enfant terrible

Then consider this question:

You went alone on a business trip overseas. Before you left, your spouse asked you to promise that you would not have sex with anyone while you are gone. You promised you would not. During your trip, however, you did have sex with someone. There is no way your spouse could ever find out, and you used every precaution available to prevent pregnancy or diseases. (Assume that pregnancy is excluded and contracting a disease no more likely than through regular social contact.) When you returned from the trip, you never told your spouse about your infidelity and it in no way negatively affected your feelings for, or your behavior toward, your spouse.

Were you:
A. not wrong at all?
B. somewhat wrong?
C. very wrong?

If you answer something other than A, why is this situation any different from the promise to the dying mother?

viscousmemories

This is the difference between your hypothetical and the one on the exam. There is no way to guarantee that your spouse will never find out. You can rest assured, however, that your dead Mother never will.

vm

Pyrrho

That is true, but it is possible for someone else to find out about it in either case, and then they would know that the person in question is a liar.

viscousmemories

There are a few questions that come to my mind then.

Is breaking a promise always lying? Is it not possible to make a sincere promise and later change your mind? Or are the greater than 50% of married couples who promise to stay together forever but later divorce all liars?

and

Is lying always immoral? Are there degrees of immorality that take severity and frequency of the acts into account? Is your spouse an immoral liar if he or she promises to take the trash out once and doesn't? Or only after promising every day for a year and never following through? Or is he or she simply absent-minded, and perhaps not really immoral at all?

vm

enfant terrible

1. You are free to add any assumptions you need to convince yourself that the spouse wouldn't find out. For example, you only had sex once with your lover, who then died in a car crash (entirely unrelated to your escapade) on the way home, before having an opportunity to talk to anyone.

2. I am an atheist, but I accept the possibility that I may be mistaken in my beliefs (or lack thereof). In other words, there is some nonzero probability that immortal soul exists, in which case the mother could find out. And you can set the other probability arbitrarily small, so that they are comparable.

3. Even ignoring points 1 and 2, the question remains whether the mother's/spouse's (im)possibility of finding out affects the moral judgment in these cases and, if it does, in which way. Why is it not actually worse to cheat someone who cannot find out, even theoretically? What if you promised your mother you would honor her living will if she became a brain-dead vegetable, and then decide against it?

enfant terrible

Of course that is possible, but we are not considering that type of a situation. The issue you are raising is essentially renegotiating a contract. But I would say there is a moral duty to inform the person whom you had given the promise. This is also what makes deathbed promises more solemn: you know there will be no opportunity for renegotiation.

I would say yes, although in some cases it could be so insignificant that it does not matter.

Of course. I can hardly imagine anyone disagreeing with this.

viscousmemories

Ah, I understand your point more clearly now. Well, in my opinion the only measure of morality is the degree of harm to another person. I'm sure there's a fancy philosophical-like term for this, but I don't know it. Based on that, if I promise to visit my Mothers grave every Friday for the rest of my life and she drops dead on the spot (and believe me, she would) nobody else could possibly know about my promise, and nobody else could be hurt by my breaking it. Hence, it would not be immoral for me to break it.

(Yeah I see holes in this but I'm in a rush...)

vm

enfant terrible

I see only one hole, but it is big. Your definition of "harm to another" admits only harm after the fact. But there are other types of harm, such as harm from not being able to rely on someone's promise. This is much more complicated, but the vast majority of people intuitively recognize this harm and, at least in some cases, do not require the knowledge of the harmed person.

How far can you carry your point? What would be your judgment in my sexual infidelity example? In the living will example?

Buddrow_Wilson

Even if there is absolutely no harm to anyone as a result of a certain action in a specific case, why is it wrong to look at the behaviour in a broad sense and judge it morally based on how it would effect society when/if done commonly?

velvetfinger

Your moralising quotient: 0.04
Your interference factor: 0.00
Your universalising factor: 0.00

As permissive as they come.

Couldn't be put any better.