In the symposium on Friday we briefly discussed “Noble
Lies” and what each philosopher thought about it. As I listened to everyone’s
comments about why Plato believes a Noble lie is necessary to keep
order/balance in his theory of the three parts of the state, I came up with a
question that I believed Aristotle would ask. Because I was Plato, I was not
able to ask my question.
To recap, someone mentioned how a noble lie is
helpful when one is trying to protect a sibling. If the sibling breaks a lamp,
one could easily point the finger to their sibling, but if the sibling has been
getting in a lot of trouble (or the parent is harsh on that sibling), one would
commit a Noble Lie in order to protect the sibling and maintain some sort of
order (like an even distribution of punishment). Now, my question to this is: to
“protect” that sibling you must keep telling several noble lies (in a spread
out period of time), do you not believe it will eventually corrupt the sibling
and they will remain acting unethically? How many times can a noble lie be said
to protect someone?
Another question that was proposed towards the end of the symposium was whether you would lie to your soon to be spouse on your wedding day about an affair you had a while ago, or confess. As Aristotle I would confess. I would confess because if I lied to my fiancé I would have a guilty conscience and would not reach my true happiness. I would lack the virtue of honesty. I would definitely start confessing by mentioning how it happened “a while back ago” than going straightforward to “I cheated on you.” Even though it is a possibility that he would not forgive me, I know I would be fully happy with telling him the truth, better late than never. I believe that happiness is pursued for itself, not for the benefit of another person.
In the sibling scenario, I believe that the sibling who is causing a lot of trouble should be reported to the parent so that the sibling would be more careful and know that there are consequences for his/her actions. A noble lie would not apply in this scenario.
ReplyDeleteI can understand you protecting your sibling one or twice, but when it becomes a constant thing then he or she is taking advantage of you. They must learn to take responsibility for their actions. I completely agree with you when you said that you would tell your fiance about an affair you had. If you didn't then you would have begun your marriage under false pretenses and it wouldn't be genuine.
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