Kant on lies, candour and reticence

Kantian Review

Volumn 7, Issue , 2003, Pages 102-133

  Mahon, James Edwin ^a  

^a WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 60950666927     PISSN: 13694154     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S1369415400001758     Document Type: Article

References (40)

1. St Augustine's most complete discussions of lying are to be found in Lying (De mendacio), trans. Mary Sarah Muldowney, and Against Lying (Contra mendacium), trans. Harold Jaffee, in Treatises on Various Subjects, ed. R. J. Deferrari, in Fathers of the Church, vol. 16 (New York: Fathers of the Church, 1952), pp. 53-110 and pp. 111-79.
2. See, for example, H. J. Paton, 'An alleged right to lie. A problem in Kantian ethics', Kant-Studien, 45 (1954), 190-203;
3. Julius Ebbinghaus, 'Kants Ableitung des Verbotes der Lüge aus dem Rechte der Menschheit', Revue Internationale de Philosophie, 8 (1954), 409-22;
4. Marcus George Singer, Generalization in Ethics (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1961), pp. 119-133;
5. Mary J. Gregor, Laws of Freedom (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1963), pp. 150-9;
6. Wolfgang Schwartz, 'Kant's refutation of charitable lies', Ethics, 81 (1970), pp. 62-7;
7. Heimo E. M. Hofmeister, 'The ethical problem of the lie in Kant', Kant-Studien, 63 (1972), 353-68;
8. Heimo E. M. Hofmeister, 'Truth and truthfulness: a reply to Dr Schwarz', Ethics, 82 (1972), pp. 262-7;
9. Allen W. Wood, 'Kant on false promises', in L. W. Beck (ed.), Proceedings of the Third International Kant Congress (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1972), pp. 614-19;
10. Wolfgang Schwarz, 'Truth and truthfulness: a rejoinder', Ethics, 83 (1973), 173-5;
11. Hans Wagner, 'Kant gegen "ein vermeintes Recht, aus Menschenliebe zu lügen"', Kant-Studien, 69 (1978), 91-6;
12. Charles Fried, Right and Wrong (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), pp. 54-78;
13. Robert J. Benton, 'Political expediency and lying: Kant vs. Benjamin Constant', Journal of the History of Ideas 43 (1982), pp. 135-44;
14. Jules Vuillemin, 'On Lying: Kant and Benjamin Constant', Kant-Studien, 73 (1982), 413-24;
15. Christine M. Korsgaard, 'The right to lie: Kant on dealing with evil', Philosophy and Public Affairs, 15 (1986), 325-49;
16. John E. Atwell, Ends and Principles in Kant's Moral Thought (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1986), pp. 193-202;
17. Georg Geismann and Hariolf Oberer (eds), Kant und das Recht der Lüge (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1986);
18. Georg Geismann, 'Versuch über Kants rechtliches Verbot der Lüge', in Hariolf Oberer and Gerhard Seel (eds), Kant: Analysen - Probleme - Kritik (Würzburg: Königshausen & Newmann, 1988), pp. 293-316;
19. Roger J. Sullivan, Immanuel Kant's Moral Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 170-7;
20. Sally Sedgwick, 'On lying and the role of content in Kant's ethics', Kant-Studien, 82 (1991), 42-62;
21. R. E Atkinson, 'Kant's moral and political rigorism', in H. L. Williams (ed.), Essays on Kant's Political Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), pp. 228-48;
22. Alasdair MacIntyre, 'Truthfulness, lies, and moral philosophers: what can we learn from Mill and Kant?', in Grethe B. Peterson (ed.), The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, vol. 16 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1995), pp. 307-61;
23. G. Félicitas Munzel, Kant's Conception of Moral Character (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), pp. 236-53.
24. Roderick M. Chisholm and Thomas D. Feehan, 'The intent to deceive', Journal of Philosophy, 74 (1977), 149.
25. Frederick A. Siegler, 'Lying', American Philosophical Quarterly, 3 (1966), 128.
26. This is my own wording of the necessary conditions for an assertion provided by Glen Newey in 'Political lying: a defense', Public Affairs Quarterly, 11 (1997), 93-116. See esp. pp. 94-102.
27. Charles Fried argues in a similar vein concerning an assertion that 'An assertion may be seen as a kind of very general promise; it is a promise or assurance that the statement is true' (Fried, Right and Wrong, pp. 56-7).
28. As Marcus George Singer has argued, however, such a position pushes the problem back to the question whether it is always wrong to break a promise, and this is even less plausible than the proposition about lying [i.e. that it is always wrong to lie], since, while one truth cannot conflict with another (though two honest assertions can), one promise can conflict with another, in the sense that one cannot keep both, or keep one without breaking the other.' (Singer, Generalization, p. 125)
29. 'Truth means for Kant the agreement between facts and the propositions about them. The agreement between these is established through a logical judgment. Now it is Kant's opinion that nobody is ever able to guarantee that what he asserts is actually in agreement with the facts. The possibility of error cannot be excluded, since the proposition and the facts are not immediately related to one another but are related by the means of a judgment. Does it not seem absurd to require that someone always tell the truth, knowing that there is no chance that he always knows the truth?' (Hofmeister, 'Truth and truthfulness', pp. 263-4)
30. Harry G. Frankfurt, 'The faintest passion', Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, 66/3 (1992), 5.
31. For a discussion of the origin and authenticity of the Education see Robert B. Louden, Kant's Impure Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 33-6. I agree with Louden that, although the work is probably a compendium of different lectures and lecture materials, it is all Kant's own work.
32. Arnold Isenberg, 'Deontology and the ethics of lying', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 24 (1964), 473.
33. D. S. Mannion, 'Lying and lies', Australasian journal of Philosophy, 47 (1969), 135.
34. As Henry E. Allison has pointed out, it appears that what Kant has in mind here is radical evil: Although the expression is not used, it seems reasonably clear that what Kant has in mind here is precisely radical evil. The claim that this corrupting evil, manifested in the lie to oneself or self-deception, prepares the ground for deceitful treatment of others and for immorality in general. (Kant's Theory of Freedom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 271-2)
35. Quoted in Ernst Cassirer, Kant's Life and Thought, trans. James Haden (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981, p. 395.
36. Annette Baier, 'Why honesty is a hard virtue', in Owen Flanagan and Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (eds), Identity, Character, and Morality: Essays in Moral Psychology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990), p. 266.
37. Concerning the impossibility of volunteering absolutely everything that a person believes to be true, Mark Kingwell has said: Although we frequently make a coherent distinction between 'partial' and 'whole' truth in certain matters (i.e., in condemning lies of omission), the notion of 'full disclosure' per se is not meaningful. What, after all, could it mean for me to tell the whole truth? Saying all that I knew? All that I could remember? Or all that was relevant? My suspicion is that we always employ situation-specific guidelines on disclosure, usually concerning relevance. ('Is it rational to be polite?', Journal of Philosophy, 90 (1993), 388 n. 1)
38. Jonathan E. Adler, 'Lying, deceiving, or falsely implicating', Journal of Philosophy, 94 (1997), 435-52. Hereafter referred to as 'LD'.
39. Manfred Kuehn, Kant: A Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 380.
40. Gregor, Latus of Freedom, p. xii.