{"id":8379,"date":"2013-11-08T12:17:04","date_gmt":"2013-11-08T12:17:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/11\/08\/for-a-lie-to-be-a-lie-must-there-be-an-intention-to-deceive\/"},"modified":"2013-11-08T12:17:04","modified_gmt":"2013-11-08T12:17:04","slug":"for-a-lie-to-be-a-lie-must-there-be-an-intention-to-deceive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/11\/08\/for-a-lie-to-be-a-lie-must-there-be-an-intention-to-deceive\/","title":{"rendered":"For a Lie to be a Lie, Must There be an Intention to Deceive?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tully Borland<\/a> writes,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

You host my favorite blog on the internet.  I can\u2019t believe I didn\u2019t find out about it until just a few months ago.  May you blog forever.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a counterexample to your latest definition which still includes an \u201cintention to deceive\u201d, i.e. here is a case of a lie where there is no intention to deceive:<\/span><\/p>\n

Larry is on trial for felonious assault (he punched his grandma in the face repeatedly because she turned the channel when Chris Matthews came on).  His whole family was there.  There was blood found on him when the cops arrived that was his grandma\u2019s, and there was no blood found on anyone else.  His grandma and his own mother testify in court against him, weeping because Larry has been such a disappointment.  There is no evidence presented for the side that he did not do it.  His lawyer has presented absolutely no evidence in his favor.  EVERYONE in the courtroom knows that he did it.  Moreover (and more importantly), he KNOWS that they know that he did it (the jurors repeatedly shake their heads in disgust every time he looks at them).<\/span><\/p>\n

But Larry is corrupt to the core, lacking any remorse.  In the sentencing phase, as a last act in defiance of his family, the court, and his hometown, he coldly looks the jurors square in the eyes and says, \u201cI did not do it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Liar! <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Very interesting case. It puts me in mind of O. J. Simpson and Bill Clinton.  When Clinton told his famous lie, (almost) everybody knew he was lying, and Bubba knew that (almost) everybody knew he was lying. So when he made his false statement ("I did not have sex with that woman<\/em>") he knew that hardly anyone would be deceived by what he said.  I think Borland would say about this actual case what he said about his hypothetical one, namely, that the agent lied shamelessly but without any intention to deceive.  If so, then any definition of lying that includes as a necessary condition the intention to deceive is mistaken.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are at least thee ways of responding to this putative counterexample.<\/span><\/p>\n

A.  Run the argument in reverse.  Borland's argument is that Larry lied but had no intention to deceive his audience; therefore, an intention to deceive is not a necessary condition of a statement's being a lie.  But the argument can be run in reverse with no breach of logical propriety:  An intention to deceive is a necessary condition of a statement's being a lie; Larry had no intention to deceive; ergo, Larry did not lie.<\/span><\/p>\n

Or as we say in the trade, "One man's modus ponens is another man's modus tollens."<\/span><\/p>\n

On this approach, Tully's example is not a counterexample to my definition but merely an illustration of a phenomenon like lying but distinct from it.<\/span><\/p>\n

B.  A second approach is to question Tully's assumption that there is no intention to deceive where there is no possibility of deception.  Is the belief that it is possible for me to deceive you a necessary condition of my intending to deceive you? Or can I intend to deceive you while knowing that it is not possible to deceive you?<\/span><\/p>\n

It seems to me that, necessarily, if an an agent A intends to do X, then A believes that it is possible for A to do X.   The following, though not narrowly-logically contradictory, strikes me as broadly-logically contradictory:  I fully intend to complete the 2014 Lost Dutchman marathon in under three hours but I know that  this is impossible for me.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore, necessarily, if a person intends to deceive his audience about his or that , then he believes that it is possible for him to deceive his audience about this or that.<\/span><\/p>\n

The (B) response to Borland's putative counterexample, therefore, does not look promising.<\/span><\/p>\n

C.  On a third approach we abandon the attempt to capture in a definition the essence of lying.  We treat lying as a family-resemblance concept in roughly Wittgenstein's sense.  Accordingly, there is no one essence specifiable by the laying down of necessary and sufficient conditions that all and only lies have in common. <\/span><\/p>\n

Or perhaps I should put the point like this.  There are correct uses of 'lie' and cognates in English and incorrect uses.  But there is no one univocal sense shared by all the correct uses.  So if a person uses 'lie' interchangeably with 'false statement,' then he uses 'lie' incorrectly.  But a use of 'lie' that does not involve the intention to deceive is correct  as well as a use that does involve the intention to deceive.  And there is a correct use that requires that a lie be a false statement and a correct use that allows a lie to be a true statement.<\/span><\/p>\n

But I should think that the paradigm cases of lying all involve the intention to deceive and the notion that a lie is a false statement and not merely a statement believed to be false by its producer.<\/span><\/p>\n

 I think the best response to Tully's counterexample is (C).  What he has shown is that there is a correct use of 'lie' in situations in which there is no intention to deceive, and no deception either.  But this use of 'lie' is non-paradigmatic and peripheral to the main way 'lie' is used in English which (dare I say it?) is my way<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nRelated articles<\/legend>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>On Misusing the Word 'Lie'<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>More on Lying<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Promises and Lies<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Obama as Bullshitter<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Liberals and Straw Men<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Truth and Truthfulness<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Limbaugh: Obamacare Has Become the 'Biggest Presidential Lie in Our Lifetimes'<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>White House Blog: "Facts are Stubborn Things," Confirms "You Can Keep Plan"<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>The Biggest Presidential Lie in My Lifetime<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tully Borland writes, You host my favorite blog on the internet.  I can\u2019t believe I didn\u2019t find out about it until just a few months ago.  May you blog forever. Here\u2019s a counterexample to your latest definition which still includes an \u201cintention to deceive\u201d, i.e. here is a case of a lie where there is … Continue reading “For a Lie to be a Lie, Must There be an Intention to Deceive?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[228,125,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-truth","category-truthfulness","category-virtues-and-vices"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8379\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}