We owe the truth only to those who have a right to hear it.

Supports

Telling the truth is a duty, but a duty toward others: it presupposes, in the one who receives it, a corresponding right to know it.
But no one has a right to a truth they would use to do harm: the one who asks you where his prey is hiding has no claim to your candor.
When the truth would serve only to wound an innocent or to arm an injustice, lying to protect them honors the spirit of sincerity better than its letter.

Therefore Lying can therefore be right when the truth, owed to no one in such a case, would do only an uncompensated harm.

How far does this reasoning convince you?

Not at all

Entirely

Deepenings

Where does the idea of a "right to the truth" come from?

Benjamin Constant objected to Kant that a duty of truth without the slightest exception would make all common life impossible: would one have to hand over a hunted friend to his pursuer?
Kant replied that no exception was tolerable, on pain of ruining the principle itself. It is from this controversy that the formula of the right to the truth comes.

How far does this reasoning convince you?

Not at all

Entirely

Put to the test