"Concerning a Pretended Right to Lie from Motives of Humanity" by Immanuel Kant - Assignment Example

The Pretended Right from Motives of Humanity to Lie Affiliation According to Constant, it is not always wrong to tell a lie. He refutes this Kant’s position through the French Philosopher that indicates that it is a responsibility to tell the truth. The duty conception is inseparable from that of law or right. The philosopher explains that a duty is that corresponds in one being another’s right. Thus, where there are no rights, there will be no duties. Hence, people have an obligation to tell the truth, but the duty is towards an individual with the right to truth.

Additionally, there is no individual with the right to the truth that harms others (Kant, 1873).It is always our duty answering truthfully a question that we cannot avoid answering (Kant, 1873). It is because truthfulness in statements that we cannot avoid answering is a formal duty that everyone owes to everyone despite how great it gets disadvantaged to the individual or another person.Sometimes it is redundant to define a lie as a falsehood that might harm another person. It is because a lie is simply a willful untrue state.

Hence, it does not need the additional definition that it should inflict harm to another person as it always hurt another individual or at least mankind in general through making all right sources useless. Additionally, it is argued that not every individual gets entitled to the right truth; thus some lies may not hurt them (Kant, 1873).A lie can also be told to save an innocent friend be punishable under the civil law. In this case, the condition may, for instance, tell a lie that will prevent someone who intended committing murder (Kant, 1873).

However, in this good-intended lie, one may become punishable by accident under the civil law because one who escapes punishment by accident can get adjudged a wrong by the external laws.Constant rest on a confusion between an act to wrong another and harming another by stating that a principle known as true must never get abandoned no matter its apparent to incur danger.REFERENCEKant I., (1873). Concerning a Pretended Right To Lie From Motives of Humanity. France in theYear 1797, Vol (6) No. 1. Pp. 14-19