ethics & morality · new to this edition
the murderer at the door
a killer asks where your friend is hiding. kant said you may not lie to him. find out which rule you are really following when you do.
The French political writer Benjamin Constant complained that the duty to tell the truth, taken without exceptions, “would make all society impossible”. His proof was a German philosopher who held that it would be a crime to lie to a murderer asking whether your friend had taken refuge in your house. In 1797 Immanuel Kant answered in a short essay, On a Supposed Right to Lie from Benevolent Motives, and stood by the verdict. (The door is a later addition: as Jens Timmermann points out, neither Constant nor Kant mentions one.) Four scenes ask what you would say at the door, and then test the reason you give for it.
further reading
- on a supposed right to tell lies from benevolent motives wikipedia
- kant and the supposed right to lie (with text and translation) cambridge university press
- bidding farewell to kant’s murderer at the door cambridge blog
- the right to lie: kant on dealing with evil original paper
- the definition of lying and deception stanford encyclopedia of philosophy