I've seen an article on LW about Santa Claus and most people were very keen on not lying to their kids (and I agree). I have a little kid who is generally quite truthful, innocent enough not to lie in most cases. I noticed recently that when someone asks him, "How are you", he usually answers in detail because, well, you asked, didn't you? When I was a teenager I hated people who lied and I tended to ignore these unwritten social rules to the extent I could. I.e. I didn't ask if I didn't want to know and people thought I was rude. So, my question is, should I teach him to lie upon these occasions?
More broadly, I was thinking, why am I committed to being truthful, in general? I guess because I would hate to be lied to myself. This is a kind of magical thinking maybe, or maybe it's a part of the social contract. This sort of lying in fact promotes the social well-being because to answer truthfully creates an unwelcome burden on my interlocutor who asked out of politeness and is not in truth interested. But it still feels wrong to lie. Even more wrong to teach your kid to do so.
It becomes clear that no lying is necessary in this case when you realize that the actual purpose of producing the sequence of sounds "how are you" is often not to request a detailed description of the listener's current well-being, but only to greet them, foster good-will, show friendship, or something like that.
You must simply know the context. Sometimes the word "box" points to an object; other times to a sport. Similarly, sometimes the phrase "how are you" functions as a request for a detailed etc; other times it's for something somewhat different.
Well, it's one thing not to give details and another to misreport. Even now, as an adult, I say "I am OK" when I mean "things suck", and "I am great" when things are OK. I just shift them by a degree in the positive direction. Now, if he is unhappy, should he say "I am fine"? If he is not fine, he is lying.