Morality

[Bla]

So I wanted to share this book about the effects and morality of lying, by Sam Harris, which is free for the rest of the week:
Blog post: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-fall-of-jonah-lehrer
Direct link to the book: http://www.samharris.org/images/uploads/LYING.pdf

It was very interesting imo. It has made me more confident that lying is generally bad, but I still think there are cases when it is the best option (and as I understand it Harris also does). But I think the part about the white lies is very interesting. People might base their actions on our well-intended lies to make them feel more self-confident or happy, and risk worse problems, like wasting energy on talents they don't have (but you said they did) or wasting resources on types of presents you don't like (but you said you did). And we make ourselves the judges of which parts of reality they should have access to.

When I think it'd be ok to lie: A nazi knocks on your door asking if you are hiding a jew, which it wants to kill. You are. Here, I think lying would be fully justified.
Harris uses a similar example about a murderer asking if you've seen someone he wanted to kill.

People can just discuss anything related to morality here.

[atomic7732]

That was interesting.