So, since I know there are many nerds who happen to have some interesting views on life and such in these forums, I've decided to come to you for some insight into a problem.

For a project, we're to do a presentation on ethics. My partner and I have choosen to do ours on the ehtics of lying. When is it justified? When is it not? And so on.

General comments are appreciated, but I also have decided to use an example you are all familiar with.

In the original STAR WARS movie, Grand Moff Tarkin gives Princess Leia a choice of revealing the location of the Rebel base, or seeing her home planet of Alderaan destroyed. She lies, hoping to save the people of Alderaan as well as protect the Rebel Alliance.

Ignore for now that Tarkin destroys Alderaan anyway, it's irrelevent to this discussion.

My question: is this ethical? Is it justified to lie to save a life? If so, is it still ethical if you know the lie will be found out?

And whatever else you can come up with surrounding that area of thought.

The biggest example of lying can be seen in the U.S. Judicical system. All those suckers saying that they aren't guilty? Of course, some of them probably are, mistakes and set-ups do happen.

Research 'Moral Vacuum', a method I've heard that defense layers use to justify defending defendants that are obviously guilty.

Personally, I tend to grossly exaggerate things in an effort to gain a laugh (works well). Does that count?

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then does a school project on star wars

In some ways she is morally/ethically correct in doing so, because she is saving her home planet, with millions of inhabitants and is also saving the Rebellion, which is there to help out the billions upon billions of citizens (mainly aliens) which are oppressed by the Empire.

However she also doomed the people of Dantooine (had the Empire not scouted the planet out). So in that sense she was very unethical cause she was dooming a race to extinction, when really the destruction of Alderraan wasn't going to be that bad on a galactic scale (there are tons of other planets out there inhabited by humans).

So I'm kind of split on the whole question of whether her specific lie was ethical, as she could have chosen an uninhabited planet rather than Dantooine.


Personally I feel it is justifiable to lie to save a life, even if you know the lie will be found out. Because regardless you have saved someones life and that is a good thing.

However it is not justifiable to lie to save a friend's life (or even your life) if it means that your lie will kill someone else. An example of this would be that it isn't justifiable to lie and say, I saw her kill Chuck, when she didn't actually do it, because depending if the area you live in has capital punishment, you could very well be killing her.

I thought Dantooine was uninhabited?

Very sparesely inhabited; some nomadic tribes.

wow.

Well, I would say lying is never innately bad, only the outcome can be judged.