Lie to a malefactor about a victim’s location, and polemics on the moral principle of truthfulness

Abstract

Russian researchers’ polemics on Kant’s essay “On a supposed right to tell lies from benevolent motives” in which Kant argues that if a malefactor (a murderer) who is going to kill a person’s friend asks that person where one’s friend is, the morality requires to tell the truth. It is proved in the paper that though Kantians are usually considered as “absolutists” and their opponents – as “relativists”, the Kantians perform a large-scale relativization of maxim of truthfulness and exhibit more conformity to lie than the “relativisits” do. Paradoxes “A Precious Friend” and “Kant’s Generalized Consequence for Many Friends” showing inconsistency and contradictoriness of Kantians’ point of view are introduced. The confrontation of “absolutists” and “relativists” is interpreted as a fundamental opposition of reductionism and holism followers, with understanding that in this case the opposition is many times strengthened by confrontation of moral values.