Powered by OpenAIRE graph
Found an issue? Give us feedback
addClaim

Is a Lie a Lie if Everyone Knows it's a Lie?

Authors: Don Fallis;

Is a Lie a Lie if Everyone Knows it's a Lie?

Abstract

According to a standard philosophical definition of lying, you lie if you make a statement that you do not believe with the intent to deceive (cf. Mahon 2008). Moral philosophers (e.g., Augustine 395, Kant 1797, Bok 1978, Korsgaard 2007, Carson 2010) are primarily interested specifically in lies that are intended to deceive, and in why it is wrong to tell such lies. However, a few philosophers (e.g., Sorensen 2007, Fallis 2009, Carson 2010) claim that intuitively “bald-faced lies” (i.e., lies that everyone knows are lies) are lies, despite the fact that they are not intended to deceive. In this paper, I argue that there are good philosophical reasons to classify such bald-faced lies as lies. Bald-faced lies are assertions that share an important moral commonality with lies that are intended to deceive. In particular, both sorts of lies attempt to manipulate people by violating an important social norm (viz., the norm against communicating things that one does not believe). Appealing to work in the philosophy of language on norms of conversation (most notably, Grice 1975), I propose a new definition of lying that explicitly captures this moral commonality.

Related Organizations
  • BIP!
    Impact byBIP!
    selected citations
    These citations are derived from selected sources.
    This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
    2
    popularity
    This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
    Average
    influence
    This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
    Average
    impulse
    This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
    Average
Powered by OpenAIRE graph
Found an issue? Give us feedback
selected citations
These citations are derived from selected sources.
This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
2
Average
Average
Average
Upload OA version
Are you the author of this publication? Upload your Open Access version to Zenodo!
It’s fast and easy, just two clicks!