So your idea is that if you're a VP and your choices are to tell everyone the truth or lie to everyone, you'd rather lie to save yourself a single day of uncertainty.

Meanwhile, the people you're about to lay off are definitely getting laid off anyway, and the people you're keeping now have zero reason to trust you or your leadership. And your rationalization for this is you're doing it for the "good of the many."

This has nothing to do with "a clean conscience." This has to do with whether your employees feel that you're being honest with them. Even the career-focused snakes don't want to work for a boss who lie when asked a direct question.