This strikes me as a good example of where a pragmatist-flavored wariness about being drawn into verbal disputes would be salutary. We can stipulate definitions that settle these questions and then ask pragmatic questions about which definitions should be used for which purposes. That strikes me as a more fruitful approach than assuming there's anything all that special about how English speakers limn the boundaries of "lying".
I agree—I don’t understand why the literature exists at all. I find conceptual analysis fun, as a game, but the purported justifications for it are nearly always absurd on their face. “In order to even have a conversation about whether it’s wrong to lie about your height on Tinder, we need to amass necessary and sufficient conditions for what it is to be a lie.” …um, no we don’t?
If we don't amass necessary and sufficient conditions for what it is to be "murder," "cruelty," etc., then we can't use these lexically normative terms as proof that morality is stance-independent.
To help with this amassing, we will appeal to a number of stances cherished by all us good people.
Congrats on the grant - I love the idea of a book in defence of lying to children about Santa. After reading this post, my feeling is that how we've approached it isn't based on an intent to deceive, but to allow our kids an opportunity to learn some critical thinking skills. My daughter is right at the age where she's unsure and asking questions, so we're getting into some interesting conversations about it all.
Say, I want to interview people who have kids and do the Santa thing about it, so I’m not doing everything from the armchair. Do you think you’d have a moment to chat about it sometime? (I understand it might be hard if your daughter is in the house, etc., so no worries if you can’t! But I’d love to hear about your experience with it all.)
Yeah, for sure. I’m in Australia though, so if you can manage an early morning some time (my afternoon) to make the time difference work, then I can talk openly without risk of kids overhearing!
Hey! Sorry for the late reply—I currently don’t know how free I am in the next few days, but as soon as I have a clean time-table I’ll message you some dates/times to choose from. Thank you so much for agreeing to talk! Super super helpful
No need to apologise! Whenever you get around to it is fine. And if you’ve got enough interviews that you don’t need me, that’s fine too. The memories of the challenges I had in recruiting people to interview for my PhD is still strong, so I try to pay it forward where possible.
I'm not sure if having just eaten a never ending pasta bowl at Olive Garden qualifies as being intoxicated, but even so please forgive my knee jerk reactions:
Point 1: One solution is to narrow the deceptionism definition to simply pertain to lying to humans, or perhaps even creatures with a certain level of awareness of cause and effect (like say, faking a ball throw to get your dog to run away from you...and driving off like in the old Warner Brothers cartoons). However, one could make the point that, by lying to the internet form, you are ultimately lying to the end user who wishes to use that data. It would be like writing a fib in a letter or cheating on your taxes.
Point 2: This seems to be lying, but lying in a scenario where the value one holds concerning their continued living existence outweighs the value they place on telling the truth about the events in question. Its like the "would you lie to nazis about where the Jews are hiding?" conundrum.
Point 3: Per deceptionism, would this not be lying, if you are still saying something you believe to be false? Belief that one knows the truth seems implied in the intent to deceive.
Point 4: If one is agnostic on a proposition, would the claim to have an opinion on the matter be lying? The lie here would be the lie that one has an opinion in the first place, rather than "I don't know."
Horus, that obviously counts as being intoxicated.
1. I agree, this move would work (with the qualifier that we’re not talking about the concept of lying anymore, but the concept of lying-to-humans).
2. True: I think the correct conceptual analysis of lying—if there is one—won’t have anything interesting to say about the morality of lying. Whether X is lying is logically independent of whether X is wrong.
3. Are you talking about the elbow cancer case or the humungous fish case? If it’s the fish case: deceptionism only imposes a necessary condition on lying, so it’s an open question as to whether it’s a lie at all.
4. Yep—you’re lying about your belief state. (You profess to have an opinion that you don’t have.)
The question of intent to deceive is a tricky one. Let's take this further:
You awaken from your cryogenically frozen state. The year is 3000 AD. Humanity has been destroyed in a nuclear apocalypse. You're the only one left. Everyone else who was cryogenically frozen is now dead due to a technical error. You attempt to free yourself from the chamber and access a cache of food and water. When trying to access the cache, the computer tells you, "only the Captain can access this. Are you the captain?" The captain is dead. You say "yes," and start munching on freeze-dried 1,000 year old banana chips.
Did you lie to the computer? I would say yes. The computer, even though it is not a person capable of having its feelings hurt, was programmed by a programmer with a certain intent. Through a very long chain of causality, while the computer is not a subject, the programmer who programmed it is a subject, who uses the computer as a tool. The person you are lying to, effectively, is the programmer -- who is long dead by now.
I would distinguish between deception and lying by the level of consciousness of the liar. Animals deceive -- they hide, stalk, conceal, and camouflage. But they are not lying, because lying is a symbolic or linguistic act with some level of self-reflected consciousness. Animals which can be taught symbolic language might be able to engage in deception at this level... but do they understand the self-reflective immorality of what they are doing?
In other words, lying is distinguished from mere deception by the presence of guilt, shame, and moral feeling. If it feels bad, it is a lie, but since animals have no concept of sin, they cannot lie. Although sometimes dogs look pretty guilty when they make a mess, so maybe dogs are capable of lying... For me, this is a question about the ability of a subject to internalize, recognize, and have "knowledge of good and evil." Figuring out what is a "lie" is the same as figuring out what is "sin." Great post!
Seems more like a joke. Or bullshit. Supposedly the distinction between lying and bullshitting is, a bullshit doesn't care if anyone believes the bullshit, or whether it obviously contradicts plain facts or itself. Perhaps the testimony example deserves the same treatment.
The first case seems like an instance of performance not lying, which applies to a lot of other digital identity type contexts. The second seems like the intent to deceive is basically inherited from the individual coercing you. Deceptionism vindicated?
Another difficult case for deceptionism about lying. I speak with a traveller I know who is about to go out on the road. She despises and does not trust me and assumes whatever I say will be the opposite of the truth. I do not want her to come to harm. I thus tell her the low road is safer, knowing the high road is safer, and because of her disposition towards me, I know that saying this will ultimately cause her to form the truth belief about what road is safe (c.f. Augustine).
This seems like a lie, but it does not have an element of trying to deceive.
Seems like it is trying to deceive though, in the same way that a regular act of deception is imparting incorrect information in order to frustrate the use of that information. This lie is intended to countervail the woman’s mistrust of you, giving her an inaccurate set of mental variables to exercise her own judgement. I think if you extrapolate from your conclusion here, you could say a lot of very sneaky lies in the real world “aren’t intended to deceive” because the liar was ultimately desiring the same outcome as the one lied to.
This strikes me as a good example of where a pragmatist-flavored wariness about being drawn into verbal disputes would be salutary. We can stipulate definitions that settle these questions and then ask pragmatic questions about which definitions should be used for which purposes. That strikes me as a more fruitful approach than assuming there's anything all that special about how English speakers limn the boundaries of "lying".
I agree—I don’t understand why the literature exists at all. I find conceptual analysis fun, as a game, but the purported justifications for it are nearly always absurd on their face. “In order to even have a conversation about whether it’s wrong to lie about your height on Tinder, we need to amass necessary and sufficient conditions for what it is to be a lie.” …um, no we don’t?
If we don't amass necessary and sufficient conditions for what it is to be "murder," "cruelty," etc., then we can't use these lexically normative terms as proof that morality is stance-independent.
To help with this amassing, we will appeal to a number of stances cherished by all us good people.
Congrats on the grant - I love the idea of a book in defence of lying to children about Santa. After reading this post, my feeling is that how we've approached it isn't based on an intent to deceive, but to allow our kids an opportunity to learn some critical thinking skills. My daughter is right at the age where she's unsure and asking questions, so we're getting into some interesting conversations about it all.
Thanks for the comment!
Say, I want to interview people who have kids and do the Santa thing about it, so I’m not doing everything from the armchair. Do you think you’d have a moment to chat about it sometime? (I understand it might be hard if your daughter is in the house, etc., so no worries if you can’t! But I’d love to hear about your experience with it all.)
Yeah, for sure. I’m in Australia though, so if you can manage an early morning some time (my afternoon) to make the time difference work, then I can talk openly without risk of kids overhearing!
Hey! Sorry for the late reply—I currently don’t know how free I am in the next few days, but as soon as I have a clean time-table I’ll message you some dates/times to choose from. Thank you so much for agreeing to talk! Super super helpful
No need to apologise! Whenever you get around to it is fine. And if you’ve got enough interviews that you don’t need me, that’s fine too. The memories of the challenges I had in recruiting people to interview for my PhD is still strong, so I try to pay it forward where possible.
I'm not sure if having just eaten a never ending pasta bowl at Olive Garden qualifies as being intoxicated, but even so please forgive my knee jerk reactions:
Point 1: One solution is to narrow the deceptionism definition to simply pertain to lying to humans, or perhaps even creatures with a certain level of awareness of cause and effect (like say, faking a ball throw to get your dog to run away from you...and driving off like in the old Warner Brothers cartoons). However, one could make the point that, by lying to the internet form, you are ultimately lying to the end user who wishes to use that data. It would be like writing a fib in a letter or cheating on your taxes.
Point 2: This seems to be lying, but lying in a scenario where the value one holds concerning their continued living existence outweighs the value they place on telling the truth about the events in question. Its like the "would you lie to nazis about where the Jews are hiding?" conundrum.
Point 3: Per deceptionism, would this not be lying, if you are still saying something you believe to be false? Belief that one knows the truth seems implied in the intent to deceive.
Point 4: If one is agnostic on a proposition, would the claim to have an opinion on the matter be lying? The lie here would be the lie that one has an opinion in the first place, rather than "I don't know."
Horus, that obviously counts as being intoxicated.
1. I agree, this move would work (with the qualifier that we’re not talking about the concept of lying anymore, but the concept of lying-to-humans).
2. True: I think the correct conceptual analysis of lying—if there is one—won’t have anything interesting to say about the morality of lying. Whether X is lying is logically independent of whether X is wrong.
3. Are you talking about the elbow cancer case or the humungous fish case? If it’s the fish case: deceptionism only imposes a necessary condition on lying, so it’s an open question as to whether it’s a lie at all.
4. Yep—you’re lying about your belief state. (You profess to have an opinion that you don’t have.)
The question of intent to deceive is a tricky one. Let's take this further:
You awaken from your cryogenically frozen state. The year is 3000 AD. Humanity has been destroyed in a nuclear apocalypse. You're the only one left. Everyone else who was cryogenically frozen is now dead due to a technical error. You attempt to free yourself from the chamber and access a cache of food and water. When trying to access the cache, the computer tells you, "only the Captain can access this. Are you the captain?" The captain is dead. You say "yes," and start munching on freeze-dried 1,000 year old banana chips.
Did you lie to the computer? I would say yes. The computer, even though it is not a person capable of having its feelings hurt, was programmed by a programmer with a certain intent. Through a very long chain of causality, while the computer is not a subject, the programmer who programmed it is a subject, who uses the computer as a tool. The person you are lying to, effectively, is the programmer -- who is long dead by now.
I would distinguish between deception and lying by the level of consciousness of the liar. Animals deceive -- they hide, stalk, conceal, and camouflage. But they are not lying, because lying is a symbolic or linguistic act with some level of self-reflected consciousness. Animals which can be taught symbolic language might be able to engage in deception at this level... but do they understand the self-reflective immorality of what they are doing?
In other words, lying is distinguished from mere deception by the presence of guilt, shame, and moral feeling. If it feels bad, it is a lie, but since animals have no concept of sin, they cannot lie. Although sometimes dogs look pretty guilty when they make a mess, so maybe dogs are capable of lying... For me, this is a question about the ability of a subject to internalize, recognize, and have "knowledge of good and evil." Figuring out what is a "lie" is the same as figuring out what is "sin." Great post!
“I falsely enter my name as Tom Wambsgans,”
Seems more like a joke. Or bullshit. Supposedly the distinction between lying and bullshitting is, a bullshit doesn't care if anyone believes the bullshit, or whether it obviously contradicts plain facts or itself. Perhaps the testimony example deserves the same treatment.
The first case seems like an instance of performance not lying, which applies to a lot of other digital identity type contexts. The second seems like the intent to deceive is basically inherited from the individual coercing you. Deceptionism vindicated?
Another difficult case for deceptionism about lying. I speak with a traveller I know who is about to go out on the road. She despises and does not trust me and assumes whatever I say will be the opposite of the truth. I do not want her to come to harm. I thus tell her the low road is safer, knowing the high road is safer, and because of her disposition towards me, I know that saying this will ultimately cause her to form the truth belief about what road is safe (c.f. Augustine).
This seems like a lie, but it does not have an element of trying to deceive.
Seems like it is trying to deceive though, in the same way that a regular act of deception is imparting incorrect information in order to frustrate the use of that information. This lie is intended to countervail the woman’s mistrust of you, giving her an inaccurate set of mental variables to exercise her own judgement. I think if you extrapolate from your conclusion here, you could say a lot of very sneaky lies in the real world “aren’t intended to deceive” because the liar was ultimately desiring the same outcome as the one lied to.