Truthfulness, Deceit, and Trust - Olena's

Truthfulness, Deceit,
and Trust
Sissela Bok; Chapter 2 Lying
Contemporary Moral Problems
Professor Douglas Olena

Outline
Lying and Choice
The Perspective of the Deceived
The Perspective of the Liar
Discrepant Perspectives
The Principle of Veracity

Lying and Choice
18 “Deceit and violence—these are the two forms of
deliberate assault on human beings. Both can coerce
people into acting against their will.”
“Deceit controls more subtly, for it works on belief as
well as action.”
Deception can be used for self defense as well as
survival.

Lying and Choice
18 Imagine a society where there were no dependable
truth.
“There must be a minimal degree of trust in
communication for language and action to be more
than stabs in the dark.”
19 “A society, then, whose members were unable to
distinguish truthful messages from deceptive ones,
would collapse.”

Lying and Choice
19 What happens when lies are perpetrated?
“A lie, in Hartmann’s words, ‘injures the deceived
person in his life; it leads him astray.’”
“To the extent that knowledge gives power, to that extent
do lies affect the distribution of power; they add to that
of the liar, and diminish that of the deceived, altering
his choices at different levels.”
“Lies may also eliminate or obscure relevant
alternatives.”

Lying and Choice
19 “Lies foster the belief that there are more alternatives
than is really the case; at other times, a lie may lead to
the unnecessary loss of confidence in the best
alternative.”
19, 20 “The degree of uncertainty in how we look at our
choices can be manipulated through deception.”
20 Why is there such a difference of opinion about the
effects of deception between the liar and the deceived?

Perspective of the Deceived
20 “Those who have learned they have been lied to in an
important matter… are resentful, disappointed, and
suspicious.”
It is the loss of choice in the matter that grates most
against us.
21 We may wish to be lied to but prefer to choose when
that would happen.

Perspective of the Deceived
21 Such alternatives should be chosen and not
“imposed by lies or other forms of manipulation.”
21 “The perspective of the deceived is shared by all those
who feel the consequences of a lie, whether or not they
are themselves lied to.” (bombing in Cambodia)

Perspective of the Deceived
21, 22 “Just as skepticism denies the possibility of
knowledge, so determinism denies the possibility of
freedom. Yet both knowledge and freedom to act on it
are required for reasonable choice.”
22 To say that lying makes no difference in the overall
“misinformation or ‘unfreedom’ of those lied to,” is a
perspective that the deceived cannot share.
Deception can be coercive. “When it succeeds , it can
give power to the deceiver.”

Perspective of the Deceived
22 “From this perspective, it is clearly unreasonable to
assert that people should be able to lie with impunity
whenever they want to do so.”
“In refusing to condone such a right to decide when to
lie and when not to, we are therefore trying to protect
ourselves against lies which help to execute or cover up
all other wrongful acts.

Perspective of the Deceived
From this position, Aristotle has said, “Falsehood is in
itself mean and culpable, and truth noble and full of
praise.”
22 “There is an initial imbalance in the evaluation of
truth telling and lying. Lying requires a reason, while
truth telling does not.”
Lying “must be excused; reasons must be produced, in
any one case, to show why a particular lie is not ‘mean
and culpable.’”

Perspective of the Liar
23 Liars believe “that they can make wise use of the
power that lies bring. And they may have confidence in
their ability to distinguish the times when good reasons
support their decision to lie.”
“Liars share with those they deceive the desire not to be
deceived.”
“They would prefer… a ‘free-rider’ status, giving them
the benefits of lying without the risks of being lied to.”

Perspective of the Liar
23 “The free rider trades upon being an exception, and
could not exist in a world where everybody chose to
exercise the same prerogatives.”
“It is crucial to see the distinction between the
freeloading liar and the liar whose deception is a
strategy for survival in a corrupt society.”
24 “Dupes tend to be less sanguine about the good
intentions of those who deceive them.”

Perspective of the Liar
24 The outlook of the liar tends to ignore harm to
themselves and harm to society.
A liar breaks his integrity. Credibility and respect for
his word are damaged.
“A public lie on an important matter, once revealed,
hurts the speaker, must we conclude that every lie has
this effect?
Do white lies hurt the liar in the same way?

Perspective of the Liar
25 White lies probably do not harm the liar in the same
way as a public lie about an important matter, “But the
problem for liars is that they tend to see most of their
lies in this benevolent light and thus vastly
underestimate the risks they run.”
Liars have to cover up their lies with other lies. “The sheer
energy the liar has to devote to shoring them up is
energy that honest people can dispose of freely.”

Perspective of the Liar
26 “Even if the liar cares little about the risks to others
from his deception, therefore, all these risks to himself
argue in favor of at least weighing any decision to lie
quite seriously.”
Liars also underestimate the harm done to individuals
lied to and to society in general.

Perspective of the Liar
26, 27 “Trust is a social good to be protected just as
much as the air we breathe or the water we drink. When
it is damaged, the community as a whole suffers; and
when it is destroyed, societies falter and collapse.”
27 “We live at a time when the harm done to trust can
be seen first-hand. Confidence in public officials and
in professionals has been seriously eroded.”

Perspective of the Liar
27, 28 “It is the fear of the harm lies bring that
explains statements such as the following from
Revelations (22:15), which might otherwise seem
strangely out of proportion:
These others must stay outside [the Heavenly City]:
dogs, medicine-men, and fornicators, and
murderers, and idolaters, and everyone of false life
and false speech.

Discrepant Perspectives
28 We need to see both perspectives at once. Applying
the Golden Rule is to be able to “experience one’s acts not
only as subject and agent but as recipient, sometimes
victim.”
“We can all readily share both perspectives.”

Discrepant Perspectives
29 “The parallel between deception and violence as seen
from these two perspectives is, once again, striking. For
both violence and deception are means not only to
unjust coercion, but also to self-defense and survival.”
“The hero uses deceit to survive.” David of Israel feigned
madness to avoid worrying the king of the Philistines.

Principle of Veracity
30 “The perspective of the deceived, then, reveals several
reasons why lies are undesirable.”
“For these reasons, I believe that we must at the very
least accept as an initial premise Aristotle’s vies that
lying is ‘mean and culpable’ and that truthful
statements are preferable to lies in the absence of special
considerations.”
“This premise gives an initial negative weight to lies.

Principle of Veracity
30 The principle of veracity will be used in the
following chapters “as an expression of this initial
imbalance in our weighing of truthfulness and lying.”
31 “Mild as this initial stipulation sounds, it would, if
taken seriously, eliminate a great many lies told out of
carelessness or habit or unexamined good intentions.”