Lying and Deception

Lying and Deception Synopsis

Thomas Carson offers the most comprehensive and up-to-date investigation of moral and conceptual questions about lying and deception. Part I addresses conceptual questions and offers definitions of lying, deception, and related concepts such as withholding information, "e;keeping someone in the dark,"e; and "e;half truths."e; Part II deals with questions in ethical theory. Carson argues that standard debates about lying and deception between act-utilitarians and theircritics are inconclusive because they rest on appeals to disputed moral intuitions.

He defends a version of the golden rule and a theory of moral reasoning. His theory implies that there is a moral presumption against lying and deception that causes harm - a presumption at least as strong as that endorsedby act-utilitarianism. He uses this theory to justify his claims about the issues he addresses in Part III: deception and withholding information in sales, deception in advertising, bluffing in negotiations, the duties of professionals to inform clients, lying and deception by leaders as a pretext for fighting wars, and lying and deception about history (with special attention to the Holocaust), and cases of distorting the historical record by telling half-truths.

The book concludes with aqualified defence of the view that honesty is a virtue.