Does One Always Posses the Moral Obligation to Be Honest?

[AnarchoJesse]

This is in context to the discussion here, and it has made me wonder on the feelings of those on the forum--do you feel you have a moral obligation to be honest to those who do not return same? That is, if someone violates your rights, are you obligated to still respect their rights?

I would contend that one is not morally obligated to respect the rights of another if they have invalidated your own rights through the use of aggressive force, theft, and/or fraud. The very act of invalidating your rights essentially serves as a declaration of their denial of the very principles by which they may claim the right to not have force or fraud used in response.

In a nutshell, at least.

Any other thoughts on this?

Addendum-- I'm not calling Kat Kanning out here, and I have nothing the utmost respect for her, but I would disagree with what seems to be her implicit assumptions of "love it or leave it" having any moral validity in this specific case and an obligation of honesty to those who oppress you. So, uh, yeah. Please don't interpret this post as something of that sort.

[Kat Kanning]

"Does One Always Posses the Moral Obligation to Be Honest?"

No.  But if you want my respect, you'll almost always deal with people honestly, but people will say whatever they have to at the point of a gun.  Besides, all I said was I wasn't impressed.  I didn't say you'd necessarily done anything wrong.  You pulled your stunt, Charlie got roughed up, there were fewer people in court supporting Mike than otherwise would have been, the rest of us spent hours waiting for you guys to be released instead of us being able to protest outside of Mike's jail.  I wasn't impressed.  I thought we were there to help Mike.  Making up some stupid story about not being able to take your hat off and not being able to back it up with any actual moral reason for doing so....not impressive.  Sorry.

The court's reaction was even stupider. 

[dalebert]

I think you are absolved of having to respect their rights to the extent that they haven't respected yours. Essentially, you are not the aggressor if you use fraud or violence defensively. For example, if someone is being physically violent with you, it's completely reasonable to use violence in self defense. If someone defrauds you out of X amount of money, I wouldn't consider it immoral to defraud them getting it back. If someone steals your wallet and you see that person in the gym and your wallet is out on the counter, I wouldn't feel guilty to take it back when they're preoccupied with shaving.

It doesn't give you free reign to any and all abuses you can think of because they haven't 100% respected your rights. I don't think you're saying that it does but your post wasn't clear on that so I figured it was worth mentioning.

As for the court, they don't really own it or even claim to own it. They claim it's public property, an oxymoron. Meanwhile, they dragged our friend in there in chains. It's rather empty to say "you can leave if you don't like my silly and arbitrary rules" but then you were dragged in there later in chains and you didn't have the option to leave. It's a bunch of bullshit false choice for the purpose of making it seem voluntary and peaceful. Clearly it's not.

[Fluff and Stuff]

No.  I've had friend's that lied about a bunch of stuff (who they were with, where they worked, what they have done) and it didn't bother me.  As long as you don't lie to good people in ways that may hurt them, I don't have a problem with it.  Be careful lying to those who violate your rights or use force though, those are the people most likely to use your lies against you.

[Tom Sawyer]

At the end of the day or by the end of dealing with situations the truth almost always comes to light.

Our opponents are people that are used to dealing with lies, lies make you look like the criminals they deal with day in and out.

So my answer is no you don't have to tell people who intend to harm you the truth, however lies potentially hurt our efforts.

[AnarchoJesse]

"Does One Always Posses the Moral Obligation to Be Honest?"

No.  But if you want my respect, you'll almost always deal with people honestly, but people will say whatever they have to at the point of a gun.  Besides, all I said was I wasn't impressed.  I didn't say you'd necessarily done anything wrong.  You pulled your stunt, Charlie got roughed up, there were fewer people in court supporting Mike than otherwise would have been, the rest of us spent hours waiting for you guys to be released instead of us being able to protest outside of Mike's jail.

You weren't obligated to wait, and I don't think anyone in our crew would stop you from protesting outside of Mike's jail while we were dealt with. Moreover, I hadn't planned on any of this-- the fight came to me. I had until that point been totally and utterly compliant with their searches, disarming myself, and not bringing the camera in.

I wasn't impressed.  I thought we were there to help Mike.  Making up some stupid story about not being able to take your hat off and not being able to back it up with any actual moral reason for doing so....not impressive.

Your complaint here seems to be more that I didn't articulate it well enough, because I most certainly have a strong basis in morality-- I am, after all, a moral objectivist --and would contend that my moral issue with the situation was that I was being forced in the first place to comply with a rule they had yet to prove even applied to me, among some of the other few things.

Sorry.

*shrug* Whatever.

[kellie]

if someone violates your rights, are you obligated to still respect their rights?

Absolutely.

If you're okay with violating someone else's rights just because "he started it," then I question the sincerity of your convictions.

[AnarchoJesse]

Absolutely.

If you're okay with violating someone else's rights just because "he started it," then I question the sincerity of your convictions.

Do you morally oppose shooting a rapist caught in the act?

[kellie]

Absolutely.

If you're okay with violating someone else's rights just because "he started it," then I question the sincerity of your convictions.

Do you morally oppose shooting a rapist caught in the act?

Certainly not. But only if doing stops the rapist from victimizing.  I am morally opposed to enacting vengeance on the rapist. I'm also morally opposed to raping him back.

[FTL_Ian]

While I do not believe there is any obligation to be honest, there are compelling reasons to be honest or at a minimum withhold potentially damaging information.  Doing as the aggressors and dishonest do only lowers you to their level.

I choose forgiveness over revenge.

[BillKauffman]

do you feel you have a moral obligation to be honest to those who do not return same? That is, if someone violates your rights, are you obligated to still respect their rights?

Manners are about what we "should not do". Being rude usually carries a social stigma.

Morals are about what we "ought not to do". Being immoral is liable to get you actively shunned.

Rights are about what we "must not do". Violating rights will most likely be met with force.

[ColdSoul]

I got into a big argument with the trainer during "Ethic's in Law Enforcement" because I told him it was never allright for him to lie while talking to someone and call himself ethical. I basically told him if you lie it's ok, but if someone lies to you that can be a crime which is bull-s. Of course he also told me he didn't think he could give his buddy a ticket for drunk driving if he caught him drinking and driving and I asked him how ethical that was and he basically slipped by the question by saying "well I would just find it very hard, and don't think I could do it".

I personally think it's never ok to lie if you want to consider what your doing moral. If you don't want to say your ethical and moral then lie all you want, but don't expect many people to hang out with you. Thats why when I speak I try to word what I say in certain ways by using "qualifiers". Of course I have gotten into arguments with friends about things because they will say I said X when I said Y and even though I know exactly what I said because it was something I was cautious about saying and paid attention to my wording.

If you have read the "Wheel of Time" there are characters in there who control magic, and they are incapable of lieing but they use wording that a lot of times makes people think they are lieing.

[Jacobus]

If you have read the "Wheel of Time" there are characters in there who control magic, and they are incapable of lieing but they use wording that a lot of times makes people think they are lieing.

I'd argue that they would still be lying.  I don't view a lie as an objective property of a group of words but rather as an act of using words with intent to deceive.

If someone "sees through" a lie, is it still a lie? (I'd say yes).  If you believe what you are saying is false but it actually turns out to be true, is it still a lie? (I'd say yes).

There seems to be two different conversations in this thread - one about whether it is okay to lie to people and one about whether it is okay to return violence with violence. 

[Russell Kanning]

I don't think I have any rights and I don't think the thugs have a right to be told the thruth.

If they ask me "Where is Jesse? We want arrest him." I will tell them, "I don't want to tell you."

[dalebert]

The court's reaction was even stupider. 

Kat started off with "not impressed" and she added this statement and overall it makes perfect sense. She's been pretty clear the whole time. I think the whole thread is kind of missing the point. You can argue about whether she should be impressed, but it's silly to argue about a person's subjective personal opinion. You may as well argue about whether she find's person X physically attractive.

I kind of get it. I wasn't impressed with the decision either or with your conversation with the judge at the time. I even hinted at that a couple of times. Notice that my blog post about it concedes that it was silly and then moves on to focus on how ridiculous the court's reaction was, which was also true. I think our greatest weapon is the truth. The truth is the unstoppable force.

I certainly wouldn't beat yourself up about it. The deed is done and the representatives of the State, as usual, did stupid things which show them to be thuggish and we can use the truth to capitalize on that to wake people up from the mythologies they're entrenched in. I said it "may be a silly thing" but what the state did was sillier. Also, you have undoubtedly learned from the experience and can be better prepared with the most honest and powerful answers the next time you're in a similar situation. I chose not to dwell on what you could have done better but instead on what can be done moving forward and I suggest we all do that. In retrospect I wish I'd used stronger, more honest terminology like "It may have been silly but the court's reaction was outright reprehensible."