Читать книгу A Lie Never Justifiable: A Study in Ethics - H. Clay Trumbull - Страница 13

Whether a lie is ever justifiable, is a question that has been in discussion, not only in all the Christian centuries, but ever since questions concerning human conduct were first a possibility. On the one hand, it has been claimed that a lie is by its very nature irreconcilable with the eternal principles of justice and right; and, on the other hand, it has been asserted that great emergencies may necessitate a departure from all ordinary rules of human conduct, and that therefore there may be, in an emergency, such a thing as the "lie of necessity."

It is not so easy to consider fairly a question like this in the hour when vital personal interests pivot on the decision, as it is in a season of rest and safety; yet, if in a time of extremest peril the unvarying duty of truthfulness shines clearly through an atmosphere of sore temptation, that light may be accepted as diviner because of its very power to penetrate clouds and to dispel darkness. Being forced to consider, in an emergency, the possible justification of the so-called "lie of necessity," I was brought to a settlement of that question in my own mind, and have since been led to an honest endeavor to bring others to a like settlement of it. Hence this monograph.

In the summer of 1863 I was a prisoner of war in Columbia, South Carolina. The Federal prisoners were confined in the common jail, under military guard, and with no parole binding them not to attempt an escape. They were subject to the ordinary laws of war. Their captors were responsible for their detention in imprisonment, and it was their duty to escape from captivity, and to return to the army of the government to which they owed allegiance, if they could do so by any right means. No obligations were on them toward their captors, save those which are binding at all times, even when a state of war suspends such social duties as are merely conventional.

Only he who has been a prisoner of war in a Southern prison in midsummer, or in a Northern prison in the dead of winter, in time of active hostilities outside, can fully realize the heart-longings of a soldier prisoner to find release from his sufferings in confinement, and to be again at his post of duty at the front, or can understand how gladly such a man would find a way, consistent with the right, to escape, at any involved risk. But all can believe that plans of escape were in frequent discussion among the restless Federal prisoners in Columbia, of whom I was one.

A plan proposed to me by a fellow-officer seemed to offer peculiar chances of success, and I gladly joined in it. But as its fuller details were considered, I found that a probable contingency would involve the telling of a lie to an enemy, or a failure of the whole plan. At this my moral sense recoiled; and I expressed my unwillingness to tell a lie, even to regain my personal liberty or to advantage my government by a return to its army. This opened an earnest discussion of the question whether there is such a thing as a "lie of necessity," or a justifiable lie. My friend was a pure-minded man of principle, ready to die for his convictions; and he looked at this question with a sincere desire to know the right, and to conform to it. He argued that a condition of war suspended ordinary social relations between the combatants, and that the obligation of truth-speaking was one of the duties thus suspended. I, on the other hand, felt that a lie was necessarily a sin against God, and therefore was never justifiable.

My friend asked me whether I would hesitate to kill an enemy who was on guard over me, or whom I met outside, if it were essential to our escape. I replied that I would not hesitate to do so, any more than I would hesitate at it if we were over against each other in battle. In time of war the soldiers of both sides take the risks of a life-and-death struggle; and now that we were unparoled prisoners it was our duty to escape if we could do so, even at the risk of our lives or of the lives of our captors, and it was their duty to prevent our escape at a similar risk. My friend then asked me on what principle I could justify the taking of a man's life as an enemy, and yet not feel justified in telling him a lie in order to save his life and secure our liberty. How could it be claimed that it was more of a sin to tell a lie to a man who had forfeited his social rights, than to kill him. I confessed that I could not at that time see the reason for the distinction, which my moral sense assured me was a real one, and I asked time to think of it. Thus it was that I came first to face a question of the ages, Is a lie ever justifiable? under circumstances that involved more than life to me, and when I had a strong inducement to see the force of reasons in favor of a "lie of necessity."

In my careful study, at that time, of the principles involved in this question, I came upon what seemed to me the conclusion of the whole matter. God is the author of life. He who gives life has the right to take it again. What God can do by himself, God can authorize another to do. Human governments derive their just powers from God. The powers that be are ordained of God. A human government acts for God in the administering of justice, even to the extent of taking life. If a war waged by a human government be righteous, the officers of that government take life, in the prosecution of the war, as God's agents. In the case then in question, we who were in prison as Federal officers were representatives of our government, and would be justified in taking the lives of enemies of our government who hindered us as God's agents in the doing of our duty to God and to our government.

On the other hand, God, who can justly take life, cannot lie. A lie is contrary to the very nature of God. "It is impossible for God to lie."[1] And if God cannot lie, God cannot authorize another to lie. What is unjustifiable in God's sight, is without a possibility of justification in the universe. No personal or social emergency can justify a lie, whatever may be its apparent gain, or whatever harm may seem to be involved in a refusal to speak it. Therefore we who were Federal prisoners in war-time could not be justified in doing what was a sin per se, and what God was by his very nature debarred from authorizing or approving. I could see no way of evading this conclusion, and I determinedly refused to seek release from imprisonment at the cost of a sin against God.

[Footnote 1: Heb. 6: 18]

At this time I had no special familiarity with ethics as a study, and I was unacquainted with the prominence of the question of the "lie of necessity" in that realm of thought. But on my return from army service, with my newly awakened interest in the subject, I came to know how vigorous had been its discussion, and how varied had been the opinions with reference to it, among philosophic thinkers in all the centuries; and I sought to learn for myself what could be known concerning the principles involved in this question, and their practical application to the affairs of human life. And now, after all these years of study and thought, I venture to make my contribution to this phase of Christian ethics, in an exhibit of the facts and principles which have gone to confirm the conviction of my own moral sense, when first I was called to consider this question as a question.