prize in economics with Friedrich Hayek in 1974. Her mother, Alva Myrdal was a Swedish politician and activist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982.

Professor Bok is married to the former president (1971-1991) of Harvard University, Derek Bok. She taught philosophy for many years at Brandeis University and is currently a visiting professor at Harvard.

Unfortunately, I think Professor Bok's solution to the problem of lying fails, for several related reasons.

First, I don't think it is possible to discuss lying coherently without including lying in a general discussion of ethics. Professor Bok has obviously thought a great deal about ethics. However in her book LYING, she doesn't link lying to other sins/crimes in a meaningful or helpful way.

Second, I don't think it is possible to talk intelligently about lying without a deep discussion of the nature of truth, and there is almost no direct discussion of truth in the book.

For example, a commonly occurring problem associated with ambiguous definitions of truth in marriage occurs when a husband believes the truth that male sexuality is essentially polygamous and a wife believes it is essentially monogamous. In this case, the husband will almost automatically lie to his wife about his affairs. But if his wife agrees with his definition of the truth of male sexuality, then she will either accept marital polygamy or find another solution such as homosexuality or celibacy.

But neither in her chapter called Excuses nor in the chapter called Justifications, does Bok tell us how to decide between differing claims on truth, other than to recommend that a panel of experts be gathered to decide on the appropriateness of lying itself, in various ambiguous situations.

The third difficulty is with Bok's insistence that lying must be defined as intentional. She says, "The moral question of whether you are lying or not is not SETTLED by establishing the truth or falsity of what you say. In order to settle this question, we must know whether you INTEND YOUR STATEMENT TO MISLEAD."

Intentionality was also a requirement in the Medieval Catholic definition of heresy. Heresy was defined as the DELIBERATE holding of a false belief by a Catholic or former Catholic. It was thus impossible for a pagan, Jew or Muslim to be a heretic because he did not INTEND TO MISLEAD, since he sincerely believed in his own truths and not Catholic truths.

But almost all of the protestant "heresies" rejected this view and, in fact, rejected the idea of free will and intentionality completely. Luther held that faith alone and not good works assured salvation and Calvin held that God decides whether individuals are saved or not before they are born and individual actions such as telling the truth instead of lying, are of no help.

This Protestant belief in predestination must have been born in the observation of a very high degree of hypocrisy among the late Medieval Catholic clergy and especially out of the observation that much, if not most, of the hypocrisy was unconscious (denied or unrecognized intentionality.)

The fourth reason that the book LYING fails to provide an adequate solution to the problem of lying, is that it is not possible to have a meaningful discussion about lying without discussing the nature of social groups and the nature of behavior within and between groups. Groups that are in competition with each other, such as athletic teams, corporations, religions, armies, etc., consider opposing groups to be enemies, to be defeated and in some cases to be completely destroyed.

While Professor Bok has a chapter on Lying in a Crisis and Lying to Enemies, she doesn't address this crucial human problem of competition between opposing hostile camps of people. She says, in the chapter Lying to Enemies, "Most claims that lies to enemies are justified would not, then, stand up in the face of reasonable scrutiny." But this is a hopelessly inadequate and even naïve statement. One can only imagine how Nazi propagandists would have replied to a statement like that, not to mention the American CIA.

Professor Bok's solution, which is basically to form groups of potential liars and dupes, and impartial observers, to decide on acceptable parameters of lying for practical situations, might work, at least partially, inside countries with homogeneous populations and traditions such as Sweden or Japan but they certainly will not work in highly diverse countries such as the United States or in the world itself, with so many opposing, hostile camps.

really enjoyed reading Bok's thoughts on lying--her explorations into why we lie, how we justify it, and if our justifications are valid. I thought it was most interesting to read about lying for the public good and that a great amount of Americans expect their leaders to lie. I think it's sad that an expectation of lying in our society and especially among our political leaders even exists.

I like that Bok concludes her book with a message of hope saying that it is possible to raise the expectation of honesty and raise the integrity of people in this country.

I recommend this book to everyone. I think all people need to understand what lying is, when it is right and wrong, and all need to set a higher expectation of honesty. The standard of honesty needs to be raised in this country and it can only be done through individuals.