Lie: Encyclopedia - Lie

Lie

To tell a lie is to make a declarative statement to another person that one believes to be false, with the intention that the other person believe that statement to be true, and with the intention that the other person believe that one believes the statement to be true.

A true statement may be a lie. If the person who makes the true statement believes it to be false, and has the relevant deceptive intentions, then she is lying, even though the statement is true. When a person lies she is necessarily being untruthful, but she is not necessarily making a false statement. Perjury, however, is normally restricted to lies that are also false statements.

A lie involves the use of conventional signs (words or symbols) and not natural signs. Intentional deception that involves natural signs, such as wearing a wig, shamming a limp, or wearing a fake arm cast, is not lying.

Some have held that various other forms of intentional deception should be counted as telling lies. Hence the expression "lie of omission" or "concealment lie". This is when a person refrains from making some statement or statements, with the intention that another person believe something that is believed to be false by the person doing the refraining (etc.). However, it is interesting to note that special expressions have had to be coined to refer to these so-called "lies". This suggests that these acts of deception are not lies.

A person who tells a lie, and especially a person who habitually tells lies, is a liar.

Lie - Morality of lying

Saint Augustine, as well as Thomas Aquinas and Immanuel Kant, prohbited all lying. According to all three, there are no circumstances in which one may lie. One must (unfortunately) be murdered, suffer torture, etc., rather than lie, if the only way to protect oneself is to lie. One must (unfortunately) allow others to be murdered, to suffer torture, etc., rather than lie, if the only way to protect them is to lie. Note that each of these philosophers believed in an afterlife in which the virtuous would be rewarded.

Each of these philosophers gave several arguments against lying, all compatible with each other. Among the more important arguments are:

(1) Lying is a perversion of the natural faculty of speech, the natural end of which is to communicate the thoughts of the speaker.

(2) When one lies, one undermines trust in society.

(3) When one lies, one uses the humanity of another person as a mere means to one's end -- one bypasses the person's rationality and in effect makes a decision for the other person, instead of allowing the other person to use her/his own rationality and make her/his own decision.

(4) When one lies, one uses humanity in oneself as a mere means to one's ends.

Some philosophers have argued that lying is not prohibited in certain circumstances, such as when telling a lie will save my own innocent life or the lives of other innocents from harm and/or death at the hands of vicious others. They have in mind here such circumstances as lying to Nazis in WWII that there are no Jewish children in one's house. Some philosophers have also argued that paternalistic lying, or lying for the good of those lied to, is justified, since it does not harm the person lied to, even if it violates their autonomy. They have in mind here a case such as that of lying to someone who is deathly ill that he is not deathly ill.

Lie - Lying distinguished from bullshitting

In his book On Bullshit (2005; first published as an essay in 1986), Harry Frankfurt suggests that lying and bullshitting are not the same thing. A liar differs from a truth-teller in that the former wants to hide the truth while the latter wants to reveal it; but both are very much aware of what the truth is. A liar must remain mindful of the truth, if only so that he does not inadvertently reveal it. A bullshitter, however, is utterly indifferent to the truth. He would not mind if his statements turn out to be true. For example, a bank robber who denies that he robbed the bank is a liar; but a car salesman who assures a buyer, without bothering to check, that the car he is trying to sell has been driven only 10,000 miles is a bullshitter. The salesman would not care if it were to turn out that his claim is true after all. He simply does not care what is the truth of the matter.

Frankfurt acknowledges that "humbug", as discussed in Max Black's "The Prevalence of Humbug" (1985), is close in meaning to bullshit.

Lie - Etiquette of lying

Although lies are normally condemned, it is also normally believed that some lies are worse than other lies. In particular, lies that are believed to be harmless are often called "white lies" or "fibs".

Augustine divides lies into eight kinds: lies in religious teaching; lies that harm others and help no one; lies that harm others and help someone; lies told for the pleasure of lying; lies told to "please others in smooth discourse"; lies that harm no one and that help someone; lies that harm no one and that save someone's life; lies that harm no one and that save someone's "purity". Importantly, however, Augustine holds that "jocose" lies are not, in fact, lies.

Aquinas divides lies into three kinds -- the useful, the humorous and the malicious. All are sinful according to Aquinas. Humorous and useful lies, however, are venial sins. Malicious lies are mortal sins.

Lie - Paradox of lying

Lying is the subject of many paradoxes, the most famous one being known as the liar paradox, commonly expressed as "This sentence is a lie," or "This sentence is false." The so-called Epimenides paradox — "All Cretans are liars," as stated by Epimenides the Cretan — is a forerunner of this, though its status as a paradox is disputed. A class of related logic puzzles are known as knights and knaves, in which the goal is to determine who of a group of people is lying and who is telling the truth.

Lie - Psychology of lying

The capacity to lie is noted early and nearly universally in human development. Evolutionary psychology is concerned with the theory of mind which people employ to simulate another's reaction to their story and determine if a lie will be believable. The most commonly cited milestone in the rising of this, what is known as Machiavellian intelligence, is at the human age of about four and a half years, when children begin to be able to lie convincingly. Before this, they seem simply unable to comprehend that anyone doesn't see the same view of events that they do - and seem to assume that there is only one point of view—their own—that must be integrated into any given story.

Young children learn from experience that stating an untruth can avoid punishment for misdeeds, before they develop the theory of mind necessary to understand why it works. In this stage of development, children will sometimes tell fantastic and unbelievable lies, because they lack the conceptual framework to judge whether a statement is believable or even to understand the concept of believability.

When children first learn how lying works, they lack the moral understanding to refrain from doing it. It takes years of watching people lie and the results of lies to develop a proper understanding. Propensity to lie varies greatly between children, some doing so habitually and others being habitually honest. Habits in this regard are likely to change into early adulthood.

Some view children as on the whole more prone to lie than adults. Others argue that the amount of lying stays the same, but adults lie about different things. Certainly adult lying tends to be more sophisticated. A lot of this judgement depends on whether one counts tactful untruths, social insincerity, political rhetoric, and other standard adult behaviours as lying.

• See also: Lie-to-children

The capacity to lie has also been claimed to be possessed by non-humans in language studies with Great Apes. One famous case was that of Koko the Gorilla; confronted by her handlers after a tantrum in which she had torn a steel sink out of its moorings, she signed in American Sign Language, "cat did it," pointing at her tiny kitten. It is unclear if this was a joke or a genuine attempt at blaming her tiny pet.

Lie - Sociology and linguistics of lying

George Lakoff, in criticizing some claims of George W. Bush made prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, notes that: 

Are they lies—or are they merely exaggerations, misleading statements, mistakes, rhetorical excesses and so on? Linguists study such matters. The most startling finding is that, in considering whether a statement is a lie, the least important consideration for most people is whether it is true! The more important considerations are, Did he believe it? Did he intend to deceive? Was he trying to gain some advantage or to harm someone else? Is it a serious matter, or a trivial one? Is it "just" a matter of political rhetoric? Most people will grant that, even if the statement happened to be false, if he believed it, wasn't trying to deceive, and was not trying to gain advantage or harm any one, then there was no lie. If it was a lie in the service of a good cause, then it was a white lie. If it was based on faulty information, then it was an honest mistake. If it was just there for emphasis, then it was an exaggeration.

These have been among the administration's defenses. The good cause: liberating Iraq. The faulty information: from the CIA. The emphasis: enthusiasm for a great cause. Even though there is evidence that the President and his advisers knew the information was false, they can deflect the use of the L-word. The falsehoods have been revealed and they, in themselves, do not matter much to most people.

Lie - Lie detection

The question of whether lies can reliably be detected through non-verbal means is a subject of particular controversy.

• Polygraph lie detector machines measure the physiological stress a subject endures in a number of measures while he or she gives statements or answers questions. Spikes in stress are said to indicate lying behavior. The accuracy of this method is widely disputed, and in several well-known cases it was proven to have been deceived. Nonetheless, it remains in use in many areas.

• Various truth drugs have been proposed and used anecdotally, though none is considered very reliable. The CIA attempted to find a universal "truth serum" in the MK-ULTRA project, but it was largely a fiasco.

• Facial microexpressions have been shown to reliably expose lying, according to Paul Ekman's Diogenes Project. Namely, a tiny flash of a "distress" facial expression, though difficult to see with the untrained eye, may give away when a person is lying.

More recently, neuroscientists have found that lying activates completely different brain structures during MRI scans, which may lead to a more accurate (if impractical) method of lie detection.

Lie - Representations of lie

• Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio is a wooden puppet often led into trouble by his propension to lie. His nose grows with every lie. A long nose has thus become a caricature of liars.

See also

• Big Lie
• The Boy Who Cried Wolf
• Bullshit
• Demagogy
• Gibberish
• Gobbledygook
• Nonsense
• Prisoner's dilemma
• Tall tale
• Taqiyya

Lie - Reference

• Adler, J. E., “Lying, deceiving, or falsely implicating”, Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 94

(1997), 435-452.

• Aquinas, T., St., “Question 110: Lying”, in Summa Theologiae (II.II), Vol. 41, Virtues of

Justice in the Human Community (London, 1972).

• Augustine, St., "On Lying" and "Against Lying", in R. J. Deferrari, ed., Treatises on Various

Subjects (New York, 1952).

• Bok, S., Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life, 2d ed. (New York, 1989).
• Chisholm, R. M., and T. D. Feehan, “The intent to deceive”, Journal of Philosophy, Vol.

74 (1977),143-159.

• Frankfurt, H. G., “The Faintest Passion”, in Necessity, Volition and Love (Cambridge,

MA: CUP, 1999).

• Frankfurt, Harry, On Bullshit (Princeton University Press, 2005).
• Kant, I., Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, The Metaphysics of Morals and "On

a supposed right to lie from philanthropy", in Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy, eds. Mary Gregor and Allen W. Wood (Cambridge: CUP, 1986).

• Mahon, J. E., “Kant on Lies, Candour and Reticence”, Kantian Review, Vol. 7

(2003), 101-133.

• Mannison, D. S., “Lying and Lies”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 47 (1969),

132-144.

• Siegler, F. A., “Lying”, American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 3 (1966), 128-136.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Lie", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki