Saying too little and saying too much : critical notice of Lying, Misleading, and What is Said by Jennifer Saul.

This article discusses recent work on lying and its relation to deceiving and misleading. Two new developments in this area are considered: first, the acknowledgment of the phenomenon of lying without the intent to deceive , and second, recent work on the distinction between lying and merely misleading. Both are discussed in relation to topics in philosophy of language, the epistemology of testimony, and ethics. Critical surveys of recent theories are offered and challenges and open questions for further research are (...) indicated. (shrink)

This paper outlines an account of the ethics of lying, which accommodates two main ideas about lying. The first of these, Anti-Deceptionalism, is the view that lying does not necessarily involve intentions to deceive. The second, Anti-Absolutism, is the view that lying is not always morally wrong. It is argued that lying is not wrong in itself, but rather the wrong in lying is explained by different factors in different cases. In some cases such factors may include deceptive intentions on (...) the part of the liar. In other cases, where such intentions are not found, the wrong in lying may be explained by other factors. Moreover, it is argued that the interaction between considerations against lying and considerations against telling the truth are sensitive to the practical interests of those lied to. When the topic of the lie in question matters little to the victim's rational decision making, the threshold for when considerations against telling the truth can outweigh considerations against lying are lowered. This account is seen to explain why lying to avoid little harm is sometimes permissible, and sometimes not. (shrink)

This essay argues that the distinction between lying and misleading while not lying is sensitive to discourse structure. It shows that whether an utterance is a lie or is merely misleading sometimes depends on the topic of conversation, represented by so-called questions under discussion. It argues that to mislead is to disrupt the pursuit of the goal of inquiry—that is, to discover how things are. Lying is seen as a special case requiring assertion of disbelieved information, where assertion is characterized (...) as a mode of contributing information to a discourse that is sensitive to the state of the discourse itself. The resulting account is applied to a number of ways of exploiting the lying-misleading distinction, involving conversational implicature, incompleteness, presuppositions, and prosodic focus. The essay shows that assertion, and hence lying, is preserved from subquestion to superquestion under a strict entailment relation between questions, and it discusses ways of lying and misleading in relation to multiple questions. (shrink)

This paper argues for an account of insincerity in speech according to which an utterance is insincere if and only if it communicates something that does not correspond to the speaker's conscious attitudes. Two main topics are addressed: the relation between insincerity and the saying-meaning distinction, and the mental attitude underlying insincere speech. The account is applied to both assertoric and non-assertoric utterances of declarative sentences, and to utterances of non-declarative sentences. It is shown how the account gives the right (...) results for a range of cases. (shrink)

Analyses of so-called ‘post-truth’ discourse in populist politics have so far largely focussed on sorting it into cases of lying, bullshitting, bubble-like epistemic constraints, or alternative epistemic norms flouting objective truth. We review these proposals and point out problems with each. Some scholars, however, have recently drawn attention to how apparent assertions of facts in these contexts seem to be functionally entangled with expressing or affirming social identities. To get a clearer picture of what such an explanation might amount to, (...) we differentiate four different ways in which social identities might be connected to apparently assertive discourse: signalling, expressive affirmation, dissonance reduction, and identity grounding. Distinguishing and deciding among these will matter not only for providing an accurate analysis of post-truth discourse, but also for determining the exact grounds on which it merits criticism and for what might be done about it. (shrink)

The present study explored motivations for lying self-presentation on Instagram as well as the mental and behavioral outcomes of this presentation. We also examined the differential mediational roles of perceived popularity in accounting for the association between lying self-presentation and depression. Our results showed that individuals with a strong need for approval reported higher levels of lying self-presentation. The results also revealed that lying self-presentation positively influenced depression, perceived popularity and deleting behaviors. Furthermore, we found that even if lying self-presentation (...) increased depression, perceived popularity served as a psychological buffer against depression. (shrink)

Not every speech act can be a lie. A good definition of lying should be able to draw the right distinctions between speech acts that can be lies and speech acts that under no circumstances are lies. This paper shows that no extant account of lying is able to draw the required distinctions. It argues that a definition of lying based on the notion of ‘assertoric commitment’ can succeed where other accounts have failed. Assertoric commitment is analysed in terms of (...) two normative components: ‘accountability’ and ‘discursive responsibility’. The resulting definition of lying draws all the desired distinctions, providing an intensionally adequate analysis of the concept of lying. (shrink)

A new definition of lying is gaining traction, according to which you lie only if you say what you know to be false. Drawing inspiration from “New Evil Demon” scenarios, I present a battery of counterexamples against this “Knowledge Account” of lying. Along the way, I comment upon the methodology of conceptual analysis, the moral implications of the Knowledge Account, and its ties with knowledge-first epistemology.

Informed consent requirements for medical research have expanded over the past half-century. The Declaration of Helsinki now includes an explicit positive obligation to inform subjects about funding sources. This is problematic in a number of ways and seems to oblige researchers to disclose information irrelevant to most consent decisions. It is argued here that such a problematic obligation involves an “informational fallacy.” The aim in the second part of the paper is to provide a better approach to making sense of (...) how a failure to inform about funding sources wrongs subjects: by making appeals to obligations to refrain from misleading by omission. This alternative approach—grounded in a general obligation to refrain from misleading, an obligation that is independent of informed consent—provides a basis for a norm that protects subjects’ interests, without the informational fallacy. The approach developed here avoids the problems identified with the currently specified general obligation to inform about funding sources. (shrink)

We conducted two experiments to determine whether common folk think that so-called _tell-tale sign_ bald-faced lies are intended to deceive—since they have not been tested before. These lies involve tell-tale signs (e.g. blushing) that show that the speaker is lying. Our study was designed to avoid problems earlier studies raise (these studies focus on a kind of bald-faced lie in which supposedly everyone knows that what the speaker says is false). Our main hypothesis was that the participants will think that (...) the protagonists from our examples lied without intending to deceive, and the results of our surveys confirmed this hypothesis: most of our participants rated tell-tale sign lies as lies not intended to deceive. Therefore, our analysis suggests that common folk think that some lies are not intended to deceive. (shrink)

Life is so wretched that it would be impossible to endure were it not for the luminous beams of illusion that guide us through its darkest moments. Many argue, perhaps not to this degree, that were it not for some modest illusions about the world and ourselves we would experience a serious decline in quality of life. On those not-so-good days, this claim strikes me as irresistible. How would I endure life and maintain my sanity if I had to embrace (...) each and every disgusting and disheartening fact about the world? Perceiving the world in a way that is neither clear-eyed nor complete may not be without its advantages. But even if being mistaken about the world or self-deceived causes one to be healthier or more comfortable, it is worth asking whether there is something to be said against a life of this kind. Might there not be some knowledge about ourselves or the world that we ought to have? Do not these ‘positive illusions,’ or flattering but inaccurate beliefs that people have about themselves and the world, interfere with their ability to live the good life? In the first part of this paper, I will briefly review the psychological literature which suggests that mild self-deception in the positive direction contributes to, rather than compromises, a person’s well-being. I will then, in the second part of the paper, examine what three thinkers, Joseph Butler, Immanuel Kant, and W.K. Clifford, have said about the wrongfulness of self-deception. While their arguments call attention to various reasons for thinking that some cases of self-deception might give rise on balance to negative consequences, they fail to show that all cases must have this effect. In the final part of the paper, I will consider whether our interest in autonomy might provide us with a better explanation of the supposed wrongfulness of self-deception. I will try to show that in virtue of being mistaken alone, the self-deceiver generally experiences some loss of a particular kind of autonomy. Nevertheless, my analysis will leave open the following two possibilities: that the loss of autonomy was autonomously brought about, and that the loss of autonomy in question may result on balance in an increase in the self-deceiver’s autonomy. (shrink)

This paper defends the simple view that in asserting that p, one lies iff one knows that p is false. Along the way it draws some morals about deception, knowledge, Gettier cases, belief, assertion, and the relationship between first- and higher-order norms.

This paper aims to differentiate between lying and irony, typically addressed independently by philosophers and linguists, as well as to discuss the cases when deception co-occurs with, and capitalises on, irony or metaphor. It is argued that the focal distinction can be made with reference to Grice’s first maxim of Quality, whose floutings lead to overt untruthfulness, and whose violations result in covert untruthfulness. Both types of untruthfulness are divided into explicit and implicit subtypes depending on the level of meaning (...) on which they are manifest. Further, it is shown that deception may be based on irony or metaphor, which either promote deceptive implicatures or are deployed covertly. Finally, some argumentation is provided in favour of why these cases of deceiving can be conceptualised as lying. (shrink)

Policy-makers often rely on scientists to inform their decisions. When advising policy-makers, what should scientists say? One view says that scientists ought to say what they have a high credence in. Another view says that scientists ought to say what they expect to lead to good policy outcomes. We explore a third view: scientists ought to say what they expect to make the policy-makers’ credences accurate.

I give a new argument for the moral difference between lying and misleading. First, following David Lewis, I hold that conventions of truthfulness and trust fix the meanings of our language. These conventions generate fair play obligations. Thus, to fail to conform to the conventions of truthfulness and trust is unfair. Second, I argue that the liar, but not the misleader, fails to conform to truthfulness. So the liar, but not the misleader, does something unfair. This account entails that bald-faced (...) lies are wrong, that we can lie nonlinguistically, and that linguistic innovation is morally significant. (shrink)

Survey of different definitions of lying and deceiving, with an emphasis on the contemporary debate between Thomas Carson, Roy Sorensen, Don Fallis, Jennifer Saul, Paul Faulkner, Jennifer Lackey, David Simpson, Andreas Stokke, Jorg Meibauer, Seana Shiffrin, and James Mahon, among others, over whether lies always aim to deceive. Related questions include whether lies must be assertions, whether lies always breach trust, whether it is possible to lie without using spoken or written language, whether lies must always be false, whether lies (...) that are unsuccessful are still lies, and whether deception must aim at creating false beliefs as opposed to preventing people from acquiring true beliefs. (shrink)

An overview of what constitutes as lying and the epistemic and moral consequences lying incurs.

I introduce the reader to the character and complexity of lying, in terms of how the lie should be defined as a particular type of intentionally deceptive utterance, whether or not the deceiver succeeded in that aim, and examine how we might usefully avoid prejudging the justifiability of the lying utterance when compared to alternative forms of intentional deception and the overall outcome sought.

In the philosophical debate on lying, there has generally been agreement that either the speaker believes that his statement is false, or he believes that his statement is true. This article challenges this assumption, and argues that lying is a scalar phenomenon that allows for a number of intermediate cases – the most obvious being cases of uncertainty. The first section shows that lying can involve beliefs about graded truth values (fuzzy lies) and graded beliefs (graded-belief lies). It puts forward (...) a new definition to deal with these scalar parameters, that requires that the speaker asserts what he believes more likely to be false than true. The second section shows that statements are scalar in the same way beliefs are, and accounts for a further element of scalarity, illocutionary force. (shrink)

This thesis addresses philosophical problems concerning improper assertions. The first part considers the issue of defining lying: here, against a standard view, I argue that a lie need not intend to deceive the hearer. I define lying as an insincere assertion, and then resort to speech act theory to develop a detailed account of what an assertion is, and what can make it insincere. Even a sincere assertion, however, can be improper (e.g., it can be false, or unwarranted): in the (...) second part of the thesis, I consider these kinds of impropriety. An influential hypothesis maintains that proper assertions must meet a precise epistemic standard, and several philosophers have tried to identify this standard. After reviewing some difficulties for this approach, I provide an innovative solution to some known puzzles concerning the permissibility of false assertions. In my view, assertions purport to aim at truth, but they are not subject to a norm that requires speakers to assert a proposition only if it is true. (shrink)

All’interno del dibattito sulla definizione filosofica della menzogna, alcuni autori hanno sostenuto che mentire è sempre sbagliato. Margolis, in particolare, ha espresso la tesi radicale secondo cui “mentire è moralmente sbagliato” è una tautologia. Nella prima parte dell’articolo introduco la tesi di Margolis, e ne difendo la plausibilità contro le semplificazioni che ha subito all’interno del dibattito filosofico, mostrando che l’applicazione condizionale del predicato “sbagliato” consente di trattare in modo adeguato alcune menzogne intuitivamente giustificabili. Nella seconda parte argomento che, nonostante (...) questo stratagemma, non è possibile difendere la tesi che “mentire è moralmente sbagliato” sia una tautologia, perché bisognerebbe assumere che “mentire è moralmente sbagliato” sia una condizione necessaria fra quelle che definiscono il concetto stesso di menzogna. Questo non è desiderabile perché, come dimostro nella parte finale del mio articolo, ogni definizione di menzogna che incorpori requisiti morali nelle sue condizioni necessarie é destinata a contraddire le intuizioni del senso comune su che cos’é una menzogna. La conclusione è che la tesi che “mentire è moralmente è sbagliato” è una tautologia non può essere difesa, se non al prezzo, troppo alto, di ridefinire in modo controintuitivo il significato del termine “menzogna”. (shrink)