ABSTRACT

Doctors and nurses, I have argued, should not permit themselves a moral license, a ‘therapeutic privilege’, to lie. The same duty that holds for people in their lives generally, a strict and exceptionless duty not to lie, applies no less to health professionals than to everyone else. We need to adopt this rigorous stance in regard to lying, because nothing else is adequate to sustain trust between people. The duty of truthfulness demands at least this of us: that we repudiate lying. Since trust is no less important in the context of medical and nursing practice, there is no justification for doctors or nurses relaxing this strict rule in regard to lying.