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Dear Rory and others,
I think that it might be very occasionally appropriate to lie. Nevertheless, I would be extremely careful of making inferences from extreme circumstances to everyday circumstances.
To improve peoples understandings of the Buddha's idea of ethics it's instructive to look at the monastic vinaya since there can be no higher 'legalized' representation of sila than the monastic vinaya.
Lets take the worst offenses a monk can commit - the Parajika ('defeat') offenses are:
1) Sexual intercourse, even with an animal
2) Murder (i.e. deliberately killing a human being)
3) Theft of an item of non-trifling value
4) Knowingly making a false claim to have attained a superior human state (meditative attainment or psychic power)
If a monk does any of those four things, he is no longer a monk by virtue of having done that deed (i.e there's no need for the sangha to try and convict him - doing the deed itself makes him no longer a monk).
Next are a category of serious offenses called sanghadisesa offenses, which entail temporary loss of status, but a monk can be rehabilitated from. There are 13 of these, and some include:
1) Masturbation
8) Falsely accusing another monk of committing a parajika offense.
9) Making a true but misleading statement with the intention of setting up the false belief that another monk committed a parajika offense. For example "I saw monk the so-and-so having sex with his ex-wife [in a dream I had last night]".
There are also pacittiya offenses which are cleared by simple confession, among these are:
1) A deliberate lie.
8) Making a truthful claim to lay people about a superior human state one actually has.
9) Truthfully reporting another monks serious offense to lay people, unless authorized to by the sangha.
44,45) Sitting along with a woman.
61) Intentionally killing an animal.
64) Knowingly and deliberately concealing another monks serious offense from the sangha.
76) Falsely accusing another monk of comitting a sanghadisesa offense.
So I have included a non-random selection of offenses. What should be evident is that the Buddha recognizes a gradation of seriousness. For example one particular kind of lie is considered so serious that if a bhikkhu tells such a lie he is defeated and can never ordain again for the rest of his life. Another kind of lie - making a malicious accusation which could cause grave disruption to another monk's life and to the sangha, is treated as very serious indeed. But other kinds of lies are simply cleared by confession.
Furthermore in some cases, it is a light offense to actually tell the truth. This of course doesn't mean a monk should commit pacittiya one by lying in these cases, but it means that he should remain silent or give an explaination which doesn't result in an offense.
This gradation is also visible in things like killing - killing a human being is parajika, killing an animal only a pacittiya. Having sex with a woman is a parajika. Groping a woman is a sanghadisesa. Sitting along with a woman is a pacittiya. Standing or walking alone with a woman is no offense at all (even if people may be offended).
At very least, it can be seen that some things are regarded as generally 'less wrong' than others.
There is also another very important, universal factor which always absolves one from an offense. If a monk is insane, his actions can't be offenses. If an insane monk murders someone, or babbles about having pyschic powers, there is no offense at all for him. The same is true if a monk is 'mad with pain', and I would probably include hysteria here also. Thus if a situation is extreme enough to enduce hysteria, there would no offense no matter what one does.
Furthermore, while it's not so explictly stated, it seems that actions done under duress also don't constitute an offense. For example there is a story that monks and nuns were kidnapped by youths and forced to have sex with each other. There was no offense for the monks or nuns. It's difficult to make a legal definition of duress of course, but the point is offenses are about what is done under normal, everyday situations under the influece of defilements or poor judgement, the monastic vinaya does not apply to extreme situations such as insanity or duress.
In the case of Germans concealing Jews, I would count that under a situation similiar to duress, in that a compassionate person actually has no choice but to try to protect others, in that sense their actions are involuntary - their mind is already made up by compassion. Under most cases I could think of, if compassion leaves one no choice but to act, it wouldn't be a vinaya offense for a monk because of that motivation.
Under lying, I would tend to say that statements made to pacify a 'crazy' person, even if the statements are not true, doesn't actually come under the rule. This is because there is no intention to deceive - only to pacify. One might fully intend to clear the matter up once the person has come down from their high, in other words, one is not trying to set up a false belief in them. It should be clear that under such circumstances, when one is confronted by a madman, one generally doesn't think 'I should make up some lie to satisfy them', but just says whatever one needs to to pacify them, without conscious choice. The element of conscious choice is required for a vinaya offense.
I do want to make it clear, that under extreme circumstances, one can't project the every day mind into those extreme circumstances and think that one would think the same way under those circumstances. It doesn't work that way at all in reality. Hence great care is required in making inferences about what one 'should' do under extreme circumstances in deciding what is moral and not moral. I would say that because of the extreme mind states induced, extreme circumstances should be considered seperately from everyday morality - when a monk is insane, the vinaya is thrown out the window, it totally ceases to apply for that kind of mind state.
With all that said (A lot, I know!). I am going to say that I think that in everyday circusmtances there is almost never justification to lie. It is important to not reduce things to a dichotomy, where if asked a question, you must either answer it honestly or lie. The Buddha said on the matter of answering questions, that there are four ways of answering a question, which are basically:
Answering it straightforwardly.
Giving an analytical answer.
Asking a counter question.
Putting the question aside.
That is a much better approach than the dichotomy of:
Give an honest answer.
Give a dishonest answer.
Another way I have heard this described is: "Answer the person, not the question", one is not obligated to give a straightfowad answer to a question, but should instead respond to where the question is coming from.
Part of the point of the precept against lying, (and other precepts also), it to overcome existing habits and develop entirely new habits. So instead of thinking 'Gee, now I'm restricted to always giving a straightforward honest response', you should take it as an oppurtunity to develop new kinds of responses. Precepts help us to develop these new, more skillfull and beneficial habits. I could compare this with the time when I became a vegan, what I discovered, is rather than resulting in having a more restricted diet, equal to what I previously ate, minus all meat, eggs and diary - what I actually discovered is once I removed the meat, eggs and diary, a whole new world of foods opened up to me. Things like avocados, eggplants, beans, tempeh - all sorts of things I'd never tried before, and I turned out to really like, a lot more in fact, than the things I'd stopped eating.
Hence it is important to not view precepts as restrictive, but rather as opening up a new world of oppurtunity.
With metta,
Bhante Nandiya.
I think that it might be very occasionally appropriate to lie. Nevertheless, I would be extremely careful of making inferences from extreme circumstances to everyday circumstances.
To improve peoples understandings of the Buddha's idea of ethics it's instructive to look at the monastic vinaya since there can be no higher 'legalized' representation of sila than the monastic vinaya.
Lets take the worst offenses a monk can commit - the Parajika ('defeat') offenses are:
1) Sexual intercourse, even with an animal
2) Murder (i.e. deliberately killing a human being)
3) Theft of an item of non-trifling value
4) Knowingly making a false claim to have attained a superior human state (meditative attainment or psychic power)
If a monk does any of those four things, he is no longer a monk by virtue of having done that deed (i.e there's no need for the sangha to try and convict him - doing the deed itself makes him no longer a monk).
Next are a category of serious offenses called sanghadisesa offenses, which entail temporary loss of status, but a monk can be rehabilitated from. There are 13 of these, and some include:
1) Masturbation
8) Falsely accusing another monk of committing a parajika offense.
9) Making a true but misleading statement with the intention of setting up the false belief that another monk committed a parajika offense. For example "I saw monk the so-and-so having sex with his ex-wife [in a dream I had last night]".
There are also pacittiya offenses which are cleared by simple confession, among these are:
1) A deliberate lie.
8) Making a truthful claim to lay people about a superior human state one actually has.
9) Truthfully reporting another monks serious offense to lay people, unless authorized to by the sangha.
44,45) Sitting along with a woman.
61) Intentionally killing an animal.
64) Knowingly and deliberately concealing another monks serious offense from the sangha.
76) Falsely accusing another monk of comitting a sanghadisesa offense.
So I have included a non-random selection of offenses. What should be evident is that the Buddha recognizes a gradation of seriousness. For example one particular kind of lie is considered so serious that if a bhikkhu tells such a lie he is defeated and can never ordain again for the rest of his life. Another kind of lie - making a malicious accusation which could cause grave disruption to another monk's life and to the sangha, is treated as very serious indeed. But other kinds of lies are simply cleared by confession.
Furthermore in some cases, it is a light offense to actually tell the truth. This of course doesn't mean a monk should commit pacittiya one by lying in these cases, but it means that he should remain silent or give an explaination which doesn't result in an offense.
This gradation is also visible in things like killing - killing a human being is parajika, killing an animal only a pacittiya. Having sex with a woman is a parajika. Groping a woman is a sanghadisesa. Sitting along with a woman is a pacittiya. Standing or walking alone with a woman is no offense at all (even if people may be offended).
At very least, it can be seen that some things are regarded as generally 'less wrong' than others.
There is also another very important, universal factor which always absolves one from an offense. If a monk is insane, his actions can't be offenses. If an insane monk murders someone, or babbles about having pyschic powers, there is no offense at all for him. The same is true if a monk is 'mad with pain', and I would probably include hysteria here also. Thus if a situation is extreme enough to enduce hysteria, there would no offense no matter what one does.
Furthermore, while it's not so explictly stated, it seems that actions done under duress also don't constitute an offense. For example there is a story that monks and nuns were kidnapped by youths and forced to have sex with each other. There was no offense for the monks or nuns. It's difficult to make a legal definition of duress of course, but the point is offenses are about what is done under normal, everyday situations under the influece of defilements or poor judgement, the monastic vinaya does not apply to extreme situations such as insanity or duress.
In the case of Germans concealing Jews, I would count that under a situation similiar to duress, in that a compassionate person actually has no choice but to try to protect others, in that sense their actions are involuntary - their mind is already made up by compassion. Under most cases I could think of, if compassion leaves one no choice but to act, it wouldn't be a vinaya offense for a monk because of that motivation.
Under lying, I would tend to say that statements made to pacify a 'crazy' person, even if the statements are not true, doesn't actually come under the rule. This is because there is no intention to deceive - only to pacify. One might fully intend to clear the matter up once the person has come down from their high, in other words, one is not trying to set up a false belief in them. It should be clear that under such circumstances, when one is confronted by a madman, one generally doesn't think 'I should make up some lie to satisfy them', but just says whatever one needs to to pacify them, without conscious choice. The element of conscious choice is required for a vinaya offense.
I do want to make it clear, that under extreme circumstances, one can't project the every day mind into those extreme circumstances and think that one would think the same way under those circumstances. It doesn't work that way at all in reality. Hence great care is required in making inferences about what one 'should' do under extreme circumstances in deciding what is moral and not moral. I would say that because of the extreme mind states induced, extreme circumstances should be considered seperately from everyday morality - when a monk is insane, the vinaya is thrown out the window, it totally ceases to apply for that kind of mind state.
With all that said (A lot, I know!). I am going to say that I think that in everyday circusmtances there is almost never justification to lie. It is important to not reduce things to a dichotomy, where if asked a question, you must either answer it honestly or lie. The Buddha said on the matter of answering questions, that there are four ways of answering a question, which are basically:
Answering it straightforwardly.
Giving an analytical answer.
Asking a counter question.
Putting the question aside.
That is a much better approach than the dichotomy of:
Give an honest answer.
Give a dishonest answer.
Another way I have heard this described is: "Answer the person, not the question", one is not obligated to give a straightfowad answer to a question, but should instead respond to where the question is coming from.
Part of the point of the precept against lying, (and other precepts also), it to overcome existing habits and develop entirely new habits. So instead of thinking 'Gee, now I'm restricted to always giving a straightforward honest response', you should take it as an oppurtunity to develop new kinds of responses. Precepts help us to develop these new, more skillfull and beneficial habits. I could compare this with the time when I became a vegan, what I discovered, is rather than resulting in having a more restricted diet, equal to what I previously ate, minus all meat, eggs and diary - what I actually discovered is once I removed the meat, eggs and diary, a whole new world of foods opened up to me. Things like avocados, eggplants, beans, tempeh - all sorts of things I'd never tried before, and I turned out to really like, a lot more in fact, than the things I'd stopped eating.
Hence it is important to not view precepts as restrictive, but rather as opening up a new world of oppurtunity.
With metta,
Bhante Nandiya.
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