Seems to me this suffers from the lack of defining "lie", be it of omission, commission, or in the case of simply remaining silent whether one has committed any act at all.
If I say "the product is GREAT!" when I believe it to be otherwise, then I'm very obviously lying by commission and that's obviously not a good thing. I do however often cause social consternation when I don't engage in the usual "white lie" that is generally accepted as "correct" for many people. "Do these pants make me look fat?" asked by wife elicits a truthful answer, which she's used to but many who witness the exchange are not.
A lie of omission would be something on the order of "is the product ready for market?" with a response of "we've done focus groups and the response was positive" leaving out some useful information like "positive by +.1%", which would be a valuable piece of information to have for the questioner but one in which the respondent does not want to provide since it would probably negate the response.
Remaining silent seems to me often to be none of the above. CEO declares a new initiative, I may at first blush disagree but lacking any real information or thought-out objection, and also understanding that he may have more information than I and certainly a different set of responsibilities, I remain silent rather than blurt out an objection with no real argument with which to back it up. My silence in this instance is neither an endorsement nor an objection.
If I say "the product is GREAT!" when I believe it to be otherwise, then I'm very obviously lying by commission and that's obviously not a good thing. I do however often cause social consternation when I don't engage in the usual "white lie" that is generally accepted as "correct" for many people. "Do these pants make me look fat?" asked by wife elicits a truthful answer, which she's used to but many who witness the exchange are not.
A lie of omission would be something on the order of "is the product ready for market?" with a response of "we've done focus groups and the response was positive" leaving out some useful information like "positive by +.1%", which would be a valuable piece of information to have for the questioner but one in which the respondent does not want to provide since it would probably negate the response.
Remaining silent seems to me often to be none of the above. CEO declares a new initiative, I may at first blush disagree but lacking any real information or thought-out objection, and also understanding that he may have more information than I and certainly a different set of responsibilities, I remain silent rather than blurt out an objection with no real argument with which to back it up. My silence in this instance is neither an endorsement nor an objection.