Benevolent lying permitted

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

1. The benevolent lie assumes that I know, better than the other, what is good for them: I judge them too fragile for the truth.
2. It denies them the respect owed to a being capable of reason, treating them as a child to be handled rather than an adult to be informed.
3. Often, besides, the lie spares first the one who tells it: he spares himself a hard conversation and calls it kindness.

Therefore Under cover of protecting them, the benevolent lie takes from the other what is theirs by right: the truth, and the freedom to judge it.

1. A lie seldom stays secret: one day, the other learns that they were lied to "for their own good".
2. From then on, each of your reassuring words becomes suspect: they no longer know when you are sparing them and when you are sincere.
3. A trust damaged this way is not mended with a word; the lie that meant to spare a pain sows a more lasting one.

Therefore In deceiving to protect, one trades a present pain for a mistrust that, unlike it, does not heal.