Assignment:
Ethicist: The prohibition against lying is based on the harm done by the misleading of others, and the tendency of false statements to diminish the confidence that we want about each other's assertions. When one lies about how one voted in an election by secret ballot, however, no harm comes to the questioner by being deceived, and since the falsehood tends to produce a general distrust of assertions concerning how any one person has voted, it furthers the end for which voting has been made secret. Therefore, when anyone is asked by a pollster how she or he has voted in such a case, it is permissible to lie to the pollster.
Which one of the following, if true, most strengthens the ethicist's argument?
- Lying about how one voted harms polling organizations but no one else.
- Lying to others does not physically harm them in the way an act of assault might.
- Lying about politics harms only politicians.
- Voting by secret ballot is intended to prevent any person from knowing how any other person voted.
- Voting by secret ballot is intended to make it impossible to determine why the populace voted as it did.