Abstract
This paper introduces and argues for the hypothesis that judgments of testimonial worth (that is, judgments of the quality of character an agent displays when testifying) are central to our practice of normatively appraising speech. It is argued that judgments of testimonial worth are central both to the judgement that an agent has lied, and to the acceptance of testimony. The hypothesis that, in lying, an agent necessarily displays poor testimonial worth, is shown to resolve a new puzzle about lying, and the recalcitrant problem raised by the existence of bald faced lies, and selfless assertions (which seem to place conflicting pressures on a theory of lying). It is then shown that the notion of testimonial worth allows us to capture the distinction between taking a speaker at their word, and treating them as a mere indicator of the truth in a way other theories (such as those which emphasize interpersonal reasons of trust) fail to do.
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Notes
Importantly, my act of stepping forward is intentional and under my control (otherwise it is not clear that I would have wronged you in any sense). I simply do not conceive of the action, as I perform it, as an act of stepping on your foot.
The notion I am employing is slightly different to the notion or ‘moral worth’ discussed recently by, for example, Arplay (2002), Markovits (2010), Sliwa (2016), and Way (2017). For these theorists, positive moral worth is a feature of morally good actions. As I conceive of it, an agent can display positive moral worth even when doing the wrong thing (for example, if an agent does the wrong thing despite acting for the right reasons). Nonetheless, the notions of moral worth employed here and in this literature are, at the very least, close relatives. An agent displays positive moral worth, in my sense, when the moral character underlying their action is such that an agent’s doing the right thing could be a manifestation of this character. The existing literature on moral worth can be seen as a debate regarding when the rightness of an action does manifest the agent’s moral character. The notion I am employing is closer to that employed by Greco (1995, 2006), and Hartman (2017).
It is at this point where my notion or moral worth departs, in the way noted in footnote three, from the standard notion.
There is a clear sense in which Bam has done wrong. He has behaved recklessly, and put children at risk. However, his behaviour constitutes a wrong in a less direct sense. It is wrong precisely because it could easily have resulted in the death of a child, and child killing is wrong.
Different agents may exhibit exemplary testimonial character whilst differing with respect to such factors. An excess of, for example, evidence responsiveness may make up for a lack of commitment to the truth [Jennifer Lackey’s creationist teacher, discussed in Sects. 2.2 and 3, would be an example of such an agent (see Lackey 2007)].
It is important to note that the relevant counterpart assertions needn’t have the same content as the actual assertion. If content identity was necessary then it would be impossible to lie by asserting a necessary truth, as there are no situations where one asserts falsely by asserting such a proposition.
Which is not to say that she has violated no communicative norms. Just as Bam no doubt violates norms against carelessness, Bamantha no doubt violates parallel norms (perhaps the knowledge norm of assertion, if there is such a norm).
This can be seen clearly via an analogy with skill. Consider a skilled archer. It is likely that luck will have played a large role in the acquisition of their status. For example, they might only have reached this status as a result of being blessed with a good work ethic, having had a competent teacher, having had access to an archery range, and even having hit many lucky shots from which they were able to learn things. Now imagine that this archer is subject to a long run of bad luck. Whenever they take a shot a freak gust of wind blows their arrow off target. Such an archer ceases to be reliable at hitting the target. However, they don’t thereby cease to be a skilled archer. I see character as analogous to skill in this sense.
There is disagreement as to the relevant notion of assertion (Carson 2006; Fallis 2009; Saul 2012; Stokke 2013, 2016). Some theorists deny that the speaker must disbelieve the proposition they assert (Marsili 2014; Krauss 2017; Pepp 2018). And many theorists now reject the third condition due to the existence of bald faced lies; lies where it is common knowledge that what the speaker says is false (Carson 2006; Sorensen 2007; Fallis 2009, 2013; Saul 2012; Stokke 2013). Bald faced lies will be discussed in Sect. 2.2.
There are exceptions to this generalization. Some theorists hold that lies must be false (Carson 2006, 2009, 2010; Turri and Turri 2015), or even known to be false (Benton 2018). But these theorists are in the minority. I will discuss this position shortly. For arguments that lies needn’t be false see Mannison (1969), Saul (2012), and Wiegmann et al. (2016).
Interlocutors have reported a range of intuitions from the strong judgement that Max has lied, to the judgement that he clearly does not lie, with many (myself included) being able to feel a pull in both directions. This variability in intuitions is unlikely to be due to any lack of sophistication (such as the equation of ‘lying’ with ‘stating falsely’, or a confusion between judgements regarding whether of not Max has lied and judgements of his general moral character), as these were not lay intuitions, they were the intuitions of trained philosophers of language, ethicists, epistemologists, and linguists (primarily colleagues and those present at conferences at which earlier versions of this paper were presented). This variability in intuitions is, I believe, data to be explained. There should not be such variability if the standard view captures all there is to lying. The approach I develop here is not committed to the claim that Max does lie, nor to the claim that he does not. It explains why, if he does lie, some might reach the opposite judgement. And vice versa if he does not lie. It is worth noting that, among interlocutors who have written on the topic of lying, there was a tendency to judge that Max has lied in all cases. This may simply be due to the fact that Max’s having lied is entailed by the majority of views of lying in the literature (including those endorsed by these interlocutors). However, I think an alternative (and more charitable) explanation is available. I will return to this point in footnote eighteen.
This is not, I hasten to emphasize, to claim that Max did not lie. My aim here is simply to indicate the sort of mindset which may be conducive to the intuition that Max did not lie.
As one referee suggested, it could simply be that people’s intuitions about CHANGE OF MIND are confused. For example, perhaps Max’s change of mind leads some to question whether he really believed that he would not attend the party in the first place. Since it is explicitly stated that Max’s plans, when he makes his statement, conflict with his statement, this particular explanation does not strike me as promising. I would hope for a more charitable explanation of the relevant intuitions. But the point remains that, in general, there may be a number of viable explanations for the conflicting intuitions CHANGE OF MIND seems liable to generate. Some of these explanations may be consistent with the standard view. Thus, it is worth emphasizing that even if the testimonial worth account can provide a compelling account of these conflicting verdicts (as I will argue it can), this fact by itself does not provide particularly strong support for the view that lying involves displaying poor testimonial worth (a claim I will argue for in what follows). Thankfully my case for the claim that lying involves displaying poor testimonial worth does not depend on these considerations alone. In §2.2 I argue that the testimonial worth account is also able to provide a straightforward explanation of the problem raised by selfless assertions and bald faced lies. It is the ability of the testimonial worth account to provide a unified account of these separate problems which, I think, speaks strongly in its favor.
This assumes that part of the data we must capture when theorising about lying is the pattern of intuitive judgements people have about whether or not somebody has lied (this is not to say that a theory must capture all such judgements, but if it conflicts with large swathes of such judgements I take this to be a cost). However, as one referee points out, it may be that we should simply expect such widespread disagreement and not consider it a cost if a theory is unable to capture it.
Similarly, the claim that the speaker must know that what they assert is false ends up being too strong. We can generate analogues of SIMPLE LIE where the speaker’s belief is unsafe (for example, due to a failed plan to kidnap the speaker and bring them to the party), or defeated [due to consistent past failures to follow through on deceptive intentions (see footnote 22 for further discussion of such a case)].
The correctness of either approach will likely come down to whether or not the relevant time span for lying assessments is the moment of assertion, or the entire duration of time relevant to the truthfulness of the utterance. Of course, it may be that there is no fact of the matter here, or that the concept of lying is context sensitive along this dimension.
In footnote twelve I noted that most interlocutors who are already invested in the literature on lying reported the intuition that Max lied in all cases. I believe that the preceding remarks can also help us explain why this would be the case. It is natural to see the extant literature on lying not as a debate regarding the conditions under which an agent has lied, but rather a debate regarding the conditions under which one count as lying. It is clear that, for certain types of action F, it can be true that one is Fing at t1, and yet false, at some later time t2, that one successfully Fd. Suppose John sets off across the road at t1 with the intention of reaching the other side. It is correct to say of John, at t1, that he is/was crossing the road. However, if he gets hit by a car and never makes it across then it will be false to claim that he crossed the road. This will not falsify the claim that he was crossing the road. It will be natural to state that he got hit by a car whilst crossing the road.
Similarly, the claim that Max did not lie in CHANGE OF MIND is consistent with the claim that he was lying whilst producing his assertion. We can accept that Max was lying whilst holding that it is open whether, in the end, he did actually lie. That is, we can think of his change of mind analogously to John’s being hit by a car. The distinction between one’s lying and one’s having lied will only ever becomes relevant in cases like CHANGE OF MIND where (A) the truth or falsity of the relevant assertion is unsettled at the time of assertion, and (B) it is within the power of the testifier to determine the truth or falsity of their assertion after it has been produced. In all other cases one’s engaging in the practice of lying will entail that one has lied. Thus, it is unsurprising that this distinction has been overlooked. I believe the tendency of those invested in the literature on lying to view the cases in this way likely explains the predominant verdict that Max lied in all cases. This is not, of course, to say that this verdict is mistaken. I remain neutral on this issue. But it explains this pattern of judgements in a charitable way, consistently with the open hypothesis that Max did not lie in CHANGE OF MIND.
Keiser (2016) holds that, despite all appearances, Tony has not lied, as he has not really asserted. He has, according to Keiser, not provided a reason to believe that he did not commit the crime. It is, for Keiser, impossible to assert something one does not believe without intending to deceive. I will put this contention to one side as, to me, Tony’s utterance seems as clear a case of an assertion (and a lie) as any. Keiser argues that alternative conceptions of assertion incorrectly count cases of metaphor as lies. However, as Stokke (2017) shows, this is not the case.
This judgment is not entirely uncontroversial, but it is close. Fallis (2014), although he acknowledges that he shares the intuition that Stella did not lie, questions the reliability of intuitions about CREATIONIST TEACHER. Nonetheless, he does, in the end, seek to accommodate the intuition that Stella did not lie. As Lackey (2013) notes, the case can be constructed in such a way as to elicit the judgement that Stella has lied. If Stella simply teaches evolution because it is on the syllabus, whilst actively concealing the fact that she believes it to be false then it is easy to feel that she has lied. This is captured both by Lackey’s deceptionist account of lying, and the non-deceptionist account presented here: If she is only evidence responsive because she is instructed to be evidence responsive by the schoolboard then it is incidental to her character as a testifier. It also seems plausible that in all versions of the case Stella is, in some sense, insincere regardless of her underlying motivations. But this is beside the point with respect to whether or not she has lied.
Lackey’s own solution to this puzzle is to propose that lies must be deceptive in a broader sense, whereby one counts as deceptive if one has intentionally concealed information or evidence. I am not convinced that this approach is able to predict that Tony has lied, as he is not really concealing anything with his utterance. Nor is he withholding evidence, as any confession which he could potentially give does not yet exist to be withheld. For a more extensive response along these lines see Fallis (2014).
Mine is not the only response to this puzzle. Fallis (2014) notes that the non-deception theorist could simply add a requirement that a liar cannot believe that the evidence supports the truth of their assertion. I worry that this view is open to counter example. We could, for example, construct a version of SIMPLE LIE in which Max has been in the same situation many times in the past, and has always had a change of heart. In this situation, despite his current intention not to go to the party, he may have overwhelming evidence that, if he says he will go, then he will go. And he may be aware of this. Nonetheless, when he says that he will be at the party, fully intending to avoid going (and, this time, following through on his intention) he clearly lies.
Lackey also objects that rejecting the deception condition on lies removes our ability to explain the prima facie wrongness of lying. I am not convinced that there is a general moral prohibition against lying. However, the testimonial worth account does allow us to account for the related fact that judging somebody to have lied involves assessing them negatively as an agent. This may go some way toward explaining why many find it intuitive that lying is prima facie wrong.
Of course, there are different notions of trust in common use. I believe there is also a sense of “trusting a speaker” which involves judging the speaker to be being truthful and, in so doing, displaying positive testimonial worth.
McMyler (2013) responds to Owens, holding that eavesdroppers do not simply take speakers at their word. He motivates this verdict by pointing out that eavesdroppers do not accept an offer of assurance, and are not in a position to defer responsibility for their belief to the speaker. It is not clear why this objection would have any force for anyone who does not antecedently accept the assurance theorist’s view of what it is to take a speaker at their word. After all, it certainly seems as if one can, whilst eavesdropping, take a speaker at their word. That is, one’s attitude toward the speaker can be far closer to that of Bertha’s parents in LIAR 1 than LIAR 2. Indeed, it is not even clear that there is a clean distinction between eavesdropper and non-eavesdropper cases. We could construct a series ranging from cases in which it is clear that A is eavesdropping, to cases in which A is clearly addressed (cases where, for example, their presence becomes increasingly obvious to the speaker). Denial that eavesdropper cases ever involve the taking of a speaker at their word would require us to maintain that, at some point in this series, there is a cutoff point at which the agent’s method of belief formation radically shifts. This is implausible. Thus, McMyler’s challenge is not persuasive. This is not to say that there are no cases in which, in taking a speaker’s word for it, we accept an offer of assurance. It may even be correct that such cases involve a distinctive species of warrant. It is merely to say that taking a speaker at their word, as opposed to treating them as a mere indicator of the truth, does not require accepting such an offer of assurance.
It could be maintained that the students do not take Stella at her word. Perhaps they treat her as a mere truth gauge. However, it is not clear why we should think this. The experience of believing Stella may, for the students, be no different to that of believing anybody else. The attitude of the students toward Stella’s testimony seems far closer to that of Bertha’s parents in LIAR 1 than LIAR 2.
To be clear, I am not suggesting that displaying positive testimonial worth entails truth telling, or even that judging somebody to be displaying positive testimonial worth entails judging that they are telling the truth. After all, as I noted earlier, one can display positive testimonial worth whilst speaking falsely. Rather, the idea is that taking somebody to be telling the truth is not sufficient for taking them at their word. In order to take somebody at their word we must, in addition, take their truthfulness to be a manifestation of their character as a testifier. That is, we must take their truthfulness to be non-accidental given their character.
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Acknowledgements
This paper has benefited greatly from comments, criticism, and discussion with Don Fallis, Olav Gjelsvik, Torfinn Huvenes, Eliot Michaelson, Andreas Stokke, and two anonymous referees for this journal. It was also presented at the University of Oslo’s ‘Defective Communication’ workshop, and the Autonomous University of Madrid/University of Copenhagen 2017 Summer School in Social Epistemology. I would like to thank the audiences at each conference for the helpful feedback I received.
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Peet, A. Testimonial worth. Synthese 198, 2391–2411 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-019-02219-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-019-02219-4