The most common lie is that which one tells himself; lying to others is relatively an exception.

 

             Friedrich Nietzsche

I wonder if we can call some of these lies - the ones we tell ourselves - white lies and others black lies.   I know that too often people tell themselves they are less than they are, and tell themselves they can't achieve things they can. I'd say those were the black lies.
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In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.

 

              Samuel Johnson

We all know that most people tell white lies out of a fear they won't be liked or will upset someone.  When we are stronger in our sense of who we are, more secure in our self-respect, and more accepting of ourself and others, we won't have that fear of criticism, and then we won't find ourselves motivated to tell white lies. And, we'll surprise ourselves as we find that it is much easier to say what we like or dislike than we would ever have thought.
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We live a lie when we misrepresent the reality of our experience or the truth of our being.

 

           Nathaniel Branden

Words can't express how much smaller and less vibrant and less alive the world is without this man who passed away today.

In Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics, Tara Smith treats the morality of white lies in some detail. That is on pages 100–104. She opens with the claim that Ayn Rand “would reject [a] type of lie that people often approve of, white lies.” The insinuation is that Rand rejected as immoral all lies falling under the class white lie. There is no citation given by Prof. Smith to Rand’s writings to support the attribution of this view to Rand. Smith proceeds to give her own arguments in support of the conclusion that all white lies are immoral. Her arguments do not succeed in establishing such a sweeping conclusion.

There is a case of a white lie by a protagonist in Rand’s literature. I think it is not one bit a moral flaw. I’ll quote the lines from Rand’s 1936 issue of her We the Living. She did not revise these lines in her 1959 edited reissue of the novel. The lie occurs pretty late in the story. Kira’s parents and most everyone else in Leningrad (name recently changed from Petrograd due to death of Lenin at this stage of the story) are starving and freezing. Kira’s lover Leo is lately making money in the black market, so at the time of this scene, Kira is relatively well off. Galina is Kira’s mother.

Galina Petrovna came in with a bundle under her arm. “Good evening, Kira . . .”

. . .

Galina Petrovna asked: “Isn’t Leo home?” “No,” said Kira, “I’m expecting him.”

 

“I’m on my way to evening classes,” said Galina Petrovna, “and I just dropped in for a minute. . . .” She hesitated, fingered her bundle, smiled apologetically, and said with a strained nonchalance: “I just dropped in to show you something, see if you like it . . . maybe you’ll want to . . . buy it.” “To buy it?” Kira repeated, surprised. “What is it, Mother?”

 

Galina Petrovna had unwrapped the bundle; she was holding high in her outstretched arms an old-fashioned gown of flowing white lace; its long train touched the floor; Galina Petrovna’s smile was timid, hesitant. “Why, Mother!” Kira gasped. “Your wedding gown!”

 

“You see,” Galina Petrovna explained very quickly, “it’s the school [where she teaches]. I got my wages yesterday and . . . and they deducted so much as my membership in the Proletarian Society of Chemical Defense—and I didn’t even know I was a member— and I haven’t . . . . You see, your father needs new shoes—the cobbler’s refused to mend his old ones—and I was going to buy them this month . . . but the Chemical Defense and . . . . You see, you could alter it nicely, the dress, it’s good material, I’ve only worn it . . . once . . . . And I thought, if you liked it, for an evening gown, maybe, or . . .”

 

“Mother,” Kira said almost severely, and wondered at the little jerking break in her voice, “you know very well that if you need anything . . . .”

 

“I know, child, I know,” Galina Petrovna interrupted, . . . “You’ve been a wonderful daughter, but . . . with all you’ve already given us . . . I didn’t feel I could ask . . . and I thought I’d rather . . . but then, if you don’t like the dress . . . .”

 

“Yes,” Kira said resolutely, “I like it. I’ll buy it, Mother.” . . . “I was going to buy an evening gown, anyway,” Kira lied. (403–4)

The character Kira was not just like Ayn Rand. But constructing Kira as more conventional or normal than Rand was not at all a move plausible for Rand to make. And Rand kept this white-lie element in the revision, though she was culling things out for the revised edition, with a fine-tooth comb, to try not to contradict her mature philosophy as of ’59. Rand’s pattern with Kira was to make the heroine less normal than Rand, not more. For example, at one point, she has Kira say that she doesn’t read poetry, whereas Rand later made no secret of the fact that she herself read and appreciated some poets.

If, as Prof. Smith maintained, Rand came to the view that all white lies are moral failings, Rand must have gotten to that (exorbitant and wrong) view after 1959. Or Rand had been neglecting to integrate the Kira situation for a white lie with her own entirely general proscription against them.

Steve, are all white lies moral failings or not?

Kira needed higher self-esteem? If self-esteem is a cardinal moral value, isn't a deficiency in self-esteem a moral deficiency?

Rand and Branden were too quick to pronounce "low self-esteem." I don't think Kira suffered from such a failing or any other moral failing in the smoothing over she did with her mother by a white lie in that situation. And I think the author was on the perfectly moral, decent beam with that white lie.

Yes. Interesting and much to ponder. Thanks.