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Lying Definition

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According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the traditional definition of lying is “to make a believed-false statement to another person with the intention that the other person believe that statement to be true” (Mahon). In other words, a big part of lying in the above definition is intent. While a person may have good intentions when they give out the truth all at once, that route may sometimes be harmful for the person being told. Truth given out in small doses is still the truth and learning the truth in small doses is better than never learning the truth at all.

Telling the truth in small doses is still telling the truth. As Confucius noted in Analect 2.15,“learning without thought is labour lost; thought without learning …show more content…

“In his lectures on Pragmatism, James defends a kind of epistemic conservatism that accords with the idea that we do not need reasons for our beliefs when there are no challenges to them to be defeated.” (Hookway). Such was the case in By the Waters of Babylon. They believed that New York was the land of the Gods. Because they had no other rational explanation for the destruction that had happened so long ago, that was the only truth they knew. Their belief went unchallenged. However, John’s desire to learn the truth was evidenced when he said “If I went to the Place of the Gods, I would surely die, but, if I do not go, I could never be at peace with my spirit again” (Benet). In order to be at peace with his spirit, John was willing to risk life and limb in order to learn the truth. He found challenges to his beliefs. When he expressed his desire to share the whole truth immediately with the people, his father discouraged him telling him that “Truth is a hard deer to hunt. If you eat too much truth at once, you may die of the truth. It was not idly that our fathers forbade the Dead Places” (Benet). John’s father was advising him that rushing to tell the whole truth to their people could be very dangerous because their ancestors must have had a good reason for not doing so in the first place. Even though John’s discovery was a truth, it was possible that it was not the whole truth. Taking the time to learn what happened

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