All societies must reconcile the fact that lying is socially toxic with the fact that nearly all their members engage in this practice. Every belief system does its best to regulate dishonesty with taboos, sanctions, and norms. Few such systems claim that every lie is always wrong. This would put them too far out of synch with facts on the ground.
Therefore a major task for all belief systems has been to determine when it’s permissible to tell a lie.
Those participating in this search have usually taken three basic approaches: (1) lying is wrong, period (Augustine, Wesley, Kant); (2) it all depends (Montaigne, Voltaire, Bacon); (3) there is something to be said for a good lie well told (Machiavelli, Nietzsche, Wilde).
Greek gods were celebrated for their skill at deceiving humans and each other. In The Odyssey, Odysseus the dissembler is a far more intriguing character than Achilles the truth teller. When Athena, no slouch herself in the deception arts, approaches Odysseus upon his return to Ithaca in disguise, she is favorably impressed by the persuasive yarns he spins about himself. “Crafty must be he,” Athena tells Odysseus, “and Knavish, who would outdo thee in all manner of guile.”
Even early ethicists who warned against telling lies seldom did so on absolute terms. Plato, who condemned lying on general principles, nonetheless thought it was crucial for the guardians of his ideal republic to propagate “noble lies” so that the masses would accept their place and not disturb social harmony. Across the Adriatic, Cicero’s On Duties emphasized the need for truth telling among free men. In Cicero’s world, lying to a slave was not considered dishonest.
Most societies leave the question of determining which lies are justified to their clergy. Over the millennia theologians of all stripes have occupied themselves with explaining why some lies are worse than others. Even though the fourth of Buddhism’s five precepts admonishes the faithful to abstain from lying, Buddhists distinguish between major lies (such as feigning enlightenment), minor lies (making things up), and lies told to benefit others (as when a doctor conceals the truth from a patient who is dying). The latter in particular are not considered much of a problem.
Like Buddhism’s fourth precept, Hindu ethics proscribe lying. The seminal text Laws of Manu admonishes Hindi never to “swear an oath falsely, even in a trifling matter.” That seems clear enough. In its next passage, however, Manu’s laws advise that “there is no crime in a [false] oath about women whom one desires, marriages, fodder for cows, fuel, and helping a priest.”
This is how it goes in most theology. Admonitions not to lie are followed by a list of circumstances in which lying is permissible. Muhammad said his followers should always be truthful, except when a lie was necessary to preserve domestic harmony, save their life, or keep the peace. The Talmud also notes a need to keep peace as justifying falsehood. According to Judaism’s civil and religious laws, a pious scholar is always to tell the truth except when asked about his marital relations, or to avoid sounding boastful, or when telling others how well he has been hosted might burden his host with too many other guests.
Both Testaments of the Bible, and the Old Testament especially, combine condemnations of dishonesty with admiring accounts of successful deception: Abraham claiming that Sarah was his sister, not his wife; Jacob passing as his brother Esau to win his father’s blessing (and inheritance); Egyptian midwives rescuing Hebrew children by telling Pharaoh that their mothers were so vigorous that—unlike Egyptian women—they gave birth before the midwives arrived.
