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Two Definitions of Lying

January 2008
International Journal of Applied Philosophy 22(2)

DOI:10.5840/ijap200822216

Authors:

Lehman College

This article first examines a number of different definitions of lying, from Aldert Vrij, Warren Shibles, Sissela Bok, the Oxford English Dictionary, Linda Coleman and Paul Kay, and Joseph Kupfer. It considers objections to all of them, and then defends Kupfer's definition, as well as a modified version of his definition, as the best of those so far considered. Next, it examines five other definitions of lying, from Harry G. Frankfurt, Roderick M. Chisholm and Thomas D. Feehan, David Simpson, Thomas Carson, and Don Fallis. It finds reason to reject these definitions, in favor of the two definitions of lying previously defended, namely: (i) To lie (to another person) = df.to make a believed-false statement (to another person) with the intention that that statement be believed to be true (by the other person). (ii) To lie (to another person) = df.to make a believed-false statement (to an- other person), either with the intention that that statement be believed to be true (by the other person), or with the intention that it be believed (by the other person) that that statement is believed to be true (by the person making the statement), or with both intentions.

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Two Definitions of Lying

James Edwin Mahon

Washington and Lee University

AbstrAct: This article first examines a number of different definitions

of lying, from Aldert Vrij, Warren Shibles, Sissela Bok, the Oxford English

Dictionary, Linda Coleman and Paul Kay, and Joseph Kupfer. It considers

objections to all of them, and then defends Kupfer’s definition, as well as

a modified version of his definition, as the best of those so far considered.

Next, it examines five other definitions of lying, from Harry G. Frankfurt,

Roderick M. Chisholm and Thomas D. Feehan, David Simpson, Thomas

Carson, and Don Fallis. It finds reason to reject these definitions, in favor

of the two definitions of lying previously defended, namely:

(i) To lie (to another person) =

df.

to make a believed-false statement (to

another person) with the intention that that statement be believed to

be true (by the other person).

(ii) To lie (to another person) =

df.

to make a believed-false statement (to an-

other person), either with the intention that that statement be believed

to be true (by the other person), or with the intention that it be believed

(by the other person) that that statement is believed to be true (by the

person making the statement), or with both intentions.

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

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









Oxford English Dictionary—













VRIJ’S DEFINITION



lying as any









           







—



—



function











two defINItIoNS of lyINg 213















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











—















conceal

falsify—





—







—







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

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



—







not 



214 jameS edwIN mahoN









—





























a successful or

unsuccessful deliberate aempt, without forewarning, to create in another a belief which

the communicator considers to be untrue.



—



 













is























—











two defINItIoNS of lyINg 215



aempting to deceive





SHIBLES’S DEFINITION













 







In Against Lying

















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216 jameS edwIN mahoN



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



















p





—



BOK’S DEFINITION









   

stated











    



stated



 









—













two defINItIoNS of lyINg 217































—

















 























truthful



OED

DEFINITION

The Oxford English Dictionary

Webster’s International Dictionary of the English Language





 







218 jameS edwIN mahoN



  

 

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

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believeare







L

CD

—

L

—







—

















COLEMAN AND KAY’S DEFINITION





two defINItIoNS of lyINg 219









 





















  



Le MurThe Wall



















—









          



KUPFER’S DEFINITION









 











      

 







220 jameS edwIN mahoN









—













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



intentionality condi-

tionS and ApS

ApS

Ap



—









SppS

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

















—









two defINItIoNS of lyINg 221







FRANKFURT’S DEFINITION







—





























 





















—









     



—



SC

A CS

ApS

p   C      

222 jameS edwIN mahoN

AA

p

A—

CA SS

won’tS

and CApAS



SASp

AAp

SSS

AC

C



SA











C



















CHISHOLM AND FEEHAN’S DEFINITION



L lies to D



p

LpLp

LpD

L

asserts p to D



LpD

DLp

DLp





 















two defINItIoNS of lyINg 223









—











pLD

p—

D







 





—

















SIMPSON’S DEFINITION





—















 









224 jameS edwIN mahoN





—









SAp is

SpSA

pAA

Sp is A



















            



CARSON’S DEFINITION





  



















  



  

          









two defINItIoNS of lyINg 225

























—





        —







—











—

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











—



 

















FALLIS’S DEFINITION

  











You liep

Do not

make statements that you believe to be falsep







—











two defINItIoNS of lyINg 227

      









—











—









just is

—













—

















CONCLUSION









 







 



—

228 jameS edwIN mahoN



Endnotes

  

—





  



            

The Concept of Mind



  How To Do Things With Words

  









Right and Wrong

  Why We Lie: The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the

Unconscious Mind

  

  



  

  —







  —



  Listening:

Journal of Religion and Culture 

  Why We Lie

  Telling Lies: Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Politics, and Marriage



  

         —







  Detecting Lies and Deceit: The Psychology of Lying and the Implications for

Professional Practice

  

two defINItIoNS of lyINg 229

  

  

     International Journal of Applied Philosophy 21



    Lying: A Critical Analysis  



  

  On LyingTreatises on Various Subjects

Fathers of the Church

  Lying: An Augustinian Theology of Duplicity



  

Augustinian Studies

Augustinian Studies

Augustinian Studies

  Journal of

PhilosophyPublic Aairs Quarterly



  American Philosophical Quarterly

  

  Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life



  A Pack of Lies: Towards A Sociology of Lying



  Revue Internationale de Philosophie

  





  Philosophy and Phenomeno-

logical Research

  The Hiding Place



  

  Common Morality: Deciding What to Do



  

  Lan-

guage

  La Nouvelle Revue Française

  Review of Metaphysics 36



  International Studies in Philosophy



  Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy



230 jameS edwIN mahoN

  

  

  

  Necessity Volition and Love—



      The Importance of What We Care About 



  

  

  

  

  

  Philosophy and Phenomenological Re-

search

  Philosophy and Phenomenological Research



  Noûs

  

  

  



Lying, Cheating: A Moral Theory of

White-Collar Crime 



  











  

  Journal of Philosophy

  









  Studies in the Ways of Words



  

  





Lying and Insincerity

Chapter

Full-text available

Jan 2025

Neri Marsili

A Revised Conceptual Perspective on Lying, Deception, and Self- Deception through a Revision of Common Conditions

Conference Paper

Full-text available

May 2023

Philosophers have been involved with concepts such as lying, deception, and self-deception for many years, and they have challenges and disputes over the explanation of these concepts. At first, we addressed the four common conditions that have been accepted by most philosophers and examined their challenges and objections; based on these four conditions, we have proposed four revised conditions having a revised conceptual perspective on these three concepts that can answer some objections and paradoxes. On the other hand, its differences and similarities with other concepts such as telling jokes, being ironic, errors, mistakes, and cognitive dissonance should be distinguished.

True Lies

Preprint

Jun 2016

A true lie is a lie that becomes true when announced. In a logic of announcements, where the announcing agent is not modelled, a true lie is a formula (that is false and) that becomes true when announced. We investigate true lies and other types of interaction between announced formulas, their preconditions and their postconditions, in the setting of Gerbrandy's logic of believed announcements, wherein agents may have or obtain incorrect beliefs. Our results are on the satisfiability and validity of instantiations of these semantically defined categories, on iterated announcements, including arbitrarily often iterated announcements, and on syntactic characterization. We close with results for iterated announcements in the logic of knowledge (instead of belief), and for lying as private announcements (instead of public announcements) to different agents. Detailed examples illustrate our lying concepts.

A Little White-Lie: Negotiating the Ethical Dilemma of Truth-Telling and Lying from an African Indigenous Religion Perspective

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2024

Truth-telling is a cherished religious value in most African societies as opposed to lying. Thus, African indigenous religion upholds the virtue of truth-telling and abhors the vice of lying. This accepted religious virtue is promoted through various means, including film. The film, A Little White-Lie pictures a chaste working-class lady who deceitfully arranges for marriage, a pseudo-spouse under intense parental pressure. As the plot gradually unfolds, the truth is revealed that the fiancé is a true exemplification of ‘a little white lie’. Nevertheless, the film ends in a happy marital union contrary to the punishment for vices from the Afrocentric baseline as the film seems to endorse the vice of lying. The paper examines the art of lying and its verisimilitude in Nigerian society by employing a qualitative survey as the research methodology. Data were collected using focus group discussions. Most participants affirm that any form of lying is wrong and unnecessary from a religious perspective; others contend that lying though wrong is justifiable under some existential conditions. More so, some participants hold that the film reflects the culture and traditions of the Nigerian society. In contrast, a few others view the film as a negation of the religious values of the society it portrays. The study recommends that Nigerian film producers should endeavour to run storylines that align with the normative values of society.

Bullshitting and Bullibility – Conditions and Consequences

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2024

Bullshitting involves communicating with little to no regard for truth, established knowledge, or genuine evidence in a way that helps people impress, persuade, influence, or confuse others, or to embellish or explain things in an area in which their obligations to provide opinions exceed their actual knowledge in those domains. Put another way, bullshitting encompasses a set of rhetorical strategies employed to help a person sound like they know what they are talking about when they really do not. Although bullshit can be useful to individual bullshitters as a persuasive tool, it can have considerable negative consequences for learning, memory, attitudes, opinions, and beliefs about what is believed to be true. Deeper understanding of the conditions under which bullshitting and general bullibility (i.e., consistent failure to discern bullshit from nonbullshit despite social cues signaling something is bullshit) are likely to emerge should position observers with a more successful vantage point to detect this deceptive behavior in others.

Chronicle of deceit: Navigating the developmental cognitive landscape from childhood fabrications to prolific adulthood artistry

Article

Dec 2024
DEV REV

Decoding the Human Element in APT Attacks: Unveiling Attention Diversion Techniques in Cyber-Physical System Security

Chapter

Jun 2024

Lying and oblique intention: reply to Krstić

Article

Nov 2024

Andrew Sneddon

Vladimir Krstić (2023) argues that some putative counterexamples to the definition of lying in terms of an intention to deceive are not genuine counterexamples. He suggests that the agents in these cases have an ‘oblique intention’ to deceive. I argue that Krstić is incorrect about both these cases and the very notion of oblique intention.

Parental lying to children: A systematic review

Article

Oct 2024

Parents lie to their children, for example, to influence children's behavior and emotions ( parenting by lying ). The aim of this systematic review was to describe the current scientific literature on parental lying, including its prevalence, correlates, conceptualizations, and operationalizations. Through an extensive literature search using PRISMA guidelines, 23 eligible peer‐reviewed empirical papers on parental lying have been found. Many parents are found to lie to their children. However, existing research is characterized by a heterogeneous and narrow conceptualization and operationalization of parental lying, and a focus on problems. Following this, the current empirical evidence points mostly toward associations with maladaptive development. Following a critical analysis of the studies, future research should implement broader conceptualizations and operationalizations of parental lying in non‐retrospective, experimental, or prospective longitudinal research designs on maladaptive and adaptive correlates, to determine the significance of parental lying for children.

Methods and Skills for Philosophy: An Advanced Guide

Book

Aug 2024

Jesper Kallestrup

A Definition of Deceiving

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2007
Int J Appl Philos

James Edwin Mahon

In this article I consider six definitions of deceiving (that is, other-deceiving, as opposed to self-deceiving) and reject them all, in favor of a modified version of a rejected definition that avoids all of the objections to the previous definitions. According to this new definition, deceiving is necessarily intentional, requires that the deceived person acquires or continues to have a false belief, and must involve the agency of the deceived person; furthermore, the deceiver must know or truly believe that the false belief that the deceived person acquires or continues to have is false.

Le Mur

Article