When, if at all, is it acceptable to lie?

I was talking to a friend and her teenage daughter about lying a few days ago, it was amusing to discover we all consider ourselves to be unable to lie and incapable of doing it even moderately well.

I have never been a good liar. My mum could always tell when I was hiding something from her or being less than honest. Equally she always knew that if she just stood there and gave me the look sooner or later I'd crack and EVERYTHING would come spurting out in a torrent of confession while I cried and trembled.

Its a little hard to explain but as I stood there under her intense and unwavering scrutiny the secret or lie seemed to expand inside of me, swelling and growing to proportions so big and painful that to hold and contain it inside, hurt. Eventually I'd have to let go of it and get everything out. How mum knew to do this I have no idea but it worked more or less every single time. If it did fail the simple words 'Don't. Lie. To. Me. Natasha.' uttered with menacing calmness were more than enough to scare my rebellion out of me and before I knew it I was blabbing like Chunk out of the Goonies.

What struck me most about our chat was that the general consensus seemed to be lying itself is okay providing you had a good intention behind your lie. I found myself agreeing that good intention + lie = moral justification and the reality is that I'm actually not convinced that this is the case. Surely moral ethics demand a less grey and therefore unambiguous stance on lying? When we tell children that it is wrong to lie yet do so ourselves aren't we sending mixed messages? More than this aren't we merely justifying our reluctance and aversion to telling the truth and letting ourselves off lightly? Speaking honestly is rarely easy especially if it is going to cause hurt so it does stand to reason that lying is an easier option. When I question this I'm not talking about the adult habit of perpetuating the belief in Santa or the Tooth Fairy or Disney Happy Ever Afters (I'm aware that I'm alone on the last one) but rather the whole its acceptable to lie if you're well meaning in it. I surmise that what I am really asking is 'When, if at all, is it acceptable to lie?'

Phrasing it like that makes me become self righteous and self-condemning and believe that I should be honest at all times, after all honesty is the best policy isn't it? But if I think about my Aunty L's cooking I'm not so self assured; I always thank her politely for the wonderful meal and compliment her on it. The reality though is its awful. Worse, it borders on disgusting and her portions are too small too. I don't say this though. I lie. Obviously it would be cruel and hurtful not to mention entirely ungrateful to say so, in this instance then, to protect Aunty L's feelings (and to appease my own conscious) I am almost certain that lying is the right thing to do.

To apply the - its acceptable to lie if you have someone else's best interests at heart - rule to another scenario like infidelity I find myself back in the grey area of ambiguity again. If I had been unfaithful and was truly repentant, in order to be forgiven and in turn forgive myself, I would feel a great need to confess my infidelity to my partner. Needless to say such news would be devastating and could potentially destroy our relationship. The hurt at hearing such an admision would be indescribable for any, therefore I find myself wondering if it wouldn't be better to remain silent in order to protect my partner. My silence would undeniably be self-serving to a degree, but ultimately I'd be keeping my secret to myself to prevent hurt and sadness so I'd have ethics on my side wouldn't I? Again I am not so sure or confident. Ethics and my chosen rule overlap each other in a intricate pattern akin to crochet that moves me nauseatingly between black, white and grey and back again at least a dozen times when I attempt to apply it to different scenarios.

When I am faced with needing or wanting to lie I find myself gazing off in to the distance while the following runs through my mind; I think about how hurt the other person is going to be, I think about what I can say to protect them/extricate myself from the situation, I think about how the chosen lie will escalate and become bigger and more complicated than I am able to control and lastly, I think of the energy I will expend worrying, covering things up, trying to remember what I said and to whom and...that's about the time I confess all. I realise at that precise moment that I do not have the energy to spare to spend so much of it on one transgression, I reason to myself that being human means I will have plenty more of them before I die and therefore it would be wise to pick...my moments for fabricating stories. The above might seem on the wordy side but in reality all of it happens in seconds, everything that I have mentioned flits through my mind in the space between two breaths.

My answer then to 'When, if at all, is it acceptable to lie?' is to avoid being pinned down for a definitive response and mumble something evasive such as 'When the circumstances demand it'. Clearly then this kind of reply, my own answer to this is question is not a product of strong ethics, but rather merely because I am too lazy to lie.