How is lying justified?

Everyone tells a lie on occasion. As everyone knows, telling a lie is such a bad thing that people are not supposed to do. When is lying justified? How is lying justified? This could be a complicated question but a simple question as well. A wide array of people say that lying should be never done, but sometimes lying is acceptable when it is white lie.

A white lie makes life easier or more pleasant. The objective of lying is to save relationships and to prevent someone from hurting. Also lying is justified when people have a secret and try to keep that secret.

Lying is considered okay when people want to save relationships. For example, if someone asks, “how do I look with my new dress?”, then although you think it doesn’t fit well, you need to say, “Wow, you look just great in that dress.” In that way, your lying is acceptable since she would like your answer. If you tell what the truth actually is, she might not feel good about it. Telling a lie both makes her feel good and saves relationships.

There is another way of how lying is justified. That is when it is done to prevent someone from hurting people in physical and emotional ways. As everyone does, people get hurt emotionally when they hear something nasty from others. It particularly does when it is about appearances or one’s looks: they are ugly, not fashionable, and stinky. It is crystal clear that no one wants to hear it and there are no reasons for describing as them in that way. Since it is not a good situation to hurt someone else’s feelings, instead of saying a truth, people should tell a lie that makes everything nice. Moreover, in physical ways, they hurt themselves due to something someone says.

The last reason is to keep a secret. There are two types of people who keeps a secret and who do not keep a secret. Since it is called a secret, there are only few people or only you who know about that secret. For example, there is a surprise birthday party for my friend, Jessica. As it is a surprise party, I need to keep a secret and should not tell that to Jessica or someone else. Then, if Jessica asks, “Can you come to my birthday party? I would like to invite you.” and I might say “Oh, I am so sorry. I have an appointment with my family so I can’t make it.” If I would tell a truth, it does mean any secrets no more and our plans are going to be ruined. Therefore, I am telling a lie since I promised to keep a secret and not let her know about it.

         As I mentioned above, these are three ways to justify lying. Even though I do not recommend lying, lying is sometimes inevitable in those three ways. It would be better to set lying as a last option as a right thing to do.