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Truth is Ruthless The movie Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr

There is a scene in the movie Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr. where Holmes analyses Mary Morstan, Watson’s soon-to-be, at dinner. Even though he hesitates in the beginning, he relents after Mary “insists”.

uroosakamran 4 min read · 1 year ago

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Truth is Ruthless

Holmes deduces some rather embarrassing details about Mary which makes her throw a drink on his face. Even though Holmes said the truth, it “hurt” Mary’s feelings.

There are two fundamental ethical orientations that guide human behaviour: deontological ethics and consequentialist ethics.Deontological ethics is an absolutist view of ethical standards. The rule is final. It dictates everything. There are no exceptions. For example, it’s never correct to lie, no matter what the circumstances.

Consequentialist ethics, on the other hand, evaluates actions based on consequences. For example, It is at times acceptable to lie to spare someone’s feelings.Humans operate under both systems. If your wife asks you if she looks overweight, you will utter “no” without flinching, whatever you actually think. On the other hand, all of us consider it morally wrong (under all circumstances) to make sexual advances on children.

There are however no clear rules about when to operate under which system. This fuzziness creates an interesting dilemma.Say a professor from a reputed Indian university announces she wants to study the relationship between religion and intelligence. Say she decides to see how being a Hindu or a Muslim or a Christian or a Sikh in India affects our intelligence, would you be able to keep a straight face?

Let’s take a bit more extreme example: if a politician criticises a religion, say Islam, and its growing influence in India, isn’t there a good chance you’ll call him Islamophobic?