Kant argued humans are responsible for the consequences of lying but not truth-telling
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INSUFFICIENT LEANING
refutedsupported
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Retrieved historical and philosophical literature partially confirms Kant's strict deontological stance on truth-telling and his famous writings against lying, but they do not explicitly substantiate the specific claim regarding human responsibility for the consequences of lying versus truth-telling.
Not only is deontology non-consequentialist, it is also non-situationalist. That is, an act is either right or wrong always and everywhere. The context surrounding it is unimportant. The best example of this is Kant’s famous allusion to an axe-murderer who, in seeking his victim, must always be told the truth as to his would-be victim’s whereabouts. By Kant’s reasoning, one cannot lie even in this dire circumstance in order to save the life of an innocent person. Kant was not diminishing the significance of human life in holding that the truth must always be told. Instead, he was insisting that truth-telling is one of the inviolable principles that frames our lives. To lie—even in defense of life—is to cheapen and weaken an essential pillar that sustains us. Kant knew that this example would draw critics, but he deliberately chose it anyway in order to demonstrate his conviction about the rightness of certain acts. Perhaps the most well-known element of Kant’s ethics is his explanation of the categorical imperative, laid out in his Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Ethics, 1785.
On Kant’s Duty to Speak the Truth | Kantian Review | Cambridge Core
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# On Kant’s Duty to Speak the Truth
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 February 2016
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In ‘On the Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy’, Kant defends a position that cannot be salvaged. The essay is nonetheless important because it helps us understand his philosophy of law and, more specifically, his interpretation of the social contract. Kant considers truthfulness a strict legal duty because it is the necessary condition for the juridical state. As attested by Kant’s rejection of Beccaria’s arguments against the death penalty, not even the right to life has such strict
Kant on Lies, Candour and Reticence | Kantian Review | Cambridge Core
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# Kant on Lies, Candour and Reticence
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
James Edwin Mahon
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Like several prominent moral philosophers before him, such as St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas, Kant held that it is never morally permissible to tell a lie. Although a great deal has been written on why and how he argued for this conclusion, comparatively little has been written on what, precisely, Kant considered a lie to be, and on how he differentiated between being truthful and being candid, between telling a lie and being reticent, and between telling a lie and other
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