Any notion of justice entails some jurisdiction over the information we give to others. At the very least, it will include the principle that we are duty-bound to others to keep our promises. Machiavelli may argue that it is useful, but I don’t believe one can argue it is just to make intentionally deceitful arrangements to our benefit which we do not intend to keep. This means that, no less than our actions, our words are accountable to what is just. My question today is as follows: how much truth are we duty-bound to relay to others?

This is not a question as to whether or not it is morally permissible to lie to the Nazis during WWII.  I am unaware of anyone proposing to lie to the Nazis for their own good. That question attempts to solve a moral dilemma by seeking a hierarchy of duties, i.e. if it is wrong to lie, and it is wrong to betray an innocent person, then what is the morally right choice if it appears one must lie in order to protect the innocent? My question is whether a) it is ever to one’s benefit to receive less than the truth, and b) whether it is ever our duty to thus provide others with less than the truth.

I will explore this question after the Thomistic model as follows.

Do we owe others a mitigated experience of the world?  Is reality something from which others should ever be protected?

1. First, it appears so in the case of children. One of the responsibilities of a parent is to censor potentially damaging content for their children.  It harms children to learn too many disturbing aspects of reality before they are developmentally ready and able to process it. Explicit films with “adult content” exclude admission from individuals under the age of seventeen unless they are accompanied by an adult who can presumably vouch for their ability to metabolize the content without harm.  It seems that, at least in some cases, it is our job to withhold certain truths from certain people for their own good.

2. Second, it appears socially expected to censor content in cases of superficial relationships.  It violates standards of propriety to over-disclose private content to individuals with whom we do not have proper intimacy.  It is appropriate, perhaps, to tell a friend if they have food in their teeth, however, it is inappropriate to say that to a person one passes on the street.  Is this to protect them from reality? No. But the content should be revealed by a more intimate person.

3. Third, it is a rather widely accepted belief that “Whatever so-and-so does not know, will not hurt them.”  Thus, it seems that painful reality should only be shared if it is absolutely necessary, otherwise, one owes it to others to protect them from painful content.

On the other hand, honesty seems inextricably tied to justice.  (A) To do good to others certainly means to not lie to them. (B) Withholding the truth from others is a form of lying, (C) therefore, it is always wrong to withhold the truth.  Furthermore, lying violates the golden rule, the ethics of Plato and Aristotle, Kant’s moral imperative, and really any philosophical system which attempts to take ethics seriously.  Therefore, one should never withhold reality from others.

I argue: mitigating reality should be done only in certain situations, and never without disclosing it.  Under no circumstance should we disclose a partial truth as though it were the whole.  One should not elevate hubris to a virtue and usurp the responsibility to determine which parts of reality are important or unimportant for others. One need not disclose every conflict within a relationship, but it is neither merciful nor virtuous to pretend that what is undisclosed does not exist.

(1) Regarding the first point: It is not only permissible, but just and right to mitigate reality for children who are developmentally unable to healthily process or understand it.  However, one should never tell a partial truth and portray it as the whole – especially not to children. We do not tell children false tales, we offer growing explanations of reality without pretending we have revealed the whole.  Furthermore, we should be careful not to offer such censorship to adults whose guardians we are not.

(2) Regarding the second point: Once again, it is appropriate to acknowledge one’s level of intimacy with others and not to intrude where uninvited.  In the trivial example given, it may be inappropriate to intrude upon the space of a passerby to offer them content on their current dental hygiene.  However, if said passerby stopped you on the street and asked you whether their teeth were clean and you replied in the affirmative when, in fact, their teeth were already intruded upon by that afternoon’s salad, this would be unjust.  In other words, the same rule applies.  One need not declare all true content to all people, but one should never declare untrue content or withhold true content under the guise of transparency.

(3) As to the accepted idiom that “What one does not know will not hurt them”: one need not look far to discover that this is blatantly false.  One may not know a car is coming toward them and the car will nevertheless hurt them.  One may not know that the contents of their dinner is spoiled, but that will not exempt them from the consequences of the following three to five days. One may not know if there is a heaven or hell, but fact of the matter will certainly have the capacity to do them harm.