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A common anecdote from Kant. Im not Kantian but I think (feel) that he is somewhat right that the lie IS wrong. I think the key is that no one can be perfect, and sometimes you have to make a decision between two things that are wrong. In this case lying is much less wrong than not.

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This suggest a sort of morality that contains the axiom "lying is always wrong", which then demands torturous philosophical gymnastics in order to justify one's actions in circumstances when lying is obviously right. To say that lying is sometimes right does not diminish the merit of truthfulness, rather it is an acknowledgement that communication is a means to an end, and not the end itself.

This is why I reject the categorical imperative. The claim kant makes is that you still lie because it's more unethical to normalize a society of people being given up to murderers than it is to normalize a society of (white?)-liars.

I claim that this has degenerated into utilitarianism. This is also word for word what scopenhaur (a huge fan of kant) has to say about Kant's categorical imperative in his critique of Kant's ideas...

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