by Allan NormanThere is a fascinating thread on CareSpace, discussing letters sent to survivors of domestic violence following police referral. While it started as a discussion of the appropriateness of such letters, there is a signifcant debate about the ethics of lying to a man who picks up the phone when you wanted to speak to the woman survivor, about who you are.
The argument goes: the man may be the perpetrator; the woman may receive a beating at his hands, simply because of the fact of an unknown caller, or the fact of a caller from social services. To avoid this, lie about who you are - the actual example under discussion being a social worker saying they are a telesales person.
From a utilitarian starting point, it has been suggested, we seek to avoid harm and the harm caused by the lie is less than the potential harm caused by the truth.
Certainly, the avoidance of harm seems a sound ethical starting point. But here are some of my doubts about it:
Firstly, we surely should not arrogate to ourselves responsibility for the harm caused by others. If the perpetrator is going to inflict harm, the perpetrator is responsible for that harm. Our responsibility is to seek to protect from harm. If we genuinely believe there is a risk of significant harm, a phonecall is never going to discharge our responsibility to protect from harm. If, however, our informed professional judgement is that significant harm is unlikely, but it nonetheless results, it will at least not be us who caused the harm.
Second, we must take responsibility for means as well as ends. Good ends do not justify bad means. Lying may not be intrinsically harmful, but the breakdown of trust in relationships when people do not know whether others are lying is a wider harm. In the present context, it is hard to pinpoint the harm of the particular lie, but if it became generally known that state officials entrusted with the protection of children sometimes masqueraded as telesales callers, this could undermine confidence in social work generally - a few steps down the line, and our service users would be wondering whether the man who says he is there to read the meter is really there to remove the children...
Thirdly, surely there must be a test of necessity? Certainly a "white lie" cannot lie at the more serious end of moral misdemeanours, and if it is the only way of avoiding harm, it may become morally justifiable. But necessity implies the lack of any alternative. If the full truth is harmful, surely the alternative to fiction is something true but innocuous: "Oh, sorry, my mistake!" and hang up?
Allan Norman is Principal Social Worker & Solicitor at Celtic Knot (www.celticknot.org.uk), an independent law firm and social work practice
Certainly, the avoidance of harm seems a sound ethical starting point. But here are some of my doubts about it:
Firstly, we surely should not arrogate to ourselves responsibility for the harm caused by others. If the perpetrator is going to inflict harm, the perpetrator is responsible for that harm. Our responsibility is to seek to protect from harm. If we genuinely believe there is a risk of significant harm, a phonecall is never going to discharge our responsibility to protect from harm. If, however, our informed professional judgement is that significant harm is unlikely, but it nonetheless results, it will at least not be us who caused the harm.
Second, we must take responsibility for means as well as ends. Good ends do not justify bad means. Lying may not be intrinsically harmful, but the breakdown of trust in relationships when people do not know whether others are lying is a wider harm. In the present context, it is hard to pinpoint the harm of the particular lie, but if it became generally known that state officials entrusted with the protection of children sometimes masqueraded as telesales callers, this could undermine confidence in social work generally - a few steps down the line, and our service users would be wondering whether the man who says he is there to read the meter is really there to remove the children...
Thirdly, surely there must be a test of necessity? Certainly a "white lie" cannot lie at the more serious end of moral misdemeanours, and if it is the only way of avoiding harm, it may become morally justifiable. But necessity implies the lack of any alternative. If the full truth is harmful, surely the alternative to fiction is something true but innocuous: "Oh, sorry, my mistake!" and hang up?
Allan Norman is Principal Social Worker & Solicitor at Celtic Knot (www.celticknot.org.uk), an independent law firm and social work practice
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