The Truth about Mental Reservations Part 3: Employing Mental Reservations

 +

JMJ

I had recourse to Jone's Moral Theology to augment the other resource.

A mental reservation is essentially that a "speaker puts a meaning into words which is different from that which the words taken into themselves have in ordinary conversation".

• Strict Mental Reservation: 
• Forbidden
  
• Used when the actual meaning of the utterance can in no way be inferred from the external circumstances.
• e.g. I have not stolen - adds mentally - with the left hand but with the right.
• Broad Mental Reservation:
• Permissible sometimes with sufficient reason
  
• If the meaning of the expression can be inferred either from the circumstances of the question of the answer, of from customary usage, even if, as a matter of fact, such inference is not actually made; such as the conventional polite phrases,
• e.g. The mistress is not at home, meaning, not at home to receive visitors.
  

   From my reading I have concluded that the use of mental reservations or ambiguities are governed by the following key "tests:

• Answer NO to the following questions:
• Does the questioner have a right to an unambiguous answer? ✅
  
• Would the use of a mental reservation injure the rights of another? ✅
• Is there no other lawful means available (ie. evasion or silence)? ✅
• Answer YES to the following questions:
  
• Is it necessary to secure some good or avoid an evil of a magnitude that compensates for the deception that may be caused? ✅
• Are you bound to keep the truth from the questioner?✅

 Answer accordingly to all these questions and you can employ a mental reservation. 

Questions to which I would like to have answers are:

1. Who has a right to an unambiguous answer?
2. What rights could be injured?
3. When are you bound to keep the truth from a questioner?

 P^3