A thoughtful addition to the growing debate over public and private morality. Looks at lying and deception in law, family, medicine, government.

Are doctors and nurses bound by just the same constraints as everyone else in regard to honesty? What, anyway, does honesty require? Telling no lies? Avoiding intentional deception by whatever means? From a utilitarian standpoint lying would seem to be on the same footing as other forms of intentional deception: yielding the same consequences. But utilitarianism fails to explain the wrongness of lying. Doctors and nurses, like everyone else, have a prima facie duty not to lie--but again like everyone else, (...) they are not duty-bound to avoid intentional deception, lying apart; except where it would involve a breach of trust. (shrink)

Does it signify morally whether a deception is achieved by a lie or some other way? David Bakhurst has challenged my view that it can signify. Here I counter his criticisms--firstly, by clarifying the terminology: What counts as a lie? Secondly, by exploring further what makes lying wrong. Bakhurst maintains that lying is wrong in that it infringes autonomy--and other deceiving stratagems, he says, do so equally. I maintain that lying is wrong in that it endangers trust--and other types of (...) deceiving stratagems do not do so equally. Lying to patients, I contend, is an abuse of their trust. Other forms of their intentional deception need not be so, although, in our autonomy-minded culture, they are likely to be so. (shrink)

This article challenges Jennifer Jackson's recent defence of doctors' rights to deceive patients. Jackson maintains there is a general moral difference between lying and intentional deception: while doctors have a prima facie duty not to lie, there is no such obligation to avoid deception. This paper argues 1) that an examination of cases shows that lying and deception are often morally equivalent, and 2) that Jackson's position is premised on a species of moral functionalism that misconstrues the nature of moral (...) obligation. Against Jackson, it is argued that both lying and intentional deception are wrong where they infringe a patient's right to autonomy or his/her right to be treated with dignity. These rights represent 'deontological constraints' on action, defining what we must not do whatever the functional value of the consequences. Medical ethics must recognise such constraints if it is to contribute to the moral integrity of medical practice. (shrink)