What is lying?

Journal of Philosophy

Volumn 106, Issue 1, 2009, Pages 29-56

  Fallis, Don ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA   (United States)

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EID: 65849350583     PISSN: 0022362X     EISSN: 19398549     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5840/jphil200910612     Document Type: Article

References (66)

1. See, for example, Feroze B. Mohamed, Scott H. Faro, Nathan J. Gordon, Steven M. Platek, Harris Ahmad, and J. M. Williams, "Brain Mapping of Deception and Truth Telling about an Ecologically Valid Situation: Functional MR Imaging and Polygraph Investigation - Initial Experience," Radiology, CCXXXVIII (2006): 679-88. There are also techniques that can be used to identify lies in recorded information. For example, researchers have used textual analysis to find that liars are somewhat less likely to use first-person pronouns
2. See, for example, Matthew L. Newman, James W. Pennebaker, Diane S. Berry, and Jane M. Richards, "Lying Words: Predicting Deception from Linguistic Styles," Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, XXIX (2003): 665-75
3. For example, Plato, Republic, C.D.C. Reeve, trans. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2004 [360 BCE])
4. Augustine, "Lying," in Treatises on Various Subjects, Volume XVI, Roy J. Deferrari, ed. (New York: Fathers of the Church, 1952 [395]), pp. 53-120
5. Thomas Aquinas, "Of Lying," in Summa Theologica, Volume XII (London: Burns, Oates, and Washboume, 1922), pp. 85-98
6. Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the. Metaphysics of Morals, Lewis W. Beck, trans. (New York: Macmillan, 1959 [1785])
7. Sissela Bok, Lying (New York: Random House, 1978)
8. Jonathan E. Adler, "Lying, Deceiving, or Falsely Implicating," this JOURNAL, XCV, 9 (September 1997): 435-52. In fact, this is arguably a central issue in ethics
9. For example, according to Kant, lying is "the greatest violation of a human being's duty to himself regarded merely as a moral being" (quoted in Bernard Williams, Truth and Truthfulness (Princeton: University Press, 2002), p. 102)
10. For example, Ludwig Wittgenstein, "Notes for Lectures on 'Private Experience' and 'Sense Data'," Philosophical Review, LXXVII (1968 [1935]): 275-320, here p. 280
11. Tyler Burge, "Content Preservation," Philosophical Review, CII (1993): 457-88, here p. 474
12. Peter J. Graham, "What Is Testimony?" Philosophical Quarterly, XLVII (1997): 227-32
13. Jennifer Lackey, "Norms of Assertion," Noûs, XLI (2007): 594-626, here p. 602
14. Paul Faulkner, "On Dreaming and Being Lied to," Episteme, III (2006): 149-59
15. Dan O'Brien, "Testimony and Lies," Philosophical Quarterly, LVII (2007): 225-38. In fact, just like Kant, Faulkner recently asked us to imagine what would happen if everybody lied when it was to their advantage. Basically, whereas Descartes was essentially worried about possibly being a character in the film The Matrix, Faulkner is worried about possibly being a character in the film The Truman Show
16. Cf. Thomas L. Carson, "The Definition of Lying," Noûs, XL (2006): 284-306, here p. 284
17. See, for example, Frank Jackson, From Metaphysics to Ethics (New York: Oxford, 1998)
18. Eric Margolis and Stephen Laurence, "Concepts," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2006): http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/concepts/
19. Frankfurt, On Bullshit (Princeton: University Press, 2005). Given their close connection, it may be possible to give a definition of bullshit along lines very similar to the definition of lying that I propose in section II below (that is, you are bullshitting if you say something for which you (believe you) lack adequate evidence and you believe that you are in a situation where the following norm of conversation is in effect: "Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence."). However, I will not pursue that possibility further in this paper
20. See, for example, Stephen Stich and Jonathan M. Weinberg, "Jackson's Empirical Assumptions," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, LXII (2001): 637-43
21. Weinberg, Shaun Nichols, and Stich, "Normativity and Epistemic Intuitions," Philosophkai Topics, XXIX (2001): 429-60
22. Margolis and Laurence, op. cit., section 5.2, Andrew Melnyk, "Conceptual and Linguistic Analysis: ATwo-Step Program," Noûs, XLII (2008): 267-91
23. See, for example, Edmund Gettier, "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?" Analysis, XXIII (1963): 121-23
24. For instance, our intuitions about hypothetical cases can be influenced by the order in which the cases are presented to us. See, for example, Stacey Swain, Joshua Alexander, and Weinberg, "The Instability of Philosophical Intuitions: Running Hot and Cold on Truetemp," Philosophy and Phenomenologkal Research, LXXVI (2008): 138-55
25. Also, our intuitions can be influenced by our moral beliefs. See, for example, Joshua Knobe, "The Concept of Intentional Action: A Case Study in the Uses of Folk Psychology," Philosophkai Studies, CXXX (2006): 203-31
26. Cf. J.L. Austin, "A Plea for Excuses," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, LVII (1956): 1-30, here p. 8. This is not to say that conceptual analysis is the only way to identify useful concepts. Nor is it to say that conceptual analysis is guaranteed to identify useful concepts
27. See, for example, Stich and Weinberg, op. cit., pp. 638-40
28. Marjorie Taylor, Gretchen L. Lussier, and Bayta L. Maring, "The Distinction between Lying and Pretending," Journal of Cognition and Development, IV (2003): 299-323
29. Cf. Roderick M. Chisholm and Thomas D. Feehan, "The Intent to Deceive," this JOURNAL, LXXIV, 3 (March 1977): 143-59, here p. 152
30. Gary Watson, "Asserting and Promising," Philosophical Studies, CXVII (2004): 57-77, here p. 72
31. Roy Sorensen, "Bald-Faced Lies! Lying without the Intent to Deceive," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, LXXXVIII (2007): 251-64, here p. 256
32. Grice, Studies in the Way of Words (Cambridge: Harvard, 1989), p. 27
33. You can deceive people by violating several different norms of conversation (cf. Grice, p. 30; D.S. Mannison, "Lying and Lies," Australasian Journal of Philosophy, XLVII (1969): 132-44, here p. 132). But you need to violate Grice's first maxim of quality, in particular, in order to be lying. I am assuming that, if this norm is in effect and you do not act in accordance with it, then you have violated it. Thus, a simpler statement of my definition would be that you are lying if you believe that you are violating Grice's first maxim of quality
34. See his "The Logic of Paradox," Journal of Philosophical Logic, VIII (1979): 219-41
35. Grice's maxims are usually unstated. But when Silvio takes the witness stand and swears to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, he makes it fairly explicit that he believes that Grice's first maxim of quality is in effect. When he then lies under oath, it counts as perjury (cf. Stuart P. Green, Lying, Cheating, and Stealing (New York: Oxford, 2006), pp. 133-47)
36. More substantive accounts of assertion have been proposed (cf. Robert Brandom, "Asserting," Noûs, XVII (1983): 637-50
37. In fact, some philosophers (such as Timothy Williamson, "Knowing and Asserting," Philosophical Review, CV (1996): 489-523) have even suggested that the relevant norm is: Do not make statements that you do not know to be true
38. Social norms typically provide a solution to some interaction problem (cf. Edna Ullmann-Margalit, The Emergence of Norms (New York: Oxford, 1977)
39. Philip Pettit, "Virtus Normativa: Rational Choice Perspectives," Ethics, C (1990): 725-55). For example, the function of norms like "Drive on the right side of the road" is to keep us from running into each other. Norms of conversation, in particular, help us with the coordination problem that we face when we try to communicate with each other. And these norms apply in the case of written as well as oral communication
40. Cf. Brian Huss, "Bluffing, Lying, and Bullshitting," in Eric Bronson, ed., Poker and Philosophy (Chicago: Open Court, 2006), pp. 127-37, here pp. 127-30
41. Kant, "Ethical Duties towards Others: Truthfulness," in Ledums on Ethics, Louis Infield, trans. (New York: Century, 1930), pp. 224-35, here p. 226
42. Cf. James Mahon, "The Definition of Lying and Deception," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2008): http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ lying-definition/, section 1.1
43. But contrast Paul Ekman, Lying and Deception, in Nancy L. Stein, Peter A. Ornstein, Barbara Tversky, and Charles Brainerd, eds., Memory for Everyday and Emotional Events (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1997), pp. 333-47, here pp. 334-35
44. Cf. Frederick A. Siegler, "Lying," American Philosophical Quarterly, III (1966): 128-36, here p. 128
45. If you innocently repeat a false statement made by someone else, we may call the statement itself a lie. But you are not lying when you pass it along (cf. Harry Frankfurt, "Reply to G. A. Cohen," in Sarah Buss and Lee Overton, eds., Contours of Agency (Cambridge: MIT, 2002), pp. 340-44, here p. 340)
46. But contrast Barry O'Neill, "A Formal System for Understanding Lies and Deceit" (2003): http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/boneill/ bibjer5.pdf. Although it is not strictly speaking a lie, such a. false implicature can be a form of deception that is as morally and epistemically problematic as a lie (cf. Adler, op. cit.)
47. Warren Shibles, "A Revision of the Definition of Lying as an Untruth Told with Intent to Deceive," Argumentation, II (1988): 99-115, here p. 101, Mahon, op. cit., section 1.2. Kant also seems to think that lies do not actually have to be false
48. See his "On a Supposed Right to Lie from Altruistic Motives." in Critique of Practical Reason and Other Writings in Moral Philosophy, Lewis W. Beck, trans. (Chicago: University Press, 1949 [1797]), pp. 346-50. Part of the reason that he thinks that it is wrong to lie to a murderer at the door is that your statement might turn out to be true
49. Sartre, The Wall (New York: New Directions, 1948)
50. Mahon, op. cit., section 1.4. (It should be noted that Augustine (op. cit., p. 60) was not completely sure whether this condition was necessary for lying.) Social scientists (such as J.A. Barnes, A Pack of Lies (New York: Cambridge, 1994), p. 11
51. See his "My First Lie, and How I Got Out of It," in The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (New York: Oxford, 1996 [1899]), pp. 167-80, here pp. 173-74
52. See J.B. Bell, "Toward a Theory of Deception," International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, XVII (2003): 244-79, here p. 249
53. See her "Second-Hand Knowledge," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, LXXIII (2006): 592-618, here p. 598. That is, anyone within earshot can acquire knowledge from a sincere assertion
54. Tim Kenyon refers to such statements as "cynical assertions." See his "Cynical Assertion: Convention, Pragmatics, and Saying 'Uncle'," American Philosophical Quarterly, XL (2003): 241-48. He does not count such statements as lies, but only because he assumes that the standard philosophical definition of lying (IDL) is correct. However, there is empirical evidence that most people are disposed to count such statements as lies. Psychologists at the University of Oregon (Taylor and colleagues) wanted to see whether young children could distinguish between lying and pretending. For this study, the psychologists wrote several brief stories where the protagonist lies. In order to create pretending stories, they simply modified the lying stories to remove the intent to deceive. For example, they changed the story so that everyone in the story was aware that the protagonist was not telling the truth. In the experiment, the children correctly identified all of the lying stories as involving lying. However, the children "incorrectly" identified many of the pretending stories as involving lying. When they repeated the experiment using adults instead of children, the psychologists got exactly the same results. Since the "pretending stories" did not have the prototypical features of pretending (such as taking on a role to have fun), the psychologists had arguably created stories that involve bald-faced lying rather than pretending. When the psychologists subsequently went on to create pretending stories that did have such features, the children and the adults were perfect at distinguishing lying from pretending
55. Kant, "Ethical Duties towards Others," p. 227 actually describes a similar case where "my enemy takes me by the throat and asks where I keep my money." In that case, "the thief knows full well that I will not, if I can help it, tell him the truth." However, Kant concludes that "my untruth is not a lie because the thief... has no right to demand [the truth] of me." In addition, Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, p. 40, suggests that, if an assertion is known to be false, we "would only laugh at any such assertion as vain pretense." In other words, there would be no point in lying in such a case. But there is a point to the student lying about having plagiarized even if he does not expect to deceive anyone. Moreover, the plagiarist case is a counterexample to IDL as well as FDL. The student does not expect to change the dean's mind about his guilt
56. And it is not clear that you can intend to do something that you do not expect to succeed at (cf. Alfred R. Mele, "Intention, Belief, and Intentional Action," American Philosophical Quarterly, XXVI (1989): 19-30, here pp. 19-20). But even if the student could intend to change the dean's mind, he still might not intend to do so. The student knows that he can get what he wants (namely, getting away with plagiarism) simply by asserting his innocence. So, he may have no interest at all in actually convincing the dean of his innocence
57. In fact, I am still lying to her even if I do not expect her to believe me. Huss (op. cit., pp. 128-29) concludes that bluffing is not the same as lying on the grounds that you can bluff someone even when she suspects that you might be trying to deceive her. However, you can also lie to someone even when she suspects that you might be trying to deceive her. In such a case, you do not expect your listener to simply believe what you say. Even so, you can still intend to deceive her with your lie. In particular, you may hope to at least increase her degree of belief in a false proposition (cf. Daya Krishna, "'Lying' and the Compleat Robot," British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, XII (1961): 146-49, here p. 147
58. According to Richard Foley, we cannot simply equate evidence with reasons for belief. See his "Evidence and Reasons for Belief," Analysis, LI (1991): 98-102. But the few exceptions to this equivalence can be safely ignored for purposes of this paper
59. See, for example, Charles Sanders Peirce, "Belief and Judgment," in Collected Papers, Volume V, Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss, eds. (Cambridge: Harvard, 1934), pp. 376-87
60. We actually do not have to rely on intuitions about cases where a speaker unknowingly fails to warrant the truth of a statement in order to see that warranting the truth of a statement is not necessary for lying. In section VI.3 below, I give a more mundane counterexample to CL where a speaker lies despite explicitly telling his audience that he does not warrant the truth of his statement
61. This is certainly suggested by the condition that Carson added to his definition. While some speech acts (such as saying something) can be performed without knowing that you are doing it, other speech acts (such as promising something) require that you know that you are doing it. See David Owens, "A Simple Theory of Promising," Philosophical Review, CXV (2006): 51-77, here p. 54. Lying seems to fall into this second category as well
62. Cf. David Simon, Homicide (New York: Ivy, 1991), pp. 216-17
63. Christopher Slobogin, "Deceit, Pretext, and Trickery: Investigative Lies by the Police," Oregon Law Review, LXXVI (1997): 775-816, here pp. 785-88
64. The norm is explicitly in effect for a witness who is testifying under oath, but the witness may have interests (for example, avoiding the wrath of Tony and his crew) that outweigh the force of the norm. A white lie is another example where Grice's first maxim of quality is in effect, but is overridden by other interests (for example, not offending someone) that we have. In addition to coming into conflict with other interests that we have, the norm in question ("Do not say what you believe to be false") can come into conflict with other norms. For example, it can come into conflict with the moral norm "One ought to prevent harm to others" (à la W.D. Ross, The Right and the Good (New York: Oxford, 1930) ) as when the only way to save a friend from a murderer is to lie (cf. Kant, Critique of Practical Reason). But my claim is that, regardless of what else is going on, disobeying this norm when you believe that it is in effect is lying
65. Wayne Davis, "Implicature," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2005): http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/implicature/
66. I do not take any position on whether Kant's argument is correct. (In fact, Elliott Sober argues that, while a world in which everybody lies is unstable, it is not impossible. See his "The Primacy of Truth-Telling and the Evolution of Lying," in From a Biological Point of View (New York: Cambridge, 1994), pp. 71-92.) I just point out that the argument requires a type of lying that involves the intent to deceive