On lying, part 8. Wife's handgun, redux

A few weeks ago, when Boyfriend 4 died, Wife was talking on the phone with Estelle, his widow. This phone call was the very day he died -- he was (so to speak) not yet cold -- and Wife asked Estelle about her handgun. (I don't remember if I told you that when I took Wife's handgun away for safekeeping, B4 and I agreed to tell her that he had it.) That she should choose such a time to press such a point is ghastly by itself, of course. But what made it worse for Estelle is that she knew she didn't have it. She wrote to me as follows:

I know that you and B4 had spoken of concern for your wife and having a handgun in the home where your boys are. And I understand that concern, having daughters of my own.

B4 told me of you removing the gun from the home and giving it to another friend- and saying it was with him. He understands the reasons behind that - and I know he would have kept the gun for her if only he had been able to get it and hold it.

She asked me about her .38 last night- I tapdanced around the subject, telling her that I had not sorted through his guns yet(true)and that as soon as I located it and his father and I finished discussing things that if it WAS in his things I would contact her about it.

You and I know that B4 did not have this firearm. It is my suggestion that you go to her and tell her that he did not have it when he died. As to returning it to her- that is going to be up to you and at your discretion.

B4 told me how troubled he was over this deception. He fretted over being asked for the gun someday and having to decide whether or not to tell her the truth. He loved your wife VERY much- and your boys- and you. To have to fib to someone he loved so much- even for their own good- bothered him.
Please- in memory of your good friend- tell your wife that he did not have the gun in his possession and I do not have it in mine.

I wish you all no ill and all the best-

Estelle

So, a couple of days later, I did just that. I told that it has been here at the house all along, squirrelled away in the garage somewhere (which it isn't, but good luck proving THAT wrong!).

The conversation did not go very well. She was angry that B4 had lied to her; I have to admit that I was fairly callous about this, and just said, "Fine. Call him up to yell at him about it." She repeated many of her usual remarks about how it's her property and she doesn't plan to shoot me with it, etc etc etc. No surprise there, as she always says the same thing. Then she said something else, however: that up until "about a year ago," she accepted implicitly that anything I told her was the truth, and that this had allowed me to get really self-righteous about condeming all the lies she has told to me; but now she has "realized that's not at all true." And she more or less asked me what I had to say for myself about that.

I replied by telling her that she was absolutizing: that there is a lot of ground between "Everything Hosea says is true" and "Everything Hosea says is false." And I pointed out that I have never been a Kantian in ethics. Kant famously said once that the moral obligation to tell the truth was so absolute that if a crazy man comes to your door looking to murder Mr. Smith, and you know where Mr. Smith is, you are not morally permitted to lie to the crazy man about his location. (Somehow I don't think Kant can have possibly understood what he was saying when he said this; and in any event, after some of the catastrophes of the twentieth century that example looks very different.) As I say, I denied to her that I was ever that kind of a Kantian in ethics. I contrasted Plato's more nuanced approach in Book 1 of the Republic, where someone argues that justice means giving people what you owe them, and Socrates poses this example: Suppose a friend of yours deposits his weapons with you to keep for him; and then one day he goes crazy, and (while crazy) he asks for them back. Does anyone believe that justice requires you give them back to him while he is out of his mind? Because that is surely "paying back what you owe." But everyone clearly agrees that the answer is No, you don't give them back while he is out of his mind, so justice must be something else. By the same token, I said, I have to exercise prudence in what I say when I think there is some kind of clear and present danger. Wife scoffed at the suggestion that she could ever pose a clear and present danger to anybody, and I just said that we see it differently.

Of course, there is more to the story. In fact, the risk of danger to life and limb is not the only reason for me to mislead her these days. There is also my relationship with D, not to put too fine a point on it. Wife recently characterized that relationship with remarkable acuity. She started by repeating her theory that maybe this is all a mid-life crisis, but then focussed in to suggest that all along I hadn't been getting what I wanted out of the marriage, and that I had resigned myself to not getting it; but then along came D and I realized it is possible for me to get all those things after all, and so I became angry at having wasted so many years. On the other hand, I'm not sure if she realizes yet that we meet each other throughout the year, and that it is a physical relationship as well as an emotional one. And of course I am in no hurry to tell her.

I discussed this all far better (at a theoretical level) in my last installment ["On lying, part 7"]. But I thought the update about this latest conversation might be relevant too.