Conscience and Internal Lies

CHAPTER 4 Conscience and Internal Lies 4.1 Introduction Within Kant’s various discussions of morality the case of lying can be read as a paradigmatic example.1 Indeed, Kant goes as far as beginning his discussion of lying in the Metaphysics of Morals by boldly asserting that lying is the great- est ‘violation of a man’s duty to himself’ when regarded ‘merely as a moral being’ (6:429). Kant’s views on lying are typically characterised by readings of his essay ‘On a Proposed Right to Lie from Altruistic Motives’.2 In this essay he replies to the criticism levelled by Constant, that an absolute duty not to lie would lead to the destruction of society, by affirming that even in cases where an agent is asked by another agent who is intent on murder, the asked agent is still obligated to speak truth to the would-be murderer.3 Due to this response, the essay lends itself to an apparent reductio of Kant’s view on lying to a rigorous application of the duty never to lie.4 As a result some scholars have sought to distance Kant from this essay. For example, Paton argues that the essay does not reflect Kant’s more considered view on the possibility of exceptions to practical rules.5 Other scholars have attempted to reformulate 1 I take lying as a category that includes the notions of untruthfulness, dishonesty and insin- cerity. See Groundwork 4:430, Second Critique 5:44, Metaphysics of Morals 6:429–31, Religion 6:159–60, Miscarriage 8:268–71. 2 A translation can be found in Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason and Other Works on the Theory of Ethics, trans. L. W. Beck, The University of Chicago Press (1949). 3 For a discussion of Constant’s criticism of Kant see R. J. Benton, ‘Political Expediency and Lying: Kant vs Benjamin Constant’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 43, 1, (1982), 135–44. 4 For typical examples see W. Schwarz, ‘Kant Refutation of Charitable Lies’, Ethics, 81, (1970), 62, ‘Truth and Truthfulness: A Rejoinder’, Ethics, 83, (1972–73), 173–5 and W. I. Matson, ‘Kant as Casuist’, Journal of Philosophy, 51, (1954), 859. Indeed the ‘rigorous’ characterisation of Kant’s view on lying led Bernard Williams to accuse Kant of being ‘hysterical’ on his treatment of lies, see Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy, Princeton University Press (2002), 106. 5 H. J. Paton, ‘An alleged Right to Lie, A problem with Kantian Ethics’, Kant-Studien, 45, (1953), 190. Paton goes as far as to claim that Kant’s rigor is a problem begotten by ‘bad temper in his old age’, (ibid., 201). See also R. Sullivan, Immanuel Kant’s Moral Theory, Cambridge University Press (1989), 350fn24 and S. Sedgwick, ‘On Lying and the Role of Content in Kant’s Ethics’, Kant-Studien, 82, (1991), 61. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��7 | doi ��.��63/9789004340664_005 110 CHAPTER 4 more specifically what Kant understands by the duty not to lie.6 Such scholars point out that there are distinct senses in which lying is discussed in Kant’s moral philosophy and thus, by taking these different senses into consideration, a more nuanced approach to his views on lying is observed.7 Found within this interpretive vein, Wood challenges the rigorist view by pointing out that Kant’s account of lying is far more complex and involves distinguishing between ‘declarations’ that relate to intentional untruthfulness with respect to legal-right and ‘falsifications’ which have no such legal-right connotations, notwithstanding that such statements would technically con- stitute a lie.8 Wood’s treatment of Kant on lying is also particularly instructive as it fleshes out the important distinction between his notion of ‘external’ and ‘internal’ lies (Metaphysics of Morals 6:430). The former relates to the ‘Doctrine of Right’ (6:239) and the latter relates to the ‘Doctrine of Virtue’ (6:429–31). Unlike the notion of lying in the context of the Doctrine of Right, which con- siders agents lying to other agents (involving social and political consider- ations), Kant’s notion of internal lies has been relatively neglected as a direct subject of analysis.9 In particular, Kant’s specific discussion of the relationship between conscience and internal lies, which he explicitly discusses together (6:430), has been hereunto unexplored.10 In this chapter I will provide the first exploration that specifically addresses Kant’s notion of an internal lie in relation to his notion of conscience. I will argue that Kantian conscience must be viewed as a capacity that can keep in check self-deception and in a roundabout manner facilitate the fundamental 6 For example, H. E. M. Hofmeister argues that truthfulness in Kant involves the moral eval- uation of the nature of a statement (‘The Ethical Problem of the Lie in Kant’, Kant-Studien, 63, (1972), 353). See also ‘Truth and Truthfulness: A Reply to Dr. Schwars’, Ethics, 82, (1972), 262–7 and C. M. Korsgaard, ‘The Right to lie: Kant on Dealing with Evil’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 15, 4, (1986), 325–49. 7 For example see both J. E. Atwell, Ends and Principles in Kant’s Moral Thought, Nijhoff Publishers (1986), 193–4 and J. E. Mahon, ‘The Truth about Kant on Lies’, in The Philosophy of Deception, ed. C. Martin, Oxford University Press (2009), 202. 8 Wood, Kantian Ethics, 240–58. 9 As mentioned above, the exception being Wood’s analysis. It should be noted that Mahon does discuss the notion of an internal lie however he does so only cursorily (in a single paragraph) (‘The Truth about Kant on Lies’, 205). 10 Although Sticker does address conscience within the context of self-deception, he does not do so with a specific discussion of the notion of an internal lie (‘When the Reflective Watch-Dog Barks’). Indeed, as I will note, Sticker’s treatment is flawed because of his fail- ure to consider Kant’s notion of subjective certainty as the standard by which conscien- tious judgement is held to..

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