Kant on Lies, Candour and Reticence | Kantian Review | Cambridge Core Logo for Cambridge Core from Cambridge University Press. Click to return to homepage. Search Logo for Cambridge Core from Cambridge University Press. Click to return to homepage. --- Institution Login Search Hostname: page-component-74d7c59bfc-hfsb5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-01-26T14:05:21.962Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false - Français - English # Kant on Lies, Candour and Reticence Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011 James Edwin Mahon Show author details --- --- Article contents - References - Extract Get access Share Cite Rights & Permissions --- ## Extract 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 forms of