Lying is bad for your health

The argument

Lying can be bad for your health because it can cause stress and anxiety. When you lie, your body produces the hormone cortisol, which is associated with stress. Over time, high levels of cortisol can have negative effects on your body, such as increased blood pressure and a weakened immune system. Additionally, lying can damage your relationships and create feelings of guilt and shame, which can also take a toll on your mental and emotional health. Ultimately, honesty is generally considered to be the best policy because it can help to reduce stress and promote healthy, positive relationships.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Even granting that lying can cause stress, health effects cannot establish that lying is *never* justified. A lie that shields someone from a murderer, or a small kindness that spares needless pain, may reduce stress and harm rather than increase it — and the moral justification of an act does not reduce to the liar's cortisol levels in any case. At most the argument shows that lying is often personally costly, a prudential consideration, not a moral proof. A single benign or life-saving lie is enough to refute a claim that lying is never justified.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P3] Health costs to the liar are a prudential factor, not a demonstration that lying is morally unjustified in every case. [Rejecting C] One justified lie — protective or life-saving — refutes the universal claim that lying is never justified.