Mental reservation (or mental equivocation) is an
ethical theory
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ...
and a doctrine in moral theology that recognizes the "lie of necessity", and holds that when there is a conflict between justice and
veracity
Veracity may refer to:
* ''Veracity'' (album), a 2008 album by Evacuate Chicago
* Veracity (ethics), an ethical principle
* ''Veracity'' (novel), a 2010 novel by Laura Bynum
* Veracity, an automobile from the early 1900s built by the Smith Autom ...
, it is justice that should prevail. The doctrine is a special branch of
casuistry
In ethics, casuistry ( ) is a process of reasoning that seeks to resolve moral problems by extracting or extending theoretical rules from a particular case, and reapplying those rules to new instances. This method occurs in applied ethics and ju ...
(case-based reasoning) developed in the late
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
and the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...
. While associated with the
Jesuits
, image = Ihs-logo.svg
, image_size = 175px
, caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits
, abbreviation = SJ
, nickname = Jesuits
, formation =
, founders = ...
, it did not originate with them. It is a theory debated by moral theologians, but not part of
Canon law
Canon law (from grc, κανών, , a 'straight measuring rod, ruler') is a set of ordinances and regulations made by ecclesiastical authority (church leadership) for the government of a Christian organization or church and its members. It is th ...
.
Secular use
It was argued in
moral theology
Ethics involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior.''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy''"Ethics"/ref> A central aspect of ethics is "the good life", the life worth living or life that is simply sati ...
, and now in
ethics
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concer ...
, that mental reservation was a way to fulfill obligations both to tell the truth and to keep secrets from those not entitled to know them (for example, because of the
seal of the confessional or other clauses of
confidentiality
Confidentiality involves a set of rules or a promise usually executed through confidentiality agreements that limits the access or places restrictions on certain types of information.
Legal confidentiality
By law, lawyers are often required ...
). Mental reservation, however, is regarded as unjustifiable without grave reason for withholding the truth. This condition was necessary to preserve a general idea of
truth
Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth 2005 In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as belie ...
in social relations.
Social psychologist
Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people or by social norms. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the rela ...
s have advanced cases where the actor is confronted with an
avoidance-avoidance conflict, in which he both doesn't want to say the truth and doesn't want to make an outright lie; in such circumstances, equivocal statements are generally preferred. This type of equivocation has been defined as “nonstraightforward communication...ambiguous, contradictory, tangential, obscure or even evasive.” People typically equivocate when posed a question to which all of the possible replies have potentially negative consequences, yet a reply is still expected (the situational theory of communicative conflict).
Equivocation
The
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...
contains a good example of equivocation.
Abraham
Abraham, ; ar, , , name=, group= (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the special relationship between the Je ...
was married to Sarah/Sarai, his half-sister by a different mother. Fearing that as he traveled people would covet his beautiful wife and as a result kill him to take her, he counselled her to agree with him when he would say that "she is my sister". This happened on two occasions, first with the
Pharaoh
Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: '' pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until the ...
of Egypt, told in
Genesis
Genesis may refer to:
Bible
* Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind
* Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book of ...
12:11-13, and second, with a king called Abimelech in Gen 20:12. Abraham later explained to Abimelech that Sarah was indeed his sister, as they shared the same father, although had different mothers. Writers
Petrus Serrarius
Petrus Serrarius (Peter Serrarius, Pieter Serrurier, Pierre Serrurier, Pieter Serrarius, Petro Serario, Petrus Serarius; 1600, London – buried October 1, 1669, Amsterdam) was a millenarian theologian, writer, and also a wealthy merc ...
,
Giovanni Stefano Menochio and
George Leo Haydock
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849) was a priest, pastor and Bible scholar from an ancient Catholic Church in England and Wales, English Catholic Recusancy, Recusant family. His edition of the Douay Bible with extended commentary, originally published ...
refer to mental reservation as justification for Judith's false explanation that she intended to betray her people to the Assyrians in the
apocrypha
Apocrypha are works, usually written, of unknown authorship or of doubtful origin. The word ''apocryphal'' (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to writings which were kept secret because they were the vehicles of esoteric knowledge considered ...
l book which
bears her name.
A frequently cited example of equivocation is a well-known incident from the life of
Athanasius of Alexandria. When
Julian the Apostate was seeking Athanasius's death, Athanasius fled Alexandria and was pursued up the
Nile
The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest ...
. Seeing the imperial officers were gaining on him, Athanasius took advantage of a bend in the river that hid his boat from its pursuers and ordered his boat turned around. When the two boats crossed paths, the Roman officers shouted out, asking if anyone had seen Athanasius. As instructed by Athanasius, his followers shouted back, "Yes, he is not very far off." The pursuing boat hastily continued up the river, while Athanasius returned to Alexandria, where he remained in hiding until the end of the persecution.
Another anecdote often used to illustrate equivocation concerns
Francis of Assisi. He once saw a man fleeing from a murderer. When the murderer then came upon Francis, he demanded to know if his quarry had passed that way. Francis answered, "He did not pass this way", sliding his forefinger into the sleeve of his
cassock, thus misleading the murderer and saving a life. A variant of this anecdote is cited by the
canonist
Canon law (from grc, κανών, , a 'straight measuring rod, ruler') is a set of ordinances and regulations made by ecclesiastical authority (church leadership) for the government of a Christian organization or church and its members. It is th ...
Martin de Azpilcueta Martin may refer to:
Places
* Martin City (disambiguation)
* Martin County (disambiguation)
* Martin Township (disambiguation)
Antarctica
* Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land
* Port Martin, Adelie Land
* Point Martin, South Orkney Islands
Austr ...
to illustrate his doctrine of a mixed speech (''oratoria mixta'') combining
speech and
gestural communication.
When there was good reason for using equivocation, its lawfulness was admitted by all moral theologians. Traditionally, the doctrine of mental reservation was intimately linked with the concept of
equivocation, which allowed the speaker to employ double meanings of words to tell the ''literal'' truth while concealing a deeper meaning.
''Mentalis restrictio'' in moral theology
The traditional teaching of moral theologians is that a lie is intrinsically evil, and therefore, never allowed. However, there are instances where one is also under an obligation to keep secrets faithfully, and sometimes the easiest way of fulfilling that duty is to say what is false, or to tell a lie. Writers of all creeds and of none, both ancient and modern, have frankly accepted this position. They admit the doctrine of the "lie of necessity", and maintain that when there is a conflict between justice and veracity it is justice that should prevail. The common Catholic teaching has formulated the theory of mental reservation as a means by which the claims of both justice and veracity can be satisfied.
[
If there is no good reason to the contrary, truth requires all to speak frankly and openly in such a way as to be understood by those who are addressed. A sin is committed if mental reservations are used without just cause, or in cases when the questioner has a right to the naked truth.][Slater, Thomas. "Mental Reservation." The Catholic Encyclopedia]
Vol. 10. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. 11 May 2019
Wide mental reservation
In "wide mental reservation" the qualification comes from the ambiguity of the words themselves, or from the circumstances of time, place, or person in which they are uttered.
Spanish Dominican Raymond of Peñafort was a noted canon lawyer, and one of the first writers on casuistry, i.e., seeking to resolve moral problems by extracting or extending theoretical rules from a particular case and applying them to new instances. He noted that Augustine of Hippo said that a man must not slay his own soul by lying in order to preserve the life of another, and that it would be a most perilous doctrine to admit that we may do a lesser evil to prevent another doing a greater. He said that while most doctors teach this, he acknowledged that others allow that a lie should be told when a man's life is at stake.
Raymond gave as an example, if one is asked by murderers bent on taking the life of someone hiding in the house whether he is in:
* one could decline to answer, in which case if this betrays him, his death will be imputable to the murderers, not to the other's silence;
* he may use an equivocal expression such as, "He is not at home o you, or
* he may say simply that he is not there, and if his conscience tells him that he ought to say that, then he will not speak against his conscience, nor will he sin.
Raymond did not believe that Augustine would have objection to any of these.[ Those who hear them may understand them in a sense which is not true, but their self-deception may be permitted by the speaker for a good reason.
]
Strict mental reservation
According to Malloch and Huntley (1966), this doctrine of permissible "equivocation" did not originate with the Jesuits. They cite a short treatise, ', that had been written by Martin Azpilcueta (also known as Doctor Navarrus), an Augustinian Augustinian may refer to:
*Augustinians, members of religious orders following the Rule of St Augustine
*Augustinianism, the teachings of Augustine of Hippo and his intellectual heirs
*Someone who follows Augustine of Hippo
* Canons Regular of Sain ...
who was serving as a consultant to the Apostolic Penitentiary
The Apostolic Penitentiary (), formerly called the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Penitentiary, is a dicastery of the Roman Curia and is one of the three ordinary tribunals of the Apostolic See. The Apostolic Penitentiary is chiefly a tri ...
. It was published in Rome in 1584. The first Jesuit influence upon this doctrine was not until 1609, "when Suarez rejected Azpilcueta's basic proof and supplied another" (speaking of Francisco Suárez).
The 16th-century Spanish theologian Martin de Azpilcueta Martin may refer to:
Places
* Martin City (disambiguation)
* Martin County (disambiguation)
* Martin Township (disambiguation)
Antarctica
* Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land
* Port Martin, Adelie Land
* Point Martin, South Orkney Islands
Austr ...
(often called "Navarrus" because he was born in the Kingdom of Navarre) wrote at length about the doctrine of ''mentalis restrictio'' or mental reservation. Navarrus held that mental reservation involved truths "expressed partly in speech and partly in the mind," relying upon the idea that God hears what is in one's mind while human beings hear only what one speaks. Therefore, the Christian's moral duty was to tell the truth to God. Reserving some of that truth from the ears of human hearers was moral if it served a greater good. This is the doctrine of "strict mental reservation", by which the speaker mentally adds some qualification to the words which they utter, and the words together with the mental qualification make a true assertion in accordance with fact.[
Navarrus gave the doctrine of mental reservation a far broader and more liberal interpretation than had anyone up to that time. Although some other Catholic theological thinkers and writers took up the argument in favor of strict mental reservation, canonist ]Paul Laymann
Paul may refer to:
*Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name)
*Paul (surname), a list of people
People
Christianity
* Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...
opposed it; the concept remained controversial within the Roman Catholic Church, which never officially endorsed or upheld the doctrine and eventually Pope Innocent XI condemned it as formulated by Sanchez in 1679. After this condemnation by the Holy See no Catholic theologian has defended the lawfulness of strict mental reservations.
England
The linked theories of mental reservation and equivocation became notorious in England during the Elizabethan era
The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personific ...
and the Jacobean era
The Jacobean era was the period in English and Scottish history that coincides with the reign of James VI of Scotland who also inherited the crown of England in 1603 as James I. The Jacobean era succeeds the Elizabethan era and precedes the Ca ...
, when Jesuits who had entered England to minister to the spiritual needs of Catholics were captured by the authorities. The Jesuits Robert Southwell (c. 1561–1595) (who was also a poet of note) and Henry Garnet
Henry Garnet (July 1555 – 3 May 1606), sometimes Henry Garnett, was an English Jesuit priest executed for his complicity in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Born in Heanor, Derbyshire, he was educated in Nottingham and later at Winchester Colle ...
(1555–1606) both wrote treatises on the topic, which was of far more than academic interest to them. Both risked their lives bringing the sacraments to recusant
Recusancy (from la, recusare, translation=to refuse) was the state of those who remained loyal to the Catholic Church and refused to attend Church of England services after the English Reformation.
The 1558 Recusancy Acts passed in the reign ...
Catholics — and not only ''their'' lives, since sheltering a priest was a capital offence.[Cathleen Kaveny]
"Truth or Consequences: In Ireland, Straying Far from the Mental Reservation"
. ''Commonweal'', January 15, 2010. In 1586, Margaret Clitherow
Margaret Clitherow (1556 – 25 March 1586) was an English saint and martyr of the Roman Catholic Church, known as "the Pearl of York". She was pressed to death for refusing to enter a plea to the charge of harbouring Catholic priests. She was ...
had been pressed to death for refusing to enter a plea on the charge of harbouring two priests at York. When caught, tortured and interrogated, Southwell and Garnet practiced mental reservation not to save themselves — their deaths were a foregone conclusion — but to protect their fellow believers.[
Southwell, who was arrested in 1592, was accused at his trial of having told a witness that even if she was forced by the authorities to swear under oath, it was permissible to lie to conceal the whereabouts of a priest. Southwell replied that that was not what he had said. He had said that "to an oath were required justice, judgement and truth", but the rest of his answer goes unrecorded because one of the judges angrily shouted him down. Convicted in 1595, Southwell was hanged, drawn and quartered. More famous in his own era was Henry Garnet, who wrote a defense of Southwell in 1598; Garnet was captured by the authorities in 1606 due to his alleged involvement in the ]Gunpowder Plot
The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was a failed assassination attempt against King James I by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby who sough ...
. Facing the same accusations as Southwell, his attempts to defend himself met with no better result: later that year, Garnet was executed in the same fashion.
The Protestants considered these doctrines as mere justifications for lies. Catholic ethicists also voiced objections: the Jansenist
Jansenism was an early modern theological movement within Catholicism, primarily active in the Kingdom of France, that emphasized original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace, and predestination. It was declared a heresy by th ...
" Blaise Pascal...attacked the Jesuits in the seventeenth century for what he saw as their moral laxity." "By 1679, the doctrine of strict mental reservation put forward by Navarrus had become such a scandal that Pope Innocent XI officially condemned it." Other casuists justifying mental reservation included Thomas Sanchez
Tomás Sánchez (1550 – 19 May 1610) was a 16th-century Spanish Jesuit and famous casuist.
Life
In 1567 he entered the Society of Jesus. He was at first refused admittance on account of an impediment in his speech; however, after imploring ...
, who was criticized by Pascal in his ''Provincial Letters
The ''Lettres provinciales'' (''Provincial letters'') are a series of eighteen letters written by French philosopher and theologian Blaise Pascal under the pseudonym Louis de Montalte. Written in the midst of the formulary controversy between ...
'' – although Sanchez added various restrictions (it should not be used in ordinary circumstances, when one is interrogated by competent magistrates, when a creed is requested, even for heretics
Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...
, etc.), which were ignored by Pascal.
This type of equivocation was famously mocked in the porter's speech in Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
's '' Macbeth'', in which the porter directly alludes to the practice of deceiving under oath by means of equivocation. "Faith, here's an equivocator, that could swear in both the scales against either scale; who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven." (''Macbeth'', Act 2, Scene 3)
See, for example Robert Southwell and Henry Garnet
Henry Garnet (July 1555 – 3 May 1606), sometimes Henry Garnett, was an English Jesuit priest executed for his complicity in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Born in Heanor, Derbyshire, he was educated in Nottingham and later at Winchester Colle ...
, author of ''A Treatise of Equivocation'' (published secretly c. 1595)—to whom, it is supposed, Shakespeare was specifically referring. Shakespeare made the reference to priests because the religious use of equivocation was well known in those periods of early modern England (e.g. under James VI/I) when it was a capital offence for a Roman Catholic priest to enter England. A Jesuit priest would equivocate in order to protect himself from the secular authorities without (in his eyes) committing the sin of lying.
Following Innocent XI's condemnation of strict mental reservation, equivocation (or wide mental reservation) was still considered orthodox, and was revived and defended by Alphonsus Liguori
Alphonsus Liguori, CSsR (27 September 1696 – 1 August 1787), sometimes called Alphonsus Maria de Liguori or Saint Alphonsus Liguori, was an Italian Catholic bishop, spiritual writer, composer, musician, artist, poet, lawyer, scholastic philoso ...
. The Jesuit Gabriel Daniel wrote in 1694 ''Entretiens de Cleanthe et d' Eudoxe sur les lettres provinciales'', a reply to Pascal's ''Provincial Letters'' in which he accused Pascal of lying, or even of having himself used mental reservation, by not mentioning all the restrictions imposed by Sanchez on the use of this form of deception.
In his licentiate thesis, Edouard Guilloux says that it is shown from the study of language "that there can be a gap between what a speaker means when he utters a given sentence and the literal meaning of that same sentence", yet "the literal meaning of a sentence must be apt to convey what the speaker means: the speaker cannot authentically be said to have meant to say something that has no relation to the literal meaning of the sentence he utters." "Since the non-literal meaning intended by the speaker can be detected in the circumstances of his utterance, he can authentically be said to have meant to say it, and if that meaning yields a true statement, then he has said nothing false." According to Alphonsus Liguori, for the licit use of a mental reservation, "an absolutely serious cause is not required; any reasonable cause is enough, for instance to free oneself from the inconvenient and unjust interrogation of another." Alphonsus said, "we do not deceive our neighbor, but for a just cause we allow that he deceive himself."
The '' New Catholic Encyclopedia'' says, "A man can affirm that he had coffee and toast for breakfast without denying that he had an egg, or he might affirm that he has a lesser amount of money in his pocket without denying that he also has a greater amount. So long as he has reasonable cause to conceal part of the truth, he does no wrong, provided, of course, that he is careful not to indicate that he has 'only' so much to eat or that he has 'only' so much money." Also, if "a wife, who has been unfaithful but after her lapse has received the Sacrament of Penance, is asked by her husband if she has committed adultery, she could truthfully reply: 'I am free from sin.'"
Legacy
Kant and Constant
This type of untruth was condemned by Kant
Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aest ...
in '' On a supposed right to lie''. Kant was debating against Benjamin Constant
Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque (; 25 October 1767 – 8 December 1830), or simply Benjamin Constant, was a Franco-Swiss political thinker, activist and writer on political theory and religion.
A committed republican from 1795, he backed t ...
, who had claimed, from a consequentialist
In ethical philosophy, consequentialism is a class of normative, teleological ethical theories that holds that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for judgment about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct. Thus, from a ...
stance opposed to Kant's categorical imperative
The categorical imperative (german: kategorischer Imperativ) is the central philosophical concept in the deontological moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Introduced in Kant's 1785 '' Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals'', it is a way of eva ...
, that: "To tell the truth is thus a duty; but it is only in respect to one who has a right to the truth. But no one has a right to a truth which injures others."
On the other hand, Kant asserted, in the ''Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals
''Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals'' (1785; german: Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten; also known as the ''Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals'', ''Grounding of the Metaphysics of Morals'', and the ''Grounding for the Metaphysics o ...
'', that lying, or deception of any kind, would be forbidden under any interpretation and in any circumstance. In ''Groundwork'', Kant gives the example of a person who seeks to borrow money without intending to pay it back. The maxim of this action, says Kant, results in a contradiction in conceivability (and thus contradicts perfect duty) because it would logically contradict the reliability of language. If it is universally acceptable to lie, then no one would believe anyone and all truths would be assumed to be lies (this last clause was accepted by casuists, hence the reasons for restrictions given to the cases where deception was authorized).[ The right to deceive could also not be claimed because it would deny the status of the person deceived as an end in himself. And the theft would be incompatible with a possible kingdom of ends. Therefore, Kant denied the right to lie or deceive for any reason, regardless of context or anticipated consequences. However, it was permissible to remain silent or say no more than needed (such as in the infamous example of a murderer asking to know where someone is).
]
Others
The doctrines have also been criticized by Sissela Bok
Sissela Bok (born Myrdal; 2 December 1934) is a Swedish-born American philosopher and ethicist, the daughter of two Nobel Prize winners: Gunnar Myrdal who won the Economics prize with Friedrich Hayek in 1974, and Alva Myrdal who won the Nobel P ...
and by Paul Ekman
Paul Ekman (born February 15, 1934) is an American psychologist and professor emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco who is a pioneer in the study of emotions and their relation to facial expressions. He was ranked 59th out of ...
, who defines lies by omission as the main form of lying – though larger and more complex moral and ethical issues of lying
A lie is an assertion that is believed to be false, typically used with the purpose of deception, deceiving or Deception, misleading someone. The practice of communicating lies is called lying. A person who communicates a lie may be termed a l ...
and truth
Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth 2005 In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as belie ...
-telling extend far beyond these specific doctrines. Ekman, however, does not consider cases of deception where "it is improper to question" the truth as real form of deceptions – this sort of case, where communication of truth is not to be expected and so deception is justified, was included by casuists.[J.-P. Cavaillé, ]
Ruser sans mentir, de la casuistique aux sciences sociales : le recours à l’équivocité, entre efficacité pragmatique et souci éthique
', published in Serge Latouche
Serge Latouche (; ; born 12 January 1940) is a French emeritus professor of economics at the University of Paris-Sud. He holds a degree in political sciences, philosophy and economy.
Work
Latouche is a specialist in North-South economic and cul ...
, P.-J. Laurent, O. Servais & M. Singleton, ''Les Raisons de la ruse. Une perspective anthropologique et psychanalytique'', Actes du colloque international « La raison rusée », Louvain la Neuve, mars 2001, Paris, La Découverte, 2004, p. 93–118 .
In Ireland
The Irish Catholic Church allegedly misused the concept of mental reservation when dealing with situations relating to clerical child sexual abuse, by disregarding the restrictions placed on its employment by moral theologians and treating it as a method that "allows clerics (to) mislead people...without being guilty of lying","Church 'lied without lying'"
''The Irish Times
''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is considered a newspaper ...
'', 11 November 2009. for example when dealing with the police, victims, civil authorities and media. In the Murphy Report
The Murphy Report is the brief name of the report of a Commission of investigation conducted by the Irish government into the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic archdiocese of Dublin. It was released in 2009 by Judge Yvonne Murphy, only a few ...
into the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic archdiocese of Dublin
The sexual abuse cases in Dublin archdiocese are major chapters in the series of Catholic Church sexual abuse cases in Ireland. The Irish government commissioned a statutory enquiry in 2006 that published the Murphy Report in November 2009.
H ...
, Cardinal Desmond Connell
Desmond Connell (24 March 1926 – 21 February 2017) was an Irish cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church. He was an Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland. Cardinal Connell was one of a number of senior clergy to have been heavily criticised ...
describes it thus:
Cathleen Kaveny, writing in the Catholic magazine '' Commonweal'', notes that Henry Garnet in his treatise on the topic took pains to argue that no form of mental reservation was justified — and might even be a mortal sin
A mortal sin ( la, peccatum mortale), in Catholic theology, is a gravely sinful act which can lead to damnation if a person does not repent of the sin before death. A sin is considered to be "mortal" when its quality is such that it leads t ...
— if it would run contrary to the requirements of faith, charity or justice.[ But according to the Murphy Report:
Kaveny concludes: "The truths of faith are illuminated by the lives of the ]martyrs
A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an external ...
. Southwell and Garnet practiced mental reservation to save innocent victims while sacrificing themselves. The Irish prelates practiced mental reservation to save themselves while sacrificing innocent victims. And that difference makes all the difference."[
]
See also
*Economy (religion)
In the Eastern Orthodox Church, in Eastern and Latin Catholic churches, and in the teaching of the Church Fathers which undergirds the theology of those communions, economy or oeconomy ( gr, οἰκονομία, ''oikonomia'') has several meaning ...
*Evasion (ethics)
In ethics, evasion is an act that deceives by stating a true statement that is irrelevant or leads to a false conclusion. For instance, a man knows that another man is in a room in the building because he heard him, but in answer to a question, s ...
*Lying by omission
A lie is an assertion that is believed to be false, typically used with the purpose of deceiving or misleading someone. The practice of communicating lies is called lying. A person who communicates a lie may be termed a liar. Lies can be inter ...
* Marrano
*Mesirah
Mesirah (or mesira, he, to turn over, italic=yes) is the action in which one Jew reports the conduct of another Jew to a non-rabbinic authority in a manner and under the circumstances forbidden by rabbinic law.
This may not necessarily apply ...
* Shifting ground fallacy
*So help me God
"So help me God" is a phrase often used to give an oath, and most commonly optional as part of an oath of office. It is also used in some jurisdictions as a form of oath for other forms of public duty, such as an appearance in court, service as ...
*Taqiyya
In Shi'ism, ''Taqiya'' or ''Taqiyya'' ( ar, تقیة ', literally "prudence, fear")R. STROTHMANN, MOKTAR DJEBLI. Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd ed, Brill. "TAKIYYA", vol. 10, p. 134. Quote: "TAKIYYA "prudence, fear" ..denotes dispensing with th ...
* You can't have your cake and eat it
* Crypto-Papism
Notes
References
* Bok, Sissela. '' Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life.'' New York, Vintage, 1978.
* Brown, Meg Lota. ''Donne and the Politics of Conscience in Early Modern England.'' Boston, Brill Academic Publishers, 1995.
* Leites, Edmund, ed. ''Conscience and Casuistry in Early Modern Europe.'' Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988.
* Randal, Marlin. ''Propaganda and the Ethics of Persuasion.'' Orchard Park, NY, Broadview Press, 2002.
* Zagorin, Perez
"The Historical Significance of Lying and Dissimulation: Truth-Telling, Lying and Self-Deception"
''Social Research,'' Fall 1996.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mental Reservation
Applied ethics
Communication of falsehoods
Concepts in ethics
Catholic theology and doctrine
Normative ethics
Philosophy of language
Morality