When children are still quite young, they learn not one, but two rules concerning truth-telling and lying and these in very different ways. One of those rules they learn by explici
I defend the claim that lying, understood as assertion contrary to what one believes, is always wrong.
This paper examines three arguments that are meant to show that all intentional false assertions are intrinsically evil. The first argument holds that lying is intrinsically evil,
Questions central to the philosophical discussion of lying to others and other-deception (interpersonal deceiving) may be divided into two kinds. Questions of the first kind are de
A round tower can look square from a distance. A white wall can look red if illuminated by a red light. And if one took these appearances at face value and believed the tower to be
Humans are the only species capable of speech and thus of lies. Choices regarding truthfulness and deceit are woven into all that they say and do. From childhood on, everyone knows
The eighth commandment forbids misrepresenting the truth in our relations with others. This moral prescription flows from the vocation of the holy people to bear witness to their G
The splendour of truth shines forth in all the works of the Creator and, in a special way, in man, created in the image and likeness of God (cf. Gen 1:26). Truth enlightens man's i
The definition of lying is not uncontroversial. Some restrict it to intentionally saying what one believes to be false with the intention of getting someone else to believe that falsehood to be true, usually for some benefit to oneself resulting from the deception. Others regard this as too narrow as it does not include intentionally leading someone to believe what is false other than by saying the false oneself. In response to a Gestapo group going from house to house in search of innocent Jews a homeowner hiding some of them in the cellar of an outhouse might reply ‘No’ to the question ‘Are there any Jews here?’. If ‘here’ is understood restrictively then what he says is true but of course he expects the Gestapo to understand it more broadly. There is also the practice of saying less where more is expected again with the aim of withholding the truth. However one defines lying or deception there is an assumption that these are to be avoided as somehow bad, even if they may sometimes be excusable as in the idea of a little ‘white’ lie, or a lesser evil. There are two broad approaches to the moral issues of lying. One sees it as a matter of what is generally beneficial or harmful, arguing that we depend on people telling the truth when asked to do so. The other believes there is something wrong about lying independently of its consequences. Some think this is because it ‘perverts’ the function of declarative speech which is to say what one believes is true. Others hold that it is because it involves denying people what they have a right to and so is a kind of theft ‘stealing the truth from them’.