Information AboutLie |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT LIE | |
| core issues in ethics | |
| deception | |
| SHOPPER'S DELIGHT | |
|
A lie involves the use of Conventional Truthbearer s (''i.e.'', statements made by words or Symbol s) and not natural signs. Intentional Deception involving natural signs, such as wearing a wig, shamming a limp, or wearing a fake arm cast, is not usually classed as "lying", but as "deception". A True statement may be presented as a lie. If relevant deceptive intentions are present to make the statement appear false even though the statement is true, then this is an example of lying. However, if one who makes the true statement genuinely believes it to be false, this is rather a genuine "mistake" and must not be confused with lying. When a person lies they necessarily intend to be untruthful, but they are ''not'' necessarily making a false statement. A Lie-to-children is an expression that describes a lie told to make an adult subject, such as sex, acceptable to children. The most common example, though not currently in widespread use, is "The stork brought you." A white lie is a lie which is believed harmless or innocuous, or in is accordance with the conventions of the culture. A common example of a white lie is, "You look marvelous." Lying by omission means allowing another to believe something that one knows is false, by failing to reveal the truth, rather than by stating an untruth. Perjury is the legal term for the offence of lying under Oath , for example in Court or in an Affidavit . It is normally restricted to lies that are also False statements. DEFINITIONS A person who lies, especially a person who habitually tells lies, is a ''liar''. Someone who desires to minimize the harm done by a lie may call that lie a ''fib''. Everyone has had the experience of telling a lie and everyone has had the experience of believing a lie, but a person who is especially ready to believe lies is called ''gullible''. Omitting the truth by remaining silent is one method by which people avoid lying, and in the United States the right to remain silent is guarenteed under law. MORALITY OF LYING The Philosopher s Saint Augustine , as well as Thomas Aquinas and Immanuel Kant , prohibited all lying. According to all three, there are no circumstances in which one may lie. One must (unfortunately) be murdered, suffer torture, or endure any other hardship, rather than lie, if the only way to protect oneself is to lie. 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 an innocent life. They have in mind here such circumstances as lying to Nazis in WWII that there are no Jew ish children in one's house. Some philosophers have also argued that paternalistic lying, or lying for the good of those lied to, is justified, even if it violates their autonomy. They have in mind here a case such as that of lying to someone who is terminally ill that he is not terminally ill. LYING DISTINGUISHED FROM BULLSHITTING In his book '' On Bullshit '' (2005; first published as an essay in 1986), Harry Frankfurt suggests that lying and Bullshit ting 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. 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 lies 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; and lies that harm no one and that save someone's "purity". Importantly, however, Augustine holds that "jocose lies" are not, in fact, lies. . Malicious lies are Mortal Sins . PARADOX OF LYING Lying is the subject of many Paradox es, 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. 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, what is known as Machiavellian Intelligence , is at the 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 judgment depends on whether one counts tactful untruths, social insincerity, political rhetoric, and other standard adult behaviors as lying.
"LIE-TO-CHILDREN" See Also: Lie-to-children Elementary explanations tend to be simple, concise, or simply "wrong"—but in a way that attempts to make the Lesson more understandable. (Sometimes the lesson can be qualified, for example by claiming "this isn't technically true, but it's easier to understand.") In retrospect the first explanation may be easy to understand for its inaccuracies, but it will be replaced with a more sophisticated explanation which is closer to "the truth". This "tender introduction" concept is an important aspect of Education . Such statements are not usually intended as deceptions, and may, in fact, be true to a first approximation or within certain contexts. DECEPTION AND LIES IN OTHER SPECIES The capacity to lie has also been claimed to be possessed by non-humans in language studies with Great Ape s. 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. Deception or misleading as to intent is well documented in other social species such as Wolves . 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. Lakoff (2004) p. 76. LIE DETECTION The question of whether lies can reliably be detected through Non-verbal means is a subject of particular controversy.
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. REPRESENTATIONS OF LIE
COVERING UP LIES The well known phrase "Oh what a wicked web we weave when first we practice to deceive" describes the often difficult procedure of covering up a lie so that it is not detected at some future time and then that detection serve to bring disadvantage to the liar. In " Human, All Too Human " philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche suggested that those who refrain from lying may do so only because of the difficulty involved in maintaining the lie. This is consistent with his general philosophy that divides or ranks people according to strength and ability. Thus some people tell the truth only out of weakness. EVOLUTION, GAME THEORY AND THE LIE While most human societies have developed moral, ethical or religious codes prohibiting lying it would appear that other animals on this planet engage in lying quite regularly, and that the lie has been the result of and promoted by all the usual evolutionary forces. Specifically, Predation often employs lying, as does avoidance of predation. A predator is lying if in the process of acquiring prey it conceals its location, uses Camouflage capabilities of its skin and appendages, or dangles an appendage as a bait. A prey is lying if it uses camoflage to conceal itself or make it seem to be larger than it is or seem to be another species that is poisonous or distasteful to the predator. Such capabilities to lie likely developed very gradually during evolution and likely began as very small changes in the appearance or behavior of some organisms. As the changes brought advantage to the organism it may therefore have increased in number due to that advantage, and due to continued pressure from a predator or scarcity of prey the advantage locked in and became a trait of that creature. This incorporation of the lie into schemes of evolutionary advantage is a concept treated in the study of Game Theory of Evolution. Game Theory of Evolution assumes that creatures are often in resource conflict or in predator/prey realtionships with each other and develop strategies for advantage gain or loss reduction. These strategies may or may not be the result of some reasoning capabilities of the creature. In some cases the environment interacting with the way a creature has evolved so far creates the strategies for the creature without it needing any reasoning faculties. In other cases, there may be a combination of some reasoning and some environmentally formed lying abilities. The crocodile seems to know that if it drifts slowly, like a log, towards a wildebeast drinking at the edge of the river the wildebeast will not be alarmed and run away. The crocodile both resembles a log, having been shaped that way by evolutionary forces, and has some reasoning faculties. Over eons this ability to lie became built into and a natural part of many species. Humans have used the word "cunning" to represent this ability in the non-human animal world, and then when the word "cunning" is applied to a human it is meant to connote sub-human behavior. Sub-human behavior is of course just a value judgement. The case remains that lying is likely a natural, normal behavior for homo sapiens. People lie to attain advantage or to escape loss. This is no different than being a predator or a prey. The invention or moralities concerns itself with group behavior. The general assumption is that if one wants to be a member of a group, and enjoy the benefits that group membership can convey, then one must refrain from using the lie technique, as to do so suggests one wishes to take special advantage for oneself, or avoid responsibilites, and therefore one does not truly want to belong to the group. Thus to seek special advantage a member of a group can lie to a nation, a community, an employer, one's family, a friend, or a spouse. In every case one seeks to bring to oneself more than one's fair share of goods and services, at the expense of others, or to avoid one's fair share of responsibilities. It is because the lie is natural and normal that large, organized societies must continually scavenge for it, if the society is not to be destroyed by rampant lying, rampant personal advantage seeking. Some consider this tendency to be as natural as defecating, and like feces it has to be removed or separated from populations for the overall health of the population. This morally bland and objective view of lying helps to understand why people tend to categorize or rank lies with regards to "severity". All people recognize in themselves the ability and tendency to lie, and through practice have come to understand how some lies have little or no negative societal or group consequences. Furthermore, as societal rules have to be somewhat broad in scope and can't in every instance guarantee justice to the individual circumstance, individuals may lie in order to gain the justice denied them by overly broad and insensitive rules. Thus hundreds of millions of people alive at any given time may have lied simply in order to correct incidental bureaucratic or other systemic injustices. All humans have experience with the art of lying. A smallish group of humans make highly harmful lies. Also from this perspective on lying we come to understand how group inclusion helps to prevent rogue lying behaviors. Exclusion from group membership due to physical appearances or abilities, or for other arbitrary reasons, will tend to produce more lying behavior and other violations of the social contract in the excluded, as they have no stake in the group. Therefore the smooth functioning of large organized societies requires a sufficient degree of inclusion so that members do not become rogues and engage in destructive lying and other violations of the social contract. Because rules against lying are moral rules, they also then become part of an aesthetic. So it can be said that a person who does not lie is more aesthetically pleasing. Most humans would agree with that statement. We often can't put our finger on why we prefer the company of truth tellers, but most do. The liar may not have harmed us in particular, but we find them offensive anyway. The human who lies therefore makes themself aesthetically displeasing to the group, as if he/she has a foul odor. Conversely, committed liars often think honest people foul. REFERENCES
SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
Lie-to-children:
|