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Cultural-Historical Psychology
2011. Vol. 7, no. 1, 28–41
ISSN: 1816-5435 / 2224-8935 (online)

Is It Acceptable To Lie To a Murderer in Order To Prevent a Crime: An Analysis of Historical Polemic

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A.N. Poddyakov

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Abstract

The controversy about Kant's essay «On a Supposed Right to Tell Lies from Benevolent Motives» is discussed, where Kant justifies the idea: if a murderer asks a person where his friend is hiding in order to kill his friend, morality calls not to lie to a murder and tell the truth. The article argues that although the followers of this Kantian position are considered as absolutists, and its opponents — as relativists, the Kantians with a necessity perform a large-scale relativization of the truth maxima and often adopt even a more conformist position regarding deceit than Kant's opponents, the «relativists». We introduce the paradoxes of a «dear friend» and «Kant's generalized consequence for a variety of friends» that describe the contradictory positions of Kant supporters. The «absolutist» and «relativists» confrontation is interpreted as a polemic between the supporters of reductionist and holistic (integrated) methodological approaches taking into account that the methodological confrontation is intensified by the confrontation of moral values.

General Information

Keywords: Kant, lies, deception, the principle of truth, moral absolutisation and relativization, holism, reductionism.

Journal rubric: Discussions and Discourses

Article type: scientific article

For citation: Poddyakov A.N. Is It Acceptable To Lie To a Murderer in Order To Prevent a Crime: An Analysis of Historical Polemic. Kul'turno-istoricheskaya psikhologiya = Cultural-Historical Psychology, 2011. Vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 28–41. (In Russ., аbstr. in Engl.)

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Information About the Authors

Aleksander N. Poddyakov, Doctor of Psychology, Professor, Faculty of Psychology, Department of General and Experimental Psychology, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Member of the International Society for Studies of Behaviour Development (ISSBD), Member of the editorial boards of the journals: “Psychology. Journal of the Higher School of Economics", "Researcher/Researcher", "Culture and Psychology", "Mathematical Thinking and Learning", "International Journal of Idiographic Science", Moscow, Russia, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6793-9985, e-mail: alpod@gol.ru

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