Lying and Deception

Aims • Understanding what lying is • Understanding what deception is • Consider whether there are cases where it is permissible to tell a lie • Consider why it is generally wrong to tell a lie • In the process of doing so, consider how consequentialism applies to particular cases • Consider the relation between utilitarianism, consequentialism, and the (alleged) intrinsic badness of lying

Attempts to Define Lying • “Uttering something that is false.” • The problem of sincerely spoken ‘lies’: If you have yourself been misinformed and said something false, you have still told a lie. • We believe many false things, so it is practically impossible not to lie in this sense in every occasion.

Attempts to Define Lying #2 • “Uttering something the speaker believes to be false.” • This avoid the above problem of sincerely spoken ‘lies’. • According to this definition, you may tell a lie while saying something true. • Should we alter this definition into “uttering something you believe to be false, which is in fact false”?

The Problem of Unasserted ‘Lies’ • All the definitions so far seem still defective. • Actors on TV or the stages do them routinely, but it appears that their sayings do not count as lying. • You do not take me to be lying when I say “Good morning” when the weather etc. are terrible. • Merely uttering the relevant string of phonemes does not suffice for lying. • Lying requires asserting a claim to be true with the intention to lead the listeners to believe that claim. • Actors do not assert what they say to be true; they merely pretend to assert it to be true. • When I say “Good morning”, I am not asserting it with the intention to lead you to believe that it is a good morning.

Fried’s Definition of Lying (Q1) • Fried thus proposes the following definition of lying in this class: “Asserting something you take to be false, where the assertion involves an intention to lead someone to have that belief.” • This does not mean that there may be no important distinction between asserting something that is in fact false, and asserting something that you believe to be false but that turns out to be true. • Presumably, the first type of lying tends to have a worse consequence. (One might argue the second type is not wrong at all.)

Lying and Truth-telling • Don’t confuse the obligation not to lie with the obligation to tell the truth. • There is no general requirement to tell the truth, for in most situations you are not required to tell anything at all: you may remain silent as you like. • In fact, we sometimes has the duty not to tell certain truths: the duty of confidentiality about national security info, about privacy info, of doctors’ about patients’ conditions, or of lawyers or accountants’ about client’s conditions, of the judges and juries’ about the cases, of employees’ about their companies’ certain trade secrets etc. • This does not deny that we may be required to report certain truths, such as someone’s wrong deeds, info about your income etc (to the tax office).

Do We Have the Duty Not to Deceive? • Some people argue that the obligation not to lie is derived from a more general obligation of not deceiving someone. • A person deceives someone when the person makes an intentional attempt to lead him or her to have a belief, which the person believes to be false. One can deceive someone with orwithout asserting something. (This is the difference from lying as we define.) • Ex. some advertisements are deceiving in that they give deliberately selected data or picture their products under a favorable light, which will mislead most ordinary people to draw false conclusions about those products. • The advertisers are deceiving, but they are not lying because they do not assert the false conclusions.

Is Lying Always More Reprehensible than Deceiving? • The story of St. Athanasius: • Athanasius was rowing on a river when the persecutors came rowing in the opposite direction. One of them asks: “Where is the traitor Athanasius?” “Not far away,” the Saint gaily replied, and rowed past them unsuspected. • Is St Athanasius’s claim permissible? Is it less reprehensible than telling a lie? • St Athanasius intends to make a true but deceptive claim. If this is permissible or at least less reprehensible than lying, why is it so?

Lie vs. ‘Mere’ Deception • Remember that the intention to mislead is associated with both lying and deception, and they often have similar consequences. • Remember also that deception and lying usually have similar consequences. Ex.: In either way, the listeners of St. Athanasius will get false information and act accordingly. • People tend to think that lying is always more reprehensible than ‘mere’ deceiving. But is this true? If so, why?

Is It Always Wrong to Tell a Lie? • Lying to a person who or whose associate will use your information for wrongdoings • Lying for self- or other- defense • Lying as the only means for keeping confidentiality or a promise • Lying to your enemies • Lying to children (not to harm them, or about sexual matters etc.) • Lying when the audience doesn’t expect honesty • Your lying to someone who has previously consented to your doing this • Lying about matters that are “none of your business” • “White lies” (Ex. lying to someone in order to thrown a surprise party for her.) • Lies about matters the audience is not interested in (Ex. about raining yesterday in Bangkok.)

Consequentialism and Lying • Consequentialism, e.g., utilitarianism, holds that an action is right if it has the best consequences. • It might happen that lying has the best consequences. • According to consequentialism, lying in that situation is right. • Some people criticize consequentialism for this reason. They think lying is not right whatever consequences it has.

The Case of Inquiring Murderer (Bok, 134) • To consider whether this criticism is plausible, think of the following case: • Someone is fleeing from a professional murderer and tells you he is going home to hide. Then the murderer comes, playing innocent, and asks where the first man went. You notice that he is the professional murderer and believe that if you tell the truth, the murderer will find and kill him. Furthermore, the murderer is already headed in the right direction, and you believe that if you simply remain silent, he will find the man and kill him. What should you do?

Kant’s Argument for Absolute Ban on Lying (“On a Supposed Right to Lie from Altruistic Motives”) • One of the most significant philosophers, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) argues that it is always impermissible to lie, i.e., even in such cases as the Case of Inquiring Murderer. (Bok, 134) • He argues 1) that lying will have people stop trusting one another; and 2) that we can never be certain what the consequences of our lying will be. The result of lying might be unexpectedly bad.

Responses (Bok, pp.135) • About (1): it is hard to imagine that ordinary people lose trust on one another if we make lies in order to save the person from serious harm. In fact, they, including the potential victim in the example, expect one another not to help the attacker by telling the truth. Your telling the truth in this case may damage the trust worse. • About (2): it is possible that if you lied and said that the potential victim is not at home, the murderer might meet and kill him when he actually go out. • However, we are sufficiently sure that the probability of this consequence is very small in comparison to the probability that because of your telling the truth, the murderer finds the potential victim and kills him.

Lying for Self- or Other- Defenses • If you are still attracted to Kant’s view, ask yourself the following series of questions. (Bok, p.135) • Is it sometimes permissible to defend oneself or others with violence? • If so, why is it not permissible to defend oneself or others with just telling a lie?

But Doesn’t Conseqeuntialism Guide Us to Lying Too Easily? • Even if you are convinced that lying is not always wrong, you might still think that consequeuntialism guide us to lying too easily. • However, as Bok points out (137-9), Consequentialists will probably propose a secondary rule that we do not lie. Why? Because lying generally has bad consequences.

Consequentialist Reasons against Lying (Bok, 131-3) • Many lies will hurt the listeners. • If the listener changes his belief as the liar says, he typically ends up with a false belief; and if he acts on the false belief, he usually ends up doing things detrimental to him or his associates. • When lies are discovered, it tends to damage valued relationships and trust on people in general. • Our ability to live together in communities depends on our capacities of communication, e.g., exchanging information. However, in order for communication to succeed, we must be able to trust others and rely on one another to speak honestly.

3. Hindering Autonomy (Self-Control) (Bok, 132-3) • Lies might make the objectives of the listeners appear to be unattainable or no longer desirable. Or lies might make up a new objective. • If you falsely tell Ashley, who has aimed at getting a grant, “The deadline of the application has passed”, Ashley will lose the objective. • If you falsely tell Makoto, who likes Sophie, “Sophie loves a guy with muscle”, Makoto might come to have the new objective of strengthening his muscle. • Lies might make the listeners believe that there are more or less alternatives (than there actually are). • Ex.: a traveler falsely told a bridge has collapsed.

Continued • Lies might make the listeners believe that an alternative has more or less good consequences (than it actually has). • Lies might distort the listeners’ assessment of the probability of success and failure. • For these reasons, lies often manipulatively prevent listeners from effectively controlling their actions. • Thus, lies often hinder the listeners’ self-control.

Summary on What Conseqeuntialism Says on Lying • Consequentlism holds that lying is right if it has the best consequences. • However, based on empirical generalizations on the bad consequences of lying, consequentialists will hold we should adopt the secondary rule, “Stop lying.” • They will hold that except when we can expect serious consequences from not lying, we should stick to that secondary rule. Thus, consequentialism might not lead us to lying so easily.

Continued • This policy of sticking to the rule, “Stop lying” might sometimes lead us to actions with less than optimal consequences. • However, consequentialists propose it as the best policy available to limited beings like us. • We might not have time for calculation. • We might be so biased in calculation that we conclude our lying is right because it has the best consequences though it actually does not.

Lying and Deception