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Causes and Effects of Lying | Consequences of lying – Short Essay for Students

December 11, 2019 by Study Mentor Leave a Comment

No matter how careful we try to be about our everyday whereabouts, no person can possibly stay one hundred percent honest throughout their lives, and at one point of their life or the other, in one way or the other, it happens that they resort to lying for some reason- either big or small.

But nobody differentiates between lies as such, because whether big or small, a lie is always a lie, and it can be never undone or unsaid. Thus, the harm caused by lying can be described as irreversible, and therefore, we must be extremely careful about the consequences which can possibly stem from one seemingly small act of us lying for certain purposes.

Lying can also take the form of a disease, as some people can eventually become compulsive liars, as they constantly turn to lying, even if it serves no special purpose. Therefore, we must also be careful about the frequency of the act of lying we resort to.

There are several biological cues to lying as well- as in, there are certain specific non-verbal communication cues which might expose when someone is lying or not. These eventually led to the invention of a scientific device called the ‘polygraph’, or more commonly, the lie detector, which claims to accurately detect when one person is lying or not through certain bodily indicators such as changes in skin temperature, rate of heart beat, etc.

However, the accuracy of all such measures is highly debatable. Lying is an indispensable part of human life and we can try to analyse the cause by first studying the causes and effects of why people resort to the act of telling lies, which will be briefly described in this essay.

Table of Contents

Causes – why do people lie?

The most common reason for which people lie is the urgent need to hide truth. Day in and day out, many occasions take place which force us into certain situations where we cannot possibly disclose the truth, and therefore we necessarily need to conceal it from other people or institutions- either wholly, or partially. A lot of such times, lying, or hiding the truth is not very harmful and it can be quite easily overlooked.

However, hiding the truth, especially from the authorities can more than often land us and our close associates into troubles. For such reasons, lying to higher authorities such as one’s teachers or professors at educational institutes, one’s boss at the workplace, and especially the police, etc. is highly detrimental, and shall be avoided at all costs. Moreover, we also lie to save ourselves from different kinds of trouble, and, for convenience.

The most common lie of telling the teacher that you have forgotten to bring your notebook to class for escaping the consequences of not finishing the homework clearly demonstrates this factor evidently. We always want to gain all sort of benefits possible and therefore we also tend to lie to hide some undesirable facts about ourselves and show ourselves in a better light. This is also a part of our impression management.

For example, in interviews and similar situations, we try to only disclose the favourable information about us and hide the undesirable ones, so that the interviewers (or other people, in general) like us more than they would have if they had known the hidden set of facts.

Creating a good impression serves as one of the major motivations for us to lie. Also, people lie for the good of others as well, for instance, when they do not want to hurt someone or even themselves. Although this aims at not causing anyone any harm, but even this technique can very often backfire.

When we try to hide some truth from someone else to not cause them any pain, we are essentially not equipping them with the opportunity of dealing with their own problems. In this way, by wanting to not cause anyone discomforts, we somehow, maybe even unintentionally, cause them more harm than good. Therefore, even in this way, lying serves us no good at all.

Effects – what happens when we lie?

There are many adverse consequences of lying, but perhaps the most severe of all of those are the loss of face, or the decline in the reputation of the person who is lying. If a person is known to be a frequent liar, his or her reputation falls under severe criticism.

This can eventually lead to even graver consequences, for example, such people will never be possibly believed wholeheartedly by the others, no matter how genuine they later become in their endeavors. Thus, lying can jeopardize not just our present but also our future and can have certain long-lasting consequences.

Moreover, lying can land us into the exact trouble we have been trying to avoid by lying in the first place. If people come to know or get a hint about us lying about something, then they are also likely to play along and eventually cause us harm and tricking us into believing their innocence.

This is yet another adverse effect of lying. Apart from these, lying can also cause suspicion among others and lead to miscommunication and a certain degree of misunderstanding. This can prove to be very harmful, especially in interpersonal relationships, and therefore, lying to one’s close and loved ones are never advisable.

Lying can also make us question our self-worth and create a feeling of guilt and unease within our own self. This can also drive people to frustration, anxiety, paranoia, grief, and even clinical depression. This might be the worst effect of lying, as it hampers our self-image to a great extent, and distorts how we see and treat ourselves.

If we eventually lose the confidence in ourselves, then it might become even more likely that we will continue to use lies as our defence mechanism. Lying can also make us underestimate or overestimate people and their capabilities.

People are almost always lying about their identities, sometimes in a small degree and other times in far greater degrees. Therefore, we can perhaps never discover the real person beneath all the masks they wear in the form of such lying. Furthermore, lying need not be solely verbal.

Conveying false or untrue facts or messages through body gestures or expressions can also be counted as lying, and these are equally, if not more harmful to us. There is no possible way to stop lying. There is also no possible advice we can give someone to discourage them from lying in the future.

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Why People Lie

Reasons for lying

People resort to lying for so many different reasons that it’d be impossible to list them all. However, of the most common motives for telling lies, avoiding punishment is the primary motivator for both children and adults. Other typical reasons include protecting ourselves or others from harm, maintaining privacy, and avoiding embarrassment, to name a few.

How to tell if someone is lying

Avoiding Punishment

“I thought I was only going 55 miles an hour officer” claims the driver speeding at 70 mph. “My wristwatch stopped so I had no idea that I got home 2 hours after my curfew”, says the teenager. Avoiding punishment is the most frequent reason people tell serious lies, regardless of their age, whether it be to avoid the speeding ticket or being grounded. In serious lies there is a threat of significant damage if the lie is discovered: loss of freedom, money, job, relationship, reputation, or even life itself.

It is only in such serious lies, in which the liar would be punished if detected, that lies are detectable from demeanor – facial expression, body movements, gaze, voice, or words. The threat imposes an emotional load, generating involuntary changes that can betray the lie. The lies of everyday life where it doesn’t matter if they are detected – no punishment or rewards — that lies are easily told flawlessly.

Concealing Reward or Benefit

In serious lies the falsehood is usually told to conceal the reward or benefit the liar obtained by breaking a rule or explicit expectation. The curfew violator was able to stay longer at the party; the speeding driver is rushing because he pushed the snooze button when the alarm went off. The husband who claims the ringer on the telephone in his office must have been turned off when he was ‘working’ late – in a hotel room with his girlfriend – will pay no price if his lie succeeds. In each of these examples, the rule breaker decides before breaking a rule that he or she will if questioned lie to cover the cheating. Sometimes the reward could have been achieved – a high mark on an exam — without cheating but not as easily, it would have taken more effort (hours of study in this example).

Protecting Someone from Harm

Protecting someone else from harm is the next most important reason why people tell serious lies. You don’t want your friend, you fellow worker, your sibling, your spouse – anyone who you care about — to get punished, even if you don’t agree with what the person you are protecting did that put him or her in danger. It is not certain whether society approves of these lies. When policemen refuse to testify against a fellow officer they know has broken the law, we respect their motives but many people believe they should be truthful. Yet the terms we use – rat, fink, snitch – are derogatory. Anonymous call-in lines exist so those who volunteer information can avoid any loss of reputation or danger by informing. Do we have different standards for people who take the initiative to inform as compared to those who inform when directly asked to reveal information? I will reconsider this issue in a later newsletter when I write about children’s lies and why we don’t want them to tattle.

Self-Protection

To protect yourself from being harmed even when you have not broken any rule is still another motive. The child home alone who tells the stranger knocking on the door “my father is taking a nap come back later”, has committed no misdeed that he or she is concealing; it is a self-protection lie.

Some lies are told to win admiration from others. Boasting about something untrue is an obvious instance. It is common in children, some adolescents, and even adults. If discovered it harms the reputation of the boaster, but not much more than that. Claiming falsely to have earned money for previous investors moves into the criminal realm.

Maintaining Privacy

To maintain privacy, without asserting that right, is another reason why people may lie. A daughter answering her mother’s question “who were you talking to on the phone just now”, by naming a girlfriend, not the boy who is asking her out on a date, is an example. It is only when there is a strong trusting relationship, that a child would feel brave enough to say “that’s private”, announcing the right to have a secret. Another topic I will return to in my newsletter about trust.

The Thrill of it All!

Some people lie for the sheer thrill of getting away with it, testing their unsuspected power. Many children will at some point lie to their parents simply to see if they can do it. Some people do this all the time enjoying the power they obtain in controlling the information available to the target.

Avoiding Embarrassment

Avoiding embarrassment is still another motive for some serious and many trivial lies. The child who claims the wet seat resulted from spilling a glass of water, not from wetting her pants is an example, if the child did not fear punishment for her failure, just embarrassment.

Avoiding embarrassment is relevant to many less serious lies that come under the rubric of lies-of-everyday-life. Very often people lie to get out of an awkward social situation. They may not know how to do it – “can’t get a babysitter” offered to avoid another dull evening and food. “Sorry I am on my way out the door”, an excuse given by people who do not feel brave enough to be truthful even to a totally unknown telephone solicitor.

Being Polite

Then there are the deceptions that are required by politeness — “thanks so much for the lovely party” or “that color really looks good on you”. I don’t consider these to be lies, anymore than bluffing in poker is a lie, acting in a play is lying, or the asking price not being the selling price. In all of these instances the target does not expect to be told the truth, there is notification. But the impostor is a liar, as is the con man, because they are taking advantage of our expectation that we will be told the truth. More about this will be in my newsletter about the different techniques for lying.

Do we really want to know if someone is lying?

In most cases, there’s no quick or easy way to detect deception and, even if there were, we might not like what we discover.

So, while people often  claim  to want to know the truth, there are many instances in which it is more comforting to believe the lies. In these circumstances, we tend to ignore deception clues and excuse otherwise suspicious behaviors to avoid the potentially negative consequences of uncovering the lies we’re told.

Still want to know if you’re being lied to? Check out our  micro expressions training tools  to learn how!

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The Truth About Lying and What It Does to the Body

Dishonesty can take a toll on the body and mind..

Posted January 5, 2020 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

(This is a spoiler-free post about an unusual medical condition portrayed in the movie Knives Out .)

In the hit film Knives Out , Detective Benoit Blanc is hired to investigate the mysterious death of a wealthy novelist named Harlan Thrombey. Blanc questions the members of Thrombey’s eccentric family and his nurse, Marta Cabrera.

When Marta admitted, “Just the thought of lying makes me puke,” she was not kidding. Marta is like Pinocchio, but instead of lies elongating her nose, they make her vomit. Marta’s strange reflex is a dream for a private investigator trying to uncover the truth, but could such a biological anomaly actually exist off the movie screen?

What happens to the body when we lie?

We tell lies all the time. A 2002 study performed by psychologist Robert Feldman at the University of Massachusetts found that 60 percent of people lied at least once during a 10-minute conversation, telling an average of two to three lies.

The tendency to lie is deeply rooted in our evolutionary history, as other primates have been observed to cheat and deceive. Human children pick up this crafty behavior between the ages of two and five, and it is seen by some psychologists as a milestone of cognitive growth.

Many lies are trivial and are told simply to keep the peace or make someone feel good. Examples include niceties such as “You can’t tell that you’re wearing a toupee!” or “The turkey doesn’t taste dry to me!”

But more sinister lies, such as falsely accusing someone of a crime or lying to investors, can have devastating consequences. Dishonesty puts the brain in a state of heightened alert, and this stress increases with the magnitude of the lie.

Why does the brain care about honesty? As social animals, our reputation is paramount. Consequently, most people work very hard to maintain an image of trustworthiness and integrity.

Knowing that dishonesty risks irrevocable damage to one’s reputation, lying is an inherently stressful activity. When we engage in deceit, our respiratory and heart rates increase, we start to sweat, our mouth goes dry, and our voice can shake. Some of these physiological effects form the basis of the classic lie-detector (polygraph) test.

People vary in their ability to tell a lie due, in part, to differences in the brain. To take an extreme example, sociopaths lack empathy and therefore do not exhibit a typical physiological response when lying. Liars can also pass a polygraph if trained to stay calm during the test. Similarly, innocent people may fail the test merely because they are anxious about being hooked up to the intimidating equipment. For these reasons, the accuracy of polygraph testing is heavily contested.

In contrast, brain imaging studies are proving to be much more informative for learning about the body’s response to lying. Symptoms of anxiety arise because lying activates the limbic system in the brain, the same area that initiates the “fight or flight” response that is triggered during other stresses. When people are being honest, this area of the brain shows minimal activity. But when telling a lie, it lights up like a fireworks display. An honest brain is relaxed, while a dishonest brain is frantic.

Short-term and long-term effects of lying on health and well-being

Two doctors were recently questioned about Marta’s peculiar reaction to lying. Speaking to Fast Company , gastroenterologist Kara Gross Margolis of the Columbia University Medical Center stated that she has never seen a patient that suffers from chronic vomiting after lying . Nor has David A. Johnson, a gastroenterologist at Eastern Virginia Medical School. Speaking to Slate , Johnson said, "Never, at least in my 42 years of experience, has it [chronic vomiting] been brought up that it was specifically around a lie."

However, both experts mention the so-called gut-brain axis as a plausible mechanism behind a regurgitative reflex. The gut-brain axis refers to the two-way communication that takes place between these two bodily systems, explaining why we sometimes get butterflies in our stomach when nervous. Kara Gross Margolis admits that “significant anxiety can lead to nausea and vomiting,” opening the door for such a condition to exist in someone who is constantly worried.

In addition to short-term stress and discomfort, living a dishonest life would seem to take a toll on health. According to a 2015 review article , constant lying is associated with an array of negative health outcomes including high blood pressure, increased heart rate, vasoconstriction, and elevated stress hormones in the blood.

Other studies suggest that long-term effects could be minimal since it appears that we get more comfortable with lying the more we do it. In other words, we develop an unsettling tolerance to being devious.

Brain imaging experiments conducted by Tali Sharot at University College London show that the brain adapts to dishonest behavior . Participants showed reduced activity in their limbic system as they told more lies, supporting the idea that each lie makes lying easier. In addition, the findings support the adage that small acts of dishonesty can escalate into larger ones . If true, Marta’s tendency to vomit after lying could diminish over time as her brain adapts to being dishonest.

If our brain can cozy up to lying with enough practice, it would explain society’s disdain for dishonesty and why people hesitate to give liars a second chance. These strong social rules and the penalties that come from breaking them might be what really keeps us honest at the end of the day.

Bill Sullivan, Ph.D., is the author of Pleased to Meet Me: Genes, Germs, and the Curious Forces That Make Us Who We Are and a professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine.

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What’s Good about Lying?

Do you teach children to lie?

I do. All the time. And you do, too! If you’re like most American parents, you point to presents under the Christmas tree and claim that a man named Santa Claus put them there. But your deliberate deceptions probably go beyond Santa, the Tooth Fairy, or the Easter Bunny.

How many of us tell our kids (or students) that everything is fine when, in fact, everything is totally wrong, in order to preserve their sense of security? Have you been honest about everything having to do with, say, your love life, or what happens at work? Do you praise drawings they bring home from school that you actually think are terrible?

We don’t just lie to protect our kids from hard truths, either. We actually coach them to lie, as when we ask them to express delight at tube socks from Aunt Judy or Uncle Bob’s not-so-delicious beef stew.

These are what scientists call “prosocial lies”—falsehoods told for someone else’s benefit, as opposed to “antisocial lies” that are told strictly for your own personal gain.

Most research suggests that children develop the ability to lie at about age three. By age five, almost all children can (and will) lie to avoid punishment or chores—and a minority will sporadically tell prosocial lies. From ages seven to eleven, they begin to reliably lie to protect other people or to make them feel better—and they’ll start to consider prosocial lies to be justified . They’re not just telling white lies to please adults. The research to date suggests that they are motivated by strong feelings of empathy and compassion.

Why should that be the case? What is going on in children’s minds and bodies that allows this capacity to develop? What does this developmental arc reveal about human beings—and how we take care of each other? That’s what a recent wave of studies has started to uncover.

Taken together, this research points to one message: Sometimes, lying can reveal what’s best in people.

How we learn to lie

At first, the ability to lie reflects a developmental milestone: Young children are acquiring a “theory of mind,” which is psychology’s way of describing our ability to distinguish our own beliefs, intents, desires, and knowledge from what might be in the minds of other people. Antisocial lying appears earlier than prosocial lying in children because it’s much simpler, developmentally; it mainly requires an understanding that adults can’t read your mind.

More on Honesty

Explore gender differences in prosocial lying .

Learn about the life stages of trust .

Lying expert Paul Ekman discusses trust and deception with his daughter, Eve.

Are you living true to your values? Discover how to cultivate ethical courage .

Take our Relationship Trust quiz .

But prosocial lying needs more than just theory of mind. It requires the ability to identify suffering in another person ( empathy ) and the desire to alleviate that suffering ( compassion ). More than that, even, it involves anticipation that our words or actions might cause suffering in a hypothetical future. Thus, prosocial lying reflects the development of at least four distinct human capacities: theory of mind, empathy, compassion, and the combination of memory and imagination that allows us to foresee the consequences of our words.

How do we know that kids have all of these capacities? Could they just be lying to get out of the negative consequences of telling the truth? Or perhaps they’re simply lazy; is it easier to lie than be honest?

For a paper published in 2015 , Harvard psychologist Felix Warneken had adults show elementary-aged children two pictures they drew—one pretty good, one terrible. If the adults didn’t show any particular pride in the picture, the kids were truthful in saying whether it was good or bad. If the grown-up acted sad about being a bad artist, most of the kids would rush to reassure her that it wasn’t too awful. In other words, they told a white lie; the older they were, they more likely the kids were to say a bad drawing was good. There were no negative consequences for telling the truth to these bad artists; the kids just wanted these strangers to feel better about themselves.

In other words, says Warneken, it’s a feeling of empathic connection that drives children to tell white lies. In fact, children are trying to resolve two conflicting norms—honesty vs. kindness—and by about age seven, his studies suggest, they start consistently coming down on the side of kindness. This reflects increasingly sophisticated moral and emotional reasoning.

“When is it right to prioritize another person’s feelings over truth?” says Warneken. “Say, if someone cooks something for you, and it just doesn’t taste good. Well, if they’re applying for cooking school somewhere, the prosocial thing is to be honest, so that they can improve. But if they just cooked it on their own just for you, then perhaps it’s better to lie and say it tastes good.”

It’s a good sign, developmentally, when kids show the ability to make that kind of calculation. Indeed, there is a great deal of evidence that we tend to see prosocial lies as the more moral choice. For example, people seem to behave more prosocially —more grateful, more generous, more compassionate—in the presence of images depicting eyes. While one would expect people to lie less under the eyes, in fact it appears to influence what kind of lie they tell: When Japanese researchers gave students an opportunity to make someone feel good with a lie, they were much more likely to do so with a pair of eyes looking down on them .

No eyes? They were more likely to tell the cold, hard truth!

How lies change as we grow

This moral self-consciousness appears to grow in tandem with the child’s self-control and cognitive ability.

Another study published last year in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology found that “children who told prosocial lies had higher performance on measures of working memory and inhibitory control.” This especially helped them to control “leakage”—a psychologist’s term for inconsistencies in a fake story.

To tell a prosocial lie, a child’s brain needs to juggle many balls—drop one, and the lie will be discovered. Some children are simply better truth-jugglers than others. Far from reflecting laziness, prosocial lying seems to entail a great deal more cognitive and emotional effort than truth-telling. In fact, one 2014 paper found tired adults are much less likely to engage in prosocial lying.

Studies by other researchers show that as kids grow older, the relationship between theory of mind and dishonesty starts to shift. Young children with high theory of mind will tell more antisocial lies than peers. This pattern flips as we age: Older children who have a stronger theory of mind start telling fewer antisocial lies—and more prosocial ones.

Kids also gradually become more likely to tell “blue lies” as they advance through adolescence: altruistic falsehoods, sometimes told at a cost to the liar, that are intended to protect a group, like family or classmates. (Think: lying about a crime committed by a sibling, or deceiving a teacher about someone else’s misbehavior.)

Though adults can (and do) teach children to tell polite lies—and in a lab context, kids can be primed by adults to tell them—Warneken says it’s more likely that successful prosocial lying is a byproduct of developing other capacities, like empathy and self-control. When kids acquire those skills, they gain the ability to start telling both white and blue lies.

But how do other people feel if these lies are found out?

The lies that bind

As they grow older, kids are also developing the ability to detect lies —and to distinguish selfish from selfless ones. The distinction comes down to intent, which studies show can be discerned through recognition of telltale signs in the face and voice of the liar.

In a study published last year, researchers used the Facial Action Coding System , developed by Paul Ekman , to map children’s faces as they told lies that served either themselves or others. The team, based at the University of Toronto and UC San Diego, found that the two different kinds of lies produced markedly different facial expressions.

“Prosocial lying reflects the development of at least four distinct human capacities: theory of mind, empathy, compassion, and the combination of memory and imagination that allows us to foresee the consequences of our words.”

Prosocial lies (which in this case involved delight in a disappointing gift) were betrayed by expressions that resembled joy—a “lip raise on the right side” that hinted at a barely concealed smile, and a blinking pattern associated with happiness. The faces of children lying to conceal a misdeed showed signs of contempt, mainly a slight lip pucker that stops short of being a smirk.

It’s almost certainly the case that we are subconsciously picking up on these signs (along with tells in the liar’s voice) when we catch someone in a lie. But research finds that the consequences of catching someone in a prosocial lie are often very different from those of an antisocial lie, or “black lie,” as they’re sometimes called. In fact, detecting a prosocial lie can increase trust and social bonds.

A series of four 2015 studies from the Wharton School had participants play economic games that involved different kinds of trust and deception. Unsurprisingly, the researchers found that black lies hurt trust. But if participants saw that the deception was altruistic in nature, trust between game-players actually increased. A complex mathematical 2014 study compared the impact of black and white lies on social networks. Again, black lies drove wedges into social networks. But white lies had precisely the opposite effect, tightening social bonds. Several studies have found that people are quick to forgive white lies, and even to appreciate them.

These differences show up in brain scans—and how different types of lies affect the brain can actually influence behavior down the road. A research team led by Neil Garrett at Princeton University assigned 80 people a financial task that allowed them to gain money at another person’s expense if they kept on lying.

“We found that people started with small lies, but slowly, over the course of the experiment, lied more and more,” they write . When they scanned the brains of participants, they found that activity lessened (mainly in the amygdala) with each new lie.

Not everyone lied or lied to their own advantage. One variation in the experiment allowed participants to lie so that another participant would gain more money—and the behavior and the brain scans of those people looked very different. Dishonesty for the benefit of others did not escalate in the same way selfish lies did; while people did lie for others, the lies did not get bigger or more frequent, as with black lies. And it did not trigger the same pattern of activity in the amygdala, which previous research has found lights up when we contemplate immoral acts. (Their methods are described more fully in the video below.)

In short, the brain’s resistance to deception remained steady after participants told prosocial lies—while self-serving lies seemed to decrease it, making black lies a slippery slope.

The upshot of all this research? Not all lies are the same, a fact we seem to recognize deep in our minds and bodies. We may indeed teach children to lie, both implicitly with our behavior and explicitly with our words; but some of those lies help to bind our families and friends together and to create feelings of trust. Other kinds of lies destroy those bonds.

This all might seem overly complex, more so than the simple prescription to not tell a lie. The trouble with do-not-lie prohibitions is that kids can plainly see lying is ubiquitous, and as they grow, they discover that not all lies have the same motivation or impact. How are we supposed to understand these nuances, and communicate them to our children?

In fact, the argument for prosocial lies is the same one against black lies: other people’s feelings matter—and empathy and kindness should be our guide.

About the Author

Jeremy Adam Smith

Uc berkeley.

Jeremy Adam Smith edits the GGSC's online magazine, Greater Good . He is also the author or coeditor of five books, including The Daddy Shift , Are We Born Racist? , and (most recently) The Gratitude Project: How the Science of Thankfulness Can Rewire Our Brains for Resilience, Optimism, and the Greater Good . Before joining the GGSC, Jeremy was a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University.

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The truth about lying.

For your birthday, your aunt knits you a sweater that is, well, downright hideous. You tell her, 1) “I'd go out in an army blanket before wearing that;” 2) “It would look better on a peacock;” or 3) “It's beautiful, Aunt Sylvia! I really need a sweater.”

If you chose the third response, well, you’re a liar. Don’t feel bad, however. If the truth be told, most of us lie to some degree, especially when faced with an alternative like hurting the feelings of poor, good-hearted Aunt Sylvia.

Some of us, however, lie so often that we don’t realize it. That’s when it becomes the sort of problem that may need professional help. So, what’s the difference between being diplomatic and being deceptive?

The most common fibs are relatively harmless ones. They’re minor evasions told to prevent hurting someone’s feelings or to prevent conflict. For example, you say “Of course, I’m not angry you were 40 minutes late.” Behavioral experts seem to agree that these lies told with the intention of not hurting someone's feelings are acceptable in moderation to preserve social harmony.

The awful truth

Many of us don't want to hear the awful truth every time. Say someone asks you how she looks. She probably wants to hear that she looks great. If she doesn't look great, and we tell her the truth, we create a conflict and have to deal with the results.

Here, you have to ask yourself how much you have invested in the relationship. For example, if it’s your wife and she’s going to an important interview, you may want to give her constructive feedback and deal with her feelings. If it’s someone in the office you don't know well, you may choose not to risk a confrontation.

The problem arises when people rationalize that some lies are acceptable and necessary. Getting caught in a lie often destroys relationships.

Lying has consequences. When someone finds out you have lied, it affects how that person deals with you forever. If your spouse lies, you may be able to work it out in therapy, but an employer is not likely to forgive.

Even if you convince yourself a lie is OK, it still violates the dictates of conscience. You’re living a lie and waiting for the other shoe to drop. This is psychologically unhealthy. No one is saying you should tell your anxious mother that you have a 102°F fever, or your coworker that you think her clothes are inappropriate. There are many considerations that come into play when deciding whether honesty is the best policy.

What to consider

Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

Would anyone be harmed if I withhold a bit of the truth?

Can someone change and grow from my honest feedback, or am I being unnecessarily blunt by giving an honest opinion that is hurtful?

How would it feel if someone withheld the truth from me under the same circumstances?

Is not revealing the truth in this situation an act of cowardice, or of compassion?

If you often find yourself being deceptive with family and friends to sidestep troubling issues, you may need to strengthen your interpersonal skills. The main reason people lie is low self-esteem. They want to impress, please, and tell someone what they think they want to hear.

For example, insecure teenagers often lie to gain social acceptance. Here, parents should emphasize to their children the consequences of lying. They should say that lying causes anger and hurt, and that people won’t like them when they find out.

When is lying a problem that needs professional help? If you have trouble controlling it. Pathological liars lie constantly and for no apparent reason. They need to discuss their problem with a therapist.

But for most of us, the untruths we tell are not whoppers. They’re fibs that help grease the wheels of everyday social interactions.

Be your own lie detector

All but the hardened liar has some anxiety when telling a lie. Lie detectors are based on the theory that our bodies react physically when we don’t respond truthfully.

Experts recommend that you look for clusters of signals when trying to spot a liar. The signals include:

Avoiding eye contact or shifting eyes

Stuttering, pausing, or clearing the throat

Changing voice tone or volume

Offering multiple excuses for a situation, instead of just one

Standing in a defensive posture with arms crossed over the chest

Reddening slightly on the face or neck

Rubbing, stroking, or pulling on the nose

Making a slip of the tongue while denying something

Deflecting attention from the issue

Appearing uncomfortable

Medical Reviewers:

• Heather M Trevino BSN RNC
• Rita Sather RN
• Susan K. Dempsey-Walls RN
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• Eur J Psychol
• v.13(4); 2017 Nov

The Effect of Telling Lies on Belief in the Truth

Danielle polage.

a Central Washington University, Ellensburg, WA, USA

The current study looks at the effect of telling lies, in contrast to simply planning lies, on participants’ belief in the truth. Participants planned and told a lie, planned to tell a lie but didn’t tell it, told an unplanned lie, or neither planned nor told a lie (control) about events that did not actually happen to them. Participants attempted to convince researchers that all of the stories told were true. Results show that telling a lie plays a more important role in inflating belief scores than simply preparing the script of a lie. Cognitive dissonance may lead to motivated forgetting of information that does not align with the lie. This research suggests that telling lies may lead to confusion as to the veracity of the lie leading to inflated belief scores.

Garry, Manning, Loftus, and Sherman (1996) showed that participants who initially reported that certain childhood events had not happened, but then imagined they had happened, increased their confidence in the false events. This now famous effect is commonly referred to as the ‘imagination inflation’ effect, because it has been shown that through imagining an event their belief in the event becomes more likely, or their belief in the event becomes inflated. Since then, other studies have shown that imagination is not the only way to increase belief in counter-factual events. Studies have demonstrated an inflation effect by exposing participants to the false information using a variety of paradigms such as paraphrasing ( Sharman, Garry, & Beuke, 2004 ) and explanations ( Sharman, Manning, & Garry, 2005 ). Studies have also shown that making up information, or what researchers call “confabulating” information, results in memory failure for the truth. In Chrobak and Zaragoza (2008) , participants were asked to describe entire fictitious events that they had never witnessed. Results show that over time, half of the participants developed false memories of these fictitious events. Pickel (2004) showed that participants who fabricated descriptions of a videotaped robbery suspect had trouble remembering the actual suspect and also confused their made up details with the truth. It appears that almost any task that increases the familiarity with and requires participants to mentally engage with the false information might lead to an inflation of belief effect. Many studies have looked at the effect on memory of creating false information; however, few studies have looked at the effect of intentional lying on memory for the truth. Polage (2012) demonstrated that deliberate lying can lead to “fabrication inflation” in which participants increase their likelihood ratings for self-created events after lying about them.

It is very likely that liars use their imagination to create false stories, but lying is more than just creating a false story. Dictionary.com defines a lie as “a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive” ( “Lie,” 2017 ). This definition involves two components: the first involves the veracity of the information and the second involves the deceptive intent of the speaker. Therefore, in order for a person to tell a lie, there must be evidence of both components of the definition. Liars must first construct false stories and then try to convince others that their stories are true. The current research examines whether the deliberate attempt to deceive plays a role in belief inflation or whether lying is simply another means of exposing participants to false information. To the author’s knowledge, there is no literature looking at the effect of telling, versus simply creating, a lie on likelihood to believe.

According to the Source or Reality Monitoring (RM) approach, source confusion occurs when people create perceptual and sensory details of false events that are similar to real memories ( Johnson & Raye, 1981 ). When participants answer questions about the false event, whether in writing or speaking, the memory for the false event becomes more detailed and more similar to true event memories increasing the likelihood that the person will believe it. The exposure will also increase familiarity and fluency with the memory which is also thought to increase belief in the false memory ( Garry & Wade, 2005 ). According to Vrij, Granhag, and Mann (2010) , good liars look to the listener to determine whether they feel they are being believed and try to tell simple, plausible, and realistic lies that would not contradict anything the observer might know. Implausible events are unlikely to be believed ( Pezdek, Finger, & Hodge, 1997 ), but memories of detailed, plausible events from one’s past might be confused with true events leading to an inflation effect.

If lying was simply another means of exposure to false information resulting in source confusion, then whether the lie was told would make no difference. But lies, unlike imagination, paraphrasing, guessing, and confabulating, must be communicated with the intention to deceive. So, what effect does the telling of a lie have on belief? Previous studies suggest contradictory outcomes. According to the Source Monitoring framework memories rich in detail might be considered true in the absence of memory for the cognitive operations used to create those memories. But, telling lies is effortful. Langleben et al. (2002) observed that the brain is more active during lie telling than it is while telling the truth. Zuckerman, DePaulo, and Rosenthal (1981) suggest that liars must maintain internal consistency (such as avoiding contradicting oneself) and external consistency (making sure the lies don’t contradict what others know to be true) and therefore lying requires more cognitive effort than telling the truth. One would expect this cognitively demanding task to be remembered, so even though the content of the memory might be remembered, so would the act of creating the lie. Any familiarity with the content of the lie could be correctly attributed to lying. Telling a lie without pre-planning would be especially cognitively demanding. Walczyk, Mahoney, Doverspike, and Griffith-Ross (2009) and Greene, O’Hair, Cody, and Yen (1985) point out that it takes less time to deliver a prepared lie than it does to tell the truth as the response is simply the delivery of a memorized script. DePaulo et al.’s (2003) meta-analysis reported that less time to plan a lie is related to greater cognitive effort. Regurgitating planned lies is less cognitively demanding than creating and telling lies on the spot. In terms of memory for cognitive processing, the increase in cognitive demand for the told lies should serve as a cue to distinguish between false and true memories and result in a decrease in belief in the lie. If memory for cognitive operations significantly impacts source monitoring, one would expect the told only group to show a lower inflation effect than told lies that were prepared first.

Although telling lies is cognitively demanding, several lines of research suggest that other aspects of telling a lie might increase source monitoring errors and lead to higher rates of fabrication inflation. Polage (2012) found that participants who reported feeling more uncomfortable about lying were more likely to believe their self-generated lies. It is possible that the negative affect involved in lying induces dissonance, which later becomes self-deception. Cognitive dissonance ( Festinger, 1957 ) arises when one’s beliefs and actions contradict each other. An easy way to avoid the discomfort of having lied, is to believe that the lie is the truth. Shu, Gino, and Bazerman (2011) demonstrated how cognitive dissonance can result in memory change. Their study found that participants who first read an honor code and later cheated were less likely to remember the components of the honor code than were those who didn’t cheat. They suggest their results are due to motivated forgetting of the rules in an attempt to preserve one’s moral self-image after behaving unethically. Kouchaki and Gino (2016) also found that after engaging in unethical behavior, participants’ memories for their past unethical actions were impaired. The authors believe that the psychological distress and discomfort of their misdeeds caused the memories to become less clear and vivid than memories of ethical actions. They also suggest that this “unethical amnesia” could lead people to repeat acts of dishonesty. Polage found that those who lied frequently were much more likely to believe their lies than those who lied less often. It is possible that people revise their memories to reduce cognitive dissonance. Participants who find themselves uncertain as to the true source of the lied-about information and who are also motivated to want to believe the lie, may lower their decision criterion required to accept the lie as true ( Hekkanen & McEvoy, 2002 ) and if successful this strategy may be repeated.

Another important difference between simply planning a lie and telling a lie is that until a lie is communicated to someone else, the liars are free to continually update and change their versions of their stories. A lie becomes a lie when it is shared. The goal of lying is to be believed. Good liars track the reactions of their audience and modify their stories and behavior to maintain the lie ( Buller & Burgoon, 1996 ; Vrij et al., 2010 ). Once shared, liars should “stick with” their lie in order to avoid detection. So, although both planning and telling lies could provide the content of the lie, sharing the lie provides the motivation to remember the lie exactly as it was told in order to avoid detection. Wade, Garry, Nash, and Harper (2010) showed that false memories are affected by an “anchoring effect” in that the first version of the false event is most influential in memory distortion. The version of the story they created first became “truth” to them. Similarly, the first version of the event told should anchor the memory; the liar must then remember the details of the told lies to maintain the falsehood. The lie that was shared is now public and the liar could be motivated to commit it to memory, believe it, and accept it as collective “truth”.

So although the source monitoring literature might suggest that awareness of cognitive operations while telling a lie might lead to less inflation, studies suggesting that discomfort, lax criterion, motivated forgetting, cognitive dissonance, and maintenance of consistency could lead to higher levels of source confusion when a lie is shared.

Finally, it is possible that the act of simply speaking the lie out loud while trying to convince the other person they are telling the truth might help liars remember the content of the lie. Hopkins and Edwards (1972) showed that memory for words that were pronounced was better than for words that were studied silently. Therefore, speaking some lies out loud versus simply thinking about others might make the unspoken lies less memorable than those that were spoken. Saying the information out loud can increase memory for that information which would suggest that the content of the spoken lies will be more memorable.

In summary, fabricating a lie likely uses many techniques such as imagination and counterfactual thinking that have been shown to result in inflated belief in the false event. Lying differs however, in that lies are told to another person with the intention of deceiving the listener. Both planning and telling lies will result in created content for the lie which could inflate belief in the created content. However, in terms of ability to source monitor, telling a lie is thought to be more effortful and the cognitive effort could be remembered, especially in the absence of pre-planning the lie when the cognitive effort is greatest. If the creation of the lie is remembered, then familiarity with the content of the lie can be attributed to self-generation of the lie and belief in the lie should decrease. However, if cognitive dissonance is induced, motivated forgetting of having lied could counteract memory for cognitive operations and increase the likelihood of the lie being accepted as true. Lying to another person cements the lie as public truth providing the liar motivation to remember the lie and want to believe it. In the absence of clear counter memories, the liar may be more likely to accept the lie as truth and inflate their belief in the lie. Told lies might be more simple and plausible which could further increase the likelihood of believing the lie. Finally, telling a lie also benefits from the effects of speaking information aloud which has been shown to improve memory for the content of the lie and could make the source judgment more difficult. It is therefore expected that both planning and telling a lie should provide the content of a lie, but that telling a lie could lead to stronger impairments in ability to source monitor due to discomfort, motivated forgetting, and lax criterion. Telling a prepared lie should result in all of the impairments of planning and telling the lies such as rehearsal of the lie, cognitive dissonance, motivated forgetting and belief in public record, but in addition should result in an even more difficult source monitoring decision than either planning or telling alone due to repetition of the memory and decreased memory for cognitive operations (due to the decreased effort needed to tell a pre-planned lie). It is therefore expected that planning and telling a lie will have an additive effect and should result in the highest inflation effect. The current study compares the effects of planning and telling lies on belief in the lie and anticipates main effects for both planning and telling a lie, with the highest fabrication occuring for lies that are both planned and told.

Participants

Fifty-two undergraduate students from Central Washington University participated in the first session of the study, four did not return for the second session, and data from three participants was discarded due to participants repeatedly not following the lying prompts. The resulting 45 participants were used in the final analyses.

Participants' experiences were measured using the Life Events Inventory (LEI; Garry et al., 1996 ). The full inventory contains 60 items that ask whether a particular event happened to the participant before the age of 10. The participant rated whether each event happened using a Likert-type scale anchored at 1 (definitely did not happen) to 8 (definitely did happen). The LEI was administered twice, approximately 2 weeks apart. The pretest consisted of 21 of the 60 items from the original. Pretest responses were used to get baseline ratings of four target items to be used in the study. The ideal score for each of the four target items was a score of 2 which indicated participants were quite confident the events in question had not happened, however, the placement of the score on the scale still allowed for movement in both directions and avoided a floor effect. After selecting items with an initial rating score of 2, scores of 3 were utilized, then 1 and, finally, as a last resort, an item with a score of 4 was chosen. After selecting the four events, they were randomly assigned to one of the four event conditions (Lie 1, Lie 2, Lie 3, or Lie 4 described later). The posttest scores were used in order to compute a change score from pre-test to posttest. The posttest consisted of 42 items (the original 21 items plus 21 new items that served as distractors).

Participants were also given the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES; Bernstein & Putnam, 1986 ) with the intent of using it as a covariate. The DES consists of 27 items that ask the participant to estimate how often an experience happens to them. For example, one question states, "Some people have the experience of driving a car and suddenly realizing that they don't remember what has happened during all or part of the trip." The participant is asked to estimate what percentage of the time this happens to them. Because its relationship to the dependent variables was not significant, it will not be discussed further in this paper.

The study was a within subjects repeated measures design with two independent variables. The first independent variable was whether the lie event was planned (or not) and the second independent variable was whether the lie event was told (or not). The dependent variable was the change in ratings score from LEI 1 to LEI2 taken two weeks later.

After receiving informed consent, participants were given the LEI to complete. After completing the LEI, participants were given instructions to read while the experimenter excused herself to use the bathroom. In reality, the researcher went into a neighboring room in order to score the LEI pretest and select which four life events would be used in the experiment. The experimenter randomly assigned the four events to be either prepared and told (Lie 1), not prepared but told (Lie 2), prepared but not told (Lie 3), or not prepared and not told (control).

The instructions provided to the participants included a cover story that explained that the study was designed in order to determine whether it was possible to tell whether someone is lying. They were told they would be asked about some events that may or may not have happened to them and that the interviewer would try to determine whether they were lying. The instructions further explained that the participants would be given items to describe to the interviewer and that they would be told whether to say that the event did or did not occur before the age of 10. So, whether the event happened or not, the participant was to follow the prompting of the interviewer. Participants were told that they should be as sincere as possible as the idea was to convince the interviewer that the event actually happened. If the event actually happened before the age of 10 and they were told to say that it happened, they were asked to include factual information. If the event did not occur before the age of 10 and they were told to say that it did happen, they were asked to tell a feasible story in order to convince the interviewer that the event actually happened.

When the experimenter finished scoring the LEI, she returned to the room and read the instructions with the participant to ensure they were understood. Then, she gave the participant an eight-item "events list" that the participant was asked to write stories about; this was the "prepared" manipulation. The events are listed in the Appendix in the order given to the participants. Note that the two lies come from the participants' LEI pretest scores and were randomly chosen from the four items that received a 2 (3, 1, or 4) score. The same six filler items were used for all participants and were not selected based on the ratings given on the first LEI; two “yes” responses which were likely to be true for most participants and four “no” responses, two of which were likely to be false and two of which were likely to be true for most participants. For each event on the list that participants would claim to be true, they were asked to answer eight follow-up questions: (1) What were you doing right before this event occurred? (2) Where were you? (3) Who were you with? (4) How old were you? (5) What time of day was it? (6) How did you feel about this event? (7) What happened right after the event? (8) Are there any other details important to this story? For the “no” responses, participants were asked to answer "How do you know that you never _______?". The “no” responses were not of interest to this study, but served as a counterbalance measure to avoid all “yes” responses. Participants were given as much time as they needed to complete this part of the experiment, and they generally finished in about 20-30 minutes. When they finished writing about the various events (i.e., "preparing" their lies), they summoned the experimenter from the adjoining room in order to do the next part of the study: the oral interview.

For the interview (the "told" manipulation), participants were asked to discuss a variety of events including Lie 1 (the same event they "prepared") and Lie 2 from the LEI pretest (which was not prepared but had to be created on the spot). For each event, participants were either asked to "Please tell me about the time that you __________" or to tell the interviewer "How do you know that you never _______?". The instructions were the same in the oral interview as for the written /prepared portion. They were directed to answer according to the interviewer’s prompt even if their response was not true. The same eight follow-up questions used in the writing session were used as prompts in the interview in the same order. The interview session also took about 20-30 minutes. After the interview was completed, they were reminded to return in two weeks for the second session.

At the second session, approximately 2 weeks later, participants were run singly or in small groups. They were asked to complete the LEI posttest which consisted of 42 events, repeating all 21 from the pretest in addition to 21 previously unpresented events from the original LEI. They were then provided with complete disclosure.

Results and Discussion

The LEI pretest scores were subtracted from posttest scores on the four target events. Therefore, there were four change scores per participant: Lie 1 (prepared and told), Lie 2 (not prepared but told), Lie 3 (prepared but not told), and control (neither prepared nor told). If participants increased in their belief in the lie, their change scores should be positive. The mean (standard deviation) change scores are presented in Table 1 (below).

Note . Shared subscripts indicate a significant difference at p < .008.

Telling a lie about an event ( M = 1.27) did increase the belief that the event did occur relative to not telling a lie ( M = 0.62; F (1, 44) = 5.05, p = .03, η 2 = .103). There was no main effect for preparation of the lie ( F (1, 44) = 1.66, p = .20, η 2 = .036). There was no significant interaction between preparing the event and lying about it ( F (1, 44) = 0.06, p = .81, η 2 = .001). Planned within subject t-test comparisons were conducted using a protected alpha level to test the hypothesis that planning combined with telling would increase inflation effects as compared to simply telling or planning alone. Results demonstrated that the planned and told group caused significantly higher inflation scores than the planned only group. There was no significant difference between planning or not planning told lies (See Table 1 ). The results demonstrate that telling a lie to another person in an effort to deceive, and not simply creating a lie, increases belief in the lied about event. Telling lies, whether planned or not, resulted in the highest change scores.

These results support previous results ( Polage, 2012 ) demonstrating that telling lies is yet another paradigm in the long list of methods used to inflate belief in false, self-generated information (imagining: Garry et al., 1996 ; paraphrasing: Sharman et al., 2004 ; explanations: Sharman et al., 2005 ; confabulating: Chrobak & Zaragoza, 2008 ; Pickel, 2004 ). It is likely that constructing a lie uses many similar processes as other inflation tasks which result in detailed memories and increased fluency with the memory; however, the current results suggest that it is the telling of the lie and not just the creation of the lie that drives fabrication inflation. As Vrij et al. (2010) suggests, good liars tell simple, plausible, and realistic lies which should be easier to believe than complicated, unrealistic lies. Attempting to be believable constrains realism that would not be present when simply imagining an event. So, although forming a lie may involve imagery, it may also differ from simple imagination in which there is no external pressure to be believable. Lying also cements the lie as public truth providing the liar motivation to remember the lie and want to believe it. In the absence of clear counter memories, the liar may be more likely to accept the lie as truth and inflate their belief in the lie.

But telling a lie is thought to be effortful ( Langleben et al., 2002 ; Zuckerman et al., 1981 ) which should result in the correct attribution of even a clear and realistic memory as having been fabricated. So why would the told lies show higher inflation than lies that weren’t told? It was expected that the unplanned told lies would have been most difficult to generate ( DePaulo et al., 2003 ; Greene et al., 1985 ; Walczyk et al., 2009 ) resulting in the strongest cues for cognitive operations; however, this assumed that participants would use great effort to create a lie without pre-planning. According to Leins, Fisher, and Ross (2013) , however, liars may not be working that much harder than truth tellers because one of the main strategies liars use is to recycle true stories. So, similar to telling a preplanned lie that is simply retrieved from memory and hence less cognitively demanding, recycling a true story would not be particularly cognitively demanding and would not result in a strong memory for cognitive operations. If the lie event was already stored in memory, there would be no additional cognitive resources devoted to creating unplanned lies. This could explain why there was no additional benefit of planning the lies in advance in comparison to telling them on the spot. The strategy used for creating the lie determines how cognitively demanding lie telling is and this variability could affect memory for cognitive operations across participants. Polage (2004) showed wide variability in belief in the lie, in that some decreased their belief in the lie and some came to fully believe in it. It was assumed that the source monitoring decision would benefit from the effort involved in telling a lie, however, some lies told might require extreme effort to create while others require less effort than remembering an old true memory. In fact, Memon et al. (2010) found an increase in cognitive operations when participants were telling the truth, so telling the truth can also be cognitively demanding, sometimes more so than lying. In addition, Verschuere, Spruyt, Meijer, and Otgaar (2011) found that lying was less demanding when liars lied more frequently, and that the lying response became more dominant with repeated use. So, lying may be easier for some participants than others. Polage (2012) found that those who lied more often were more likely to show fabrication inflation. As lying increases, the process of lying might get easier, using less cognitive resources to create lies. Also, proficient liars might simply have more preplanned lies available in memory. In the absence of memory for the cognitive demands of lying, the other aspects of telling lies that decrease source monitoring ability may have caused participants to increase their belief in the lies.

Polage (2012) found that those who felt more guilt lying, lied more often and were more likely to believe the lies. These results seem contradictory as you would expect those who feel more guilty lying to do so less often, however, results on cognitive dissonance, suggest that those who feel guilty about lying but do so often are likely to experience psychological discomfort or cognitive dissonance ( Festinger, 1957 ). Believing they didn’t lie is one strategy that can decrease cognitive dissonance and motivated forgetting of having lied or denying information that might go against their preferred reality is one way to bring their beliefs in line with their actions. Shu et al. (2011) and Kouchaki and Gino (2016) showed that cognitive dissonance can result in forgetting of unethical actions. It is possible that participants in this study were faced with whether to believe in an event they have already told someone else was true and of which they have detailed memory. Motivated forgetting could impair memories that contradicted having lied and they may find themselves less certain of the truth. Since motivated liars should maintain consistency and stick with the version of the story that was first made public ( Wade et al., 2010 ) they may increase their doubt in the truth. The change in belief for lies that were told was on average 1.27 points on an 8 point scale which suggests that fabrication inflation may cause a slow eroding of belief, which over time might continue to increase if the lie is maintained and reinforced by others.

Finally, one cannot discount that verbal lying has the memorial benefits of speaking out loud which has been shown to improve memory ( Hopkins & Edwards, 1972 ). It is also possible that the liars were maintaining the lie, but that no memory change actually occurred. When studying deception this is always a concern as we don’t know if participants are believing the lie, trying to dupe the researcher, or even responding to perceived demand characteristics. These are possibilities that cannot be overlooked.

In summary, the current results showed that telling a lie, in contrast to simply planning a lie, resulted in fabrication inflation and led liars to increase their belief in lies told with the intention of deceiving. Based on previous literature, I suggest that the simple, plausible event details that seem familiar and true might increase in belief in the lie. Although one might remember the cognitive effort used to create the memory and reject it as false, it is also possible that proficient liars or those who use recycled versions of the truth might not remember creating a lie. It is also possible that the desire to reduce cognitive dissonance by using lax criterion and motivated forgetting of information that contradicts public “truth”, combined with the negative affect of lying can reduce the liar’s ability or desire to effectively source monitor.

As this is the first study that directly compares telling versus planning a lie, it raises many questions that need to be addressed in future research. The results support the idea that telling a lie results in fabrication inflation but it does not answer the question of why the effect occurs. For example, are participants motivated to remember the content of the lie in order to remain consistent? If motivation to believe affects memory for the truth, one would expect the lies told to be similar over time. Do participants change their “told” lies to be more realistic and hence more believable than their planned only lies (to others and potentially to themselves)? Future research should examine the level of detail provided in the lie stories to determine whether liars do attempt to “keep it simple” as Vrij et al. (2010) suggests and whether the level of detail has an effect on memory. The interview sessions in the current study were not video-recorded and were therefore not able to be analyzed for content. Future research might attempt to examine the consistency of the stories and rate them on Criteria Based Content Analysis (CBCA; Steller & Koehnken, 1989 ) elements. It is possible that stories that score higher on CBCA may result in more memory distortion.

The effects of lying on belief have been relatively unexplored and the current study suggests that the intentionally deceptive component of lying, not just the creation of the lie, affects belief in the lie. These results suggest that belief change may occur as a result of a deliberate lie and that liars become less confident in the truth after lying. Given that the average person lies at least once a day ( Serota & Levine, 2015 ), the effects of lying on false beliefs have repercussions that affect everyone and continued research into related variables and their effects should be conducted. Although the lies told in this study were low stakes lies, it is possible that the factors associated with lying that might increase source monitoring errors such as discomfort and motivated forgetting would be even stronger in high stakes lies such as those involving perjury and coerced false confessions. This research therefore has applications both to everyday experiences and psychology and law topics.

Acknowledgments

The author has no support to report.

Dr. Danielle Polage is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Central Washington University. She specializes in memory research, particularly false memories, lying, and other psychology and law issues.

Appendix: Questions and Participant Instructions That Were Used During the Written and Oral Interviews

Note. The participants were asked to follow the instructions whether the event had or had not actually happened to them. Lies 1-4 were based on their responses to the LEI 1. The other events were filler questions given to all participants.

Funding: This research was partially supported by the Office of the Dean, College of the Sciences, Central Washington University, Ellensburg, Washington.

Competing Interests: The author has declared that no competing interests exist.

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The Definition of Lying and Deception

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 definitional or conceptual. They include the questions of how lying is to be defined, how deceiving is to be defined, and whether lying is always a form of deceiving. Questions of the second kind are normative — more particularly, moral. They include the questions of whether lying and deceiving are either defeasibly or non-defeasibly morally wrong, whether lying is morally worse than deceiving, and whether, if lying and deception are defeasibly morally wrong, they are merely morally optional on certain occasions, or are sometimes morally obligatory. In this entry, we only consider questions of the first kind.

1.1 Statement Condition

1.2 untruthfulness condition, 1.3 addressee condition, 1.4 intention to deceive the addressee condition, 1.5 objections to the traditional definition of lying, 2.1 simple deceptionism, 2.2 complex deceptionism, 2.3 moral deceptionism, 2.4 non-deceptionism, 3.1 objections to the traditional definition of deception, other internet resources, related entries, 1. traditional definition of lying.

There is no universally accepted definition of lying to others. The dictionary definition of lying is “to make a false statement with the intention to deceive” ( OED 1989) but there are numerous problems with this definition. It is both too narrow, since it requires falsity, and too broad, since it allows for lying about something other than what is being stated, and lying to someone who is believed to be listening in but who is not being addressed.

The most widely accepted definition of lying is the following: “A lie is a statement made by one who does not believe it with the intention that someone else shall be led to believe it” (Isenberg 1973, 248) (cf. “[lying is] making a statement believed to be false, with the intention of getting another to accept it as true” (Primoratz 1984, 54n2)). This definition does not specify the addressee, however. It may be restated as follows:

• (L1) To lie = df to make a believed-false statement to another person with the intention that the other person believe that statement to be true.

L1 is the traditional definition of lying. According to L1, there are at least four necessary conditions for lying. First, lying requires that a person make a statement (statement condition). Second, lying requires that the person believe the statement to be false; that is, lying requires that the statement be untruthful (untruthfulness condition). Third, lying requires that the untruthful statement be made to another person (addressee condition). Fourth, lying requires that the person intend that that other person believe the untruthful statement to be true (intention to deceive the addressee condition).

These four necessary conditions need to be explained before objections to L1 can be entertained and alternative definitions can be considered.

According to the statement condition, lying requires that a person make a statement. Making a statement requires the use of conventional signs, or symbols . Conventional signs, such as “WOMEN” on the door to a restroom, are opposed to natural or causal signs, or indices , such as women coming in and out of a restroom, as well as signs that signify by resemblance, or icons , such as a figure with a triangular dress on the door to a restroom (cf. Grotius 2005, 2001; Pierce 1955; Grice 1989). Making a statement, therefore, requires the use of language. A commonly accepted definition of making a statement is the following: “ x states that p to y = df (1) x believes that there is an expression E and a language L such that one of the standard uses of E in L is that of expressing the proposition p ; (2) x utters E with the intention of causing y to believe that he, x , intended to utter E in that standard use” (Chisholm and Feehan 1977, 150).

It is possible for a person to make a statement using American Sign Language, smoke signals, Morse code, semaphore flags, and so forth, as well as by making specific bodily gestures whose meanings have been established by convention (e.g., nodding one's head in response to a question). Hence, it is possible to lie by these means. If it is granted that a person is not making a statement when he wears a wig, gives a fake smile, affects a limp, and so forth, it follows that a person cannot be lying by doing these things (Siegler 1966, 128). If it is granted that a person is not making a statement when, for example, she wears a wedding ring when she is not married, or wears a police uniform when she is not a police officer, it follows that she cannot be lying by doing these things.

In the case of a person who does not utter a declarative sentence, but who curses, or makes an interjection or an exclamation, or issues a command or an exhortation, or asks a question, or says “Hello,” then, if it is granted that she is not making a statement when she does any of these things, it follows that she cannot be lying by doing these things (Green 2001, 163–164; but see Leonard 1959).

An ironic statement, or a statement made as part of a joke, or a statement made by an actor while acting, or a statement made in a novel, is still a statement. More formally, the statement condition of L1 obeys the following three constraints (Stokke 2013a, 41):

• If x makes a statement, this does not entail that x believes the statement to be true;
• If x makes a statement, this does not entail that x intends her audience to believe the statement to be true;
• If x makes a statement, this does not entail that x intends her audience to believe that x believes the statement to be true.

The statement condition is to be distinguished from a different putative necessary condition for lying, namely, the condition that an assertion be made. The assertion condition is not a necessary condition for lying, according to L1. For example, if Yin, who does not have a girlfriend, but who wants people to believe that he has a girlfriend, makes the ironic statement “Yeah, right, I have a girlfriend” in response to a question from his friend, Bolin, who believes that Yin is secretly dating someone, with the intention that Bolin believe that he actually does have a girlfriend, then this ‘irony lie’ is a lie according to L1, although it is not an assertion.

According to the statement condition, it is not possible to lie by omitting to make a statement (Mahon 2003; Griffiths 2004, 33). So-called ‘lies of omission’ (or ‘passive lying’ (Opie 1825)) are not lies (Douglas 1976, 59; Dynel 2011, 154). All lies are lies of commission. It is possible for a person to lie by remaining ‘silent,’ if the ‘silence’ is a previously agreed upon signal with others that is equivalent to making a statement (Fried 1978, 57). However, such a lie would not be a ‘lie of omission’ (see People v. Meza (1987) in which, on the basis of Californian Evidence Code that “‘Statement’” included “nonverbal conduct of a person intended by him as a substitute for oral or written verbal expression,” prospective juror’s Eric Luis Meza’s silence and failure to raise his hand in response to questions was “taken for a negative answer, i.e., a negative statement” ( People v. Meza 1987, 1647) and he was found guilty of perjury).

Note that the statement condition, all by itself, does not require that the statement be made to another person, or even that it be expressed aloud or in writing. One’s inner statements to oneself are statements, and, if other conditions are also met, can be “internal lies” (Kant 1996, 553–554).

According to the untruthfulness condition, lying requires that a person make an untruthful statement, that is, make a statement that she believes to be false. Note that this condition is to be distinguished from the putative necessary condition for lying that the statement that the person makes be false (Grotius 2005, 1209; Krishna 1961, 146). The falsity condition is not a necessary condition for lying according to L1.

Statements that are truthful may be false. If George makes the statement to Hillary (with the intention that Hillary believe that statement to be true), “The enemy has weapons of mass destruction,” and that statement is false, he is not lying if he does not believe that statement to be false.

Statements that are untruthful may be true. In Jean-Paul Sartre’s short-story, The Wall , set during the Spanish Civil War, Pablo Ibbieta, a prisoner sentenced to be executed by the Fascists, is interrogated by his guards as to the whereabouts of his comrade Ramon Gris. Mistakenly believing Gris to be hiding with his cousins, he makes the untruthful statement to them that “Gris is hiding in the cemetery” (with the intention that they believe this statement to be true). As it happens, Gris is hiding in the cemetery, and the statement is true. Gris is arrested at the cemetery, and Ibbieta is released (Sartre 1937; cf. Siegler 1966: 130). According to L1, Ibbieta lied to his interrogators, although the untruthful statement he made to them was true, and he did not deceive them about the whereabouts of Gris (Isenberg 1973, 248; Mannison 1969, 138; Lindley, 1971; Kupfer 1982, 104; Faulkner 2013).

If a person makes a truthful statement with the intention to deceive another person, then she is not lying, according to the untruthfulness condition. For example, if John and Mary are dating, and Valentino is Mary’s ex-boyfriend, and one evening “John asks Mary, ‘Have you seen Valentino this week?,’” and “Mary answers: ‘Valentino’s been sick with mononucleosis for the past two weeks,’” and “Valentino has in fact been sick with mononucleosis for the past two weeks, but it is also the case that Mary had a date with Valentino the night before” (Coleman and Kany 1981, 31), then Mary is not lying to John, even if she is attempting to deceive John. This is what is called a palter (see Schauer and Zeckhauser 2009; they illegitimately add that a palter must succeed in deceiving), or a false implicature (Adler 1997), or an attempt to mislead (Saul 2012b; Webber 2013).

In addition to palters not being lies, a double bluff is not a lie either according to the untruthfulness condition. If one makes a truthful statement, intending one’s addressee to believe that the statement is false, then one is not lying. Consider the following joke about two travelers on a train from Moscow (reputed to be Sigmund Freud's favorite joke) (Cohen 2002, 328):

Trofim: Where are you going? Pavel: To Pinsk. Trofim: Liar! You say you are going to Pinsk in order to make me believe you are going to Minsk. But I know you are going to Pinsk.

Pavel does not lie to Trofim, since his statement to Trofim is truthful, even if he intends that Trofim be deceived by this double bluff.

One implication of the untruthfulness condition is that if a person makes a statement that she believes to be neither true nor false, then she cannot be lying (Siegler 1966, 133; cf. Strawson 1952, 173). For example, if a person begging for money says “All my children need medical attention,” but believes that this proposition is neither true nor false, because he has no children, then he is not lying, even if he is attempting to deceive (Chisholm and Feehan 1977, 155–6; but see Siegler 1966, 135).

It is a matter of debate as to whether it is possible to lie using metaphors. For example, if a gardener who has had a very bad crop of tomatoes says “We’ve got tomatoes coming out of our ears,” intending to deceive about his having a bumper crop, then this untruthful statement made with an intention to deceive is typically not considered a lie, because the untruthful statement is metaphorical (Saul 2012, 16). Nevertheless, some argue that it is possible to lie using metaphors (Adler 1997, 444 n. 27; Griffiths 2004, 36; Dynel 2011, 149). If literally false metaphorical statements can be truthful statements, according to the beliefs of the speaker, and hence, can be untruthful statements, according to the beliefs of the speaker, then the deceptive gardener is lying in this example according to L1.

According to the addressee condition, lying requires that a person make an untruthful statement to another person (or, strictly speaking, to a believed other person, since one might, e.g., mistake a waxed dummy for another person, and lie to it). That is, lying requires that a person address another person (Simpson 1992, 626). According to L1, it is not possible for me to lie to no one whatsoever (i.e., not even myself), and it is not possible to lie to someone whom one is not addressing but whom one believes is listening in on a conversation. For example, if Mickey and Danny both believe that the F.B.I. is monitoring their telephone conversation, and Mickey says to Danny, “The pick-up is at midnight tomorrow,” with the intention of deceiving the FBI agents listening in, then Mickey is not lying to the F.B.I. agents (this is a “bogus disclosure” (Newey 1997, 115)).

According to L1, it is possible to lie to a general audience. It is possible for a person to lie by publishing an untruthful report about an event (Kant 1997, 203), or by making an untruthful statement on a tax return, or by sending an untruthful e-mail to everyone on a mailing list, or by making an untruthful statement in a magazine advertisement or a television commercial. In these cases, the readers, hearers, watchers, etc., are the addressees.

According to the addressee condition, lying necessarily involves addressing someone whom you believe to be a person capable of understanding your statement and forming beliefs on that basis. It is not possible to lie to those whom you believe to be non-persons (goldfish, dogs, robots, etc.) or persons whom you believe cannot understand the statements that are made to them (infants, the insane, etc., as well as those whom you believe cannot understand the language you are speaking in). It is possible to lie to other persons via intermediaries which are not persons, however (e.g., entering false answers to questions asked by a bank’s ATM).

According to the intention to deceive the addressee condition, lying requires that a person make an untruthful statement to another person with the intention that that other person believe that untruthful statement to be true. Making ironic statements, telling jokes, writing fiction, acting in a play, and so forth, without the intention that the addressee believe these untruthful statements to be true, is not lying (Morris 1976, 391).

If x makes an untruthful statement to y , without the intention that y believe that untruthful statement to be true, but with the intention that y believe something else to be true that x believes to be true, then x is not lying to y , according to L1. Examples of such non-deceptive untruthful statements include polite untruths (Kant 1997, 27; Mahon 2003, 109). For example, if servant Igor makes the untruthful statement to unwelcome visitor Damian, “Madam is not at home,” without the intention that Damian believe it to be true that she is not home (that would be lying on Igor’s part), but with the intention that Damian believe it to be true that it is inconvenient for Madam to see Damian now, something that Igor believes to be true, then according to L1, Igor is not lying to Damian (Isenberg 1973, 256). However, for Igor to intend that Damian believe this, it must be the case that Igor believes that this is how Damian understands “Madam is not at home.” Polite untruths may be said to be examples of “falsifications but not lies,” since the person “says just what etiquette demands” (Shiffrin 2014, 19). As it has been said about untruthful statements situations “in which politeness requires some sort of remark” and the other person “knows quite well that the statement is false,” such statements “are not really lies” (Coleman and Kay 1981, 29). They are better considered as cases of speaking in code . Another example of a non-deceptive untruthful statement is what has been called an “ altruistic lie ” (Fallis 2009, 50; cf. Augustine 1952, 57), such as when a speaker makes an untruthful statement to a hearer whom he believes distrusts him, in order that the hearer will believe something that the speaker believes to be true. This is not a lie according to L1.

Such non-deceptive untruths are not to be confused with white lies , i.e., harmless lies (Bok 1978, 58; Sweetser 1987, 54; 52 n. 73) or prosocial lies (also called social lies ), i.e., lies that do not harm social life but protect it (Meibauer 2014, 152; Sweetser 1987, 54), or fibs , i.e., inconsequential lies told for selfish reasons (Sweetser 1987, 54). White lies, prosocial lies, and fibs are all intentionally deceptive, and are all lies according to L1 (Green 2001, 169). For example, “both American and Ecuadorian cultures would probably consider Jacobo’s reply to be a white lie,” and hence deceptive, in the following case presented to Ecuadorians by linguists: “Teresa just bought a new dress. Upon trying it on for the first time, she asks her husband Jacobo, ‘Does it look good on me?’ Jacobo responds, ‘Yes’ even though he really thinks that the dress is ugly and too tight” (Hardin 2010, 3207; cf. Dynel 2011, 160). Or, to take another example, “Some people would call it a white lie to tell a dying person whatever he or she needs to hear to die in peace” (Sweetser 1987, 54). Note that both white lies and prosocial lies are to be distinguished from “lies which most people would think justified by some higher good achieved but which would not be called white lies [or prosocial lies], since their informational consequences are too major (however moral),” such as “to lie to the Gestapo about the location of a Jew” (Sweetser 1987, 54).

According to the untruthfulness condition, it is not merely the case that the person who makes the untruthful statement intends that some other person believe the untruthful statement to be true; the person intends that the addressee believe the untruthful statement to be true. Also, according to this condition, it is not merely the case that the person intends that the addressee believe some statement to be true that the person believes to be false; the person intends that the addressee believe to be true the untruthful statement that is made to the addressee . If Maximilian is a crime boss, and Alessandro is one of his henchmen, whom he secretly believes is a police informant, and Maximilian makes the untruthful statement to Alessandro “There are no informants in my organization,” without the intention that Alessandro believe that statement to be true, but with the intention that Alessandro believe that Maximilian believes that statement to be true, then Maximilian is not lying according to L1 (Mahon 2008, 220). (Maximilian has, of course, attempted to deceive Alessandro). This conclusion has prompted some to revise L1 to include more than one intention to deceive.

According to the untruthfulness condition, it is sufficient for lying that the person who makes the untruthful statement intends that the addressee believe the untruthful statement to be true; it is not necessary that the addressee believe the untruthful statement to be true. That is, a lie remains a lie if it is disbelieved . If Sophie makes the untruthful statement to Nicole “I didn’t get any homework today,” with the intention that Nicole believe that statement to be true, and if Nicole does not believe that statement to be true, then Sophie is still lying. This is because ‘lie’ is not an achievement or success verb, and an act of lying is not a perlocutionary act. The existence of an act of lying does not depend upon the production of a particular response or state in the addressee (Mannison 1969, 135; Wood 1973: 199; MacCormick 1983, 9 n. 23; but see Reboul 1994). As it has been said, “It is very odd to think that whether a speaker lies hinges upon the persuasiveness of the speaker or the credulity of the listener” (Shiffrin 2014, 13).

Because L1 does not have an assertion condition, however, according to L1 it is possible to lie by making ironic statements, telling jokes, writing fiction, acting in a play, and so forth, if the person making the untruthful statement (somehow) intends that it be believed to be true, as in the case of the ‘irony lie’ above. Similarly, if someone intends to deceive using a joke—for example, if con artist David says “Yeah, I am a billionaire. That's why I am in this dive” to his mark, Greg, at a bar, intending that Greg believe that David is a billionaire who is attempting to to pass incognito in a bar—then this ‘joke lie’ is a lie according to L1. If a novelist were to write a novel with the intention that her audience believe that this was a true story disguised as a novel—a pretend roman à clef —then this ‘fiction lie’ would be a lie according to L1. If an actor in a play were to deliver an untruthful statement with the intention that his audience believe the statement to be true—say, if an an actor delivered a line about his life being too short with the intention that the audience believed that the actor was actually dying from some disease (“it is possible that the performance is part of an elaborate deception aimed at getting members of the audience to believe that the particular line from the play is actually true” (Fallis 2009, 56))—then this ‘acting lie’ would be a lie according to L1.

Two kinds of objections have been made to L1. First, objections have been made to each necessary condition, on the basis that it is not necessary for lying. According to these objections, L1 is too narrow. Second, objections have been made to the four necessary conditions being jointly sufficient for lying, on the basis that some further condition is necessary for lying. According to these objections, L1 is too broad.

1.5.1 Conditions Are Not Necessary

Against the statement condition of L1 it has been objected that the making of a statement is not necessary for lying. Lying to others may be defined as “ any form of behavior the function of which is to provide others with false information or to deprive them of true information” (Smith 2004, 14), or as “ a successful or unsuccessful deliberate attempt, without forewarning, to create in another a belief which the communicator considers to be untrue ” (Vrij 2000, 6). Importantly, this entails that lying can consist of simply withholding information with the intent to deceive, without making any statement at all (Ekman 1985, 28; Scott 2006, 4). Those who make this objection would make lying the same as intentionally deceiving (Ekman 1985, 26).

Against the untruthfulness condition of L1 it has been objected that an untruthful statement is not necessary for lying. This objection comes in a variety of forms. There are those who argue any statement made with an intention to deceive is a lie, including a truthful statement that is made with an intention to deceive (Barnes 1994, 11; Davidson 1980, 88). Lying may thus be defined as “any intentionally deceptive message that is stated ” (Bok 1978, 13). There are also those who, relying upon a Gricean account of conversational implicature (Grice 1989, 39)), argue that someone who makes a truthful statement but who thereby conversationally implicates a believed-false statement is lying (Meibauer 2011, 285; 2014a). Importantly, such an “untruthful implicature” (Dynel 2011, 159–160) is “directly intended” (Adler 1997, 446). Thirdly, there are those who argue for the possibility of “lying ironically” (Simpson 1992, 631), or indirect lying. If a speaker makes an ironic untruthful statement, then “Through this presentation of himself as insincerely asserting he presents himself as believing” the opposite of what he says, which is “capacity to… assert in-effect” (Simpson 1992, 630). If the person is “insincere in this” and actually does believe in the truth of what he states, despite invoking trust in his believing its opposite, then “this is a lie (an indirect lie, we might say)” (Simpson 1992, 630). For example, if a person who is listening to a sappy pop song at a party is asked if she likes this kind of music and replies, ironically, “Yeah, right, I love this kind of music,” then she is lying if she actually does love this kind of music (cf. Dynel 2011, 148–149).

Against the untruthfulness condition it has also been objected that it is not necessary for lying that the statement that is made is believed to be false; it is sufficient that the statement is not believed to be true , or is believed to be probably false (Carson 2006, 298; 2010, 18). As it has been claimed, “Agnostics about the truth of their assertions who nonetheless assert them without qualification tell lies” (Shiffrin 2014, 13).

Against the addressee condition of L1 it has been objected that it is sufficient for lying that the untruthful statement is made, even if it is made to no one — not even to oneself (Griffiths 2004, 31). Lying may thus be defined as “conscious expression of other than what we believe” (Shibles 1985, 33). It has also been objected that it is possible to lie to third parties who are not addressees. In general, it is possible to distinguish between cases where “the hearer eavesdrops , unbeknown to the first and second parties” ( eavesdropping ), cases where “the speaker utters p to the interlocutor while the hearer, with the awareness of both other parties, listens in and knows that the first- and second-party know he is listening in… although it is for the interlocutor that the utterance is intended” ( kibbitzing ), as well as cases similar to kibbitzing except that “the utterance is also intended for the hearer [who knows that they know that he is listening in]” ( disclosure ), and cases similar to disclosure “except that although the first and second parties know that the hearer is listening in, the hearer does not know that they are listening in” ( bogus disclosure ) (Newey 1997, 115). Even if it is not possible to lie to eavesdroppers, or to those merely listening in, as in the case of kibbitzing, it may be possible to lie in the cases of bogus disclosure, as in the example above of Mickey saying to Danny, “The pick-up is at midnight tomorrow,” with the intention of deceiving the F.B.I. agents listening in. It may even be possible to lie in the case of disclosure. In the 1978 thriller Capricorn One about a Mars landing hoax, during a nationally televised transmission between the astronauts ‘in space’ and their wives at the control center, which is being monitored closely by NASA handlers, Colonel Charles Brubaker tells his wife Kay to tell his son that “When I get back, I’m gonna take him to Yosemite again, like last summer.” In fact he brought his son to a different place the previous summer (Flatbush, where a movie was being shot), something that his wife knows. According to this objection, Brubaker is lying to his NASA handlers about what he did last summer, even if they are not his addressees.

Against the addressee condition it has also been objected that it is possible to lie to an animal, a robot, etc., as well as to what might be another person—for example, if a home owner, woken up in the middle of the night and wondering if there are burglars below the stairs, shouts down, “I’m bringing my rifle down there,” although he has no rifle (Chisholm and Feehan 1977, 157).

Against the intention to deceive the addressee condition of L1 it has been objected that, even if an intention to deceive the addressee is required for lying, it is not necessary that it be an intention to deceive the addressee about the content of the untruthful statement; it may be an intention to deceive the addressee about the beliefs of the speaker abut the statement—specifically, the belief that the untruthful statement is true (Chisholm and Feehan 1977, 152; Williams 2002, 74; Reboul 1994, 294; Mahon 2008, 220; Tollefsen 2014, 24).

There are at least two ways in which L1 could be modified in response to this objection. First, it could be held that what is essential to lying is the intention to deceive the hearer about the speaker’s belief that the untruthful statement is true: “ x utters a sentence, ‘ S ,’ where ‘ S ’ means that p , in doing which either x expresses his belief that p , or x intends the person addressed to take it that x believes that p ” (Williams 2002, 74) and “the speaker believes [ p ] to be false” (Williams 2002, 96–97). L1 could therefore be modified as follows:

• (L2) To lie = df to make a statement that p , where p is believed to be false, to another person, with the intention that the other person believe that p is believed to be true. (cf. Williams 2002, 74, 96–97)

Alternatively, L1 could be modified to incorporate either intention, as follows:

• (L3) To lie = df to make a believed-false statement (to another 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. (Mahon 2008, 227–228)

Against this condition it has also been argued that it is not necessary that it be an intention to deceive the addressee about either the content of the untruthful statement or about the beliefs of the speaker about the untruthful statement. It is sufficient that there is an intention to deceive about some matter—that is, it is sufficient that the speaker intend that the hearer believe to be true something that the speaker believes to be false. Note that those who make this objection would turn lying into any deception involving untruthful statements. If this objection were combined with the objection that lying could be directed to third parties (as in bogus disclosure, or disclosure), L1 could be modified, as follows:

• (L4) To lie = df to make a believed-false statement, to another person or in the believed hearing of another person, with the intention that some other person—the person addressed or the other person in the believed hearing—believe some believed-false statement to be true. (Newey 1997, 100)

Against this condition it has also been objected that although there is “a necessary relationship between lying and deception,” nevertheless this intention should be understood merely as the intention to be deceptive to another person, which is the intention “to conceal information ” from the other person (Lackey 2013, 5–7). According to this objection, concealing evidence, understood as hiding evidence or keeping evidence secret, counts as being deceptive to another person. L1 could be modified, as follows:

• (L5) x lies to y if and only if (i) x states that p to y , (ii) x believes that p is false and (iii) x intends to be deceptive to y in stating that p . (Lackey 2013, 237)

Finally, against this intention to deceive the addressee condition it has been objected that no intention to deceive is required for lying (Shibles 1985, 33; Kemp and Sullivan 1993, 153; Griffiths 2004, 31; Carson et al. 1982; Carson 1988; 2006; 2010; Sorensen 2007; 2010; 2011; Fallis, 2009; 2010; 2012; 2015; Saul, 2012a; 2012b; Stokke 2013a, 2013b; 2014; Shiffrin 2014). If the sworn-in witness in the trial of a violent criminal goes on the record and gives untruthful testimony—in order, for example, to avoid being killed by the defendant or any of his criminal associates—without any intention that that testimony be believed to be true by any person (not the jury, the judge, the lawyers, the journalists covering the trial, the people in the gallery, the readers of the newspaper reports, etc.), then the witness is still lying (but see Jones 1986). Such non-deceptive lies are lies according to this objection (but see Lackey 2013 for the argument that these lies are intentionally deceptive, and Fallis 2015 for the argument that they are not intentionally deceptive).

1.5.2 Conditions Are Not Jointly Sufficient

It has been objected that L1 is not sufficient for lying because it is also necessary that the untruthful statement be false (Coleman and Kay 1981, 28; OED , 1989; Moore 2000). This is the falsity condition for lying (Grimaltos and Rosell forthcoming, see Other Internet Resources). For most objectors the falsity condition supplements L1 and makes this definition of lying even narrower (e.g., Coleman and Kay 1981). For other objectors the falsity condition is part of a different definition of lying, and makes that definition narrower (Carson 2006, 284; 2010, 17; Saul 2012b, 6).

It has been objected that L1 is not sufficient for lying because it is also necessary to intend that that other person believe that that statement is believed to be true (Frankfurt 1999, 96; Simpson 1992, 625; Faulkner 2007, 527). If Harry makes the untruthful statement “I have no change in my pocket” to Michael, but Harry does not intend that Michael believe that Harry believes it to be true, then Harry is not lying to Michael, even if Harry intends that Michael believe it to be true (Frankfurt 1986, 85; 1999, 96). This additional condition would make L1 even narrower, since it would have the result that Maximilian is not lying to Alessandro in the example above.

Finally, it has been objected that L1 is insufficient because lying requires that an untruthful assertion be made, and not merely that an untruthful statement be made. This is the assertion condition for lying. According to this objection, one is not lying when one makes a deceptive untruthful ironic statement (‘irony lie’), or a deceptive untruthful joke (‘joke lie’), or a deceptive untruthful fiction (‘fiction lie’), or deceptive untruthful acting (‘acting life’), since in none of these cases is one making an assertion. For most objectors the assertion condition supplements L1 and makes L1 even narrower (Chisholm and Feehan 1977; Fried 1978; Simpson 1992; Williams 2002; Faulkner 2007). For others the assertion condition is part of a different definition of lying, and makes that definition narrower (Sorensen 2007; Fallis 2009; Stokke 2013a).

The most important objection to L1 is that lying does not require an intention to deceive. This has led to a division amongst those writing on the definition of lying.

2. Deceptionism vs. Non-Deceptionism About Lying

There are two positions held by those who write on the definition of lying: Deceptionism and Non-Deceptionism (Mahon 2014). The first group, Deceptionists, hold that an intention to deceive is necessary for lying. Deceptionists may be divided further in turn into Simple Deceptionists, who hold that lying requires the making of an untruthful statement with an intention to deceive; Complex Deceptionists, who hold that lying requires the making of an untruthful assertion with the intention to deceive by means of a breach of trust or faith; and Moral Deceptionists, who hold that lying requires the making of an untruthful statement with the intention to deceive, as well as the violation of a moral right of another or the moral wronging of another. The second group, Non-Deceptionists, hold that an intention to deceive is not necessary for lying. They see the traditional definition as both incorrect and insufficient. Non-Deceptionists may be further divided into Simple Non-Deceptionists, who hold that the making of an untruthful statement is sufficient for lying, and Complex Non-Deceptionists, who hold that a further condition, in addition to making an untruthful statement, is required for lying. Some Complex Non-Deceptionists hold that lying requires warranting the truth of what is stated, and other Complex Non-Deceptionists hold that lying requires the making of an untruthful assertion.

Simple Deceptionists include those who defend L1 (Isenberg 1973; Primoratz 1984) as well as those who defend the modified versions of this definition: L2 (Williams 2002), L3 (Mahon 2008), L4 (Newey 1997), and L5 (Lackey 2013). For Simple Deceptionists, lying requires the making of an untruthful statement with an intention to deceive, but it does not require the making of an assertion or a breach of trust or faith.

Complex Deceptionists hold that, in addition to requiring an intention to deceive, lying requires the making of an untruthful assertion , as well as (or which therefore entails) a breach of trust or faith . Roderick Chisholm and Thomas Feehan hold that one is only making an assertion to another person if one makes a statement to another person and one believes that the conditions are such that the other person is justified in believing both that one believes one’s statement to be true and that one intends that the other person believe that one believes one’s statement to be true: “ x asserts p to y = df x states p to y and does so under conditions which, he believes, justify y in believing that he, x , not only accepts p , but also intends to contribute causally to y ’s believing that he, x , accepts p ” (Chisholm and Feehan 1977, 152).

A lie is an untruthful assertion, that is, the speaker believes the statement that is made is not true , or is false :

x lies to y = df There is a proposition p such that (i) either x believes that p is not true or x believes that p is false and (ii) x asserts p to y . (Chisholm and Feehan 1977, 152)

In the case of a lie, the speaker is attempting to get the hearer to believe a falsehood. Note, however, that this falsehood is not (normally) what the speaker is stating. Rather, the falsehood that the speaker is attempting to get the hearer to believe is that the speaker believes the statement to be true . This is the intention to deceive in lying (although, strictly speaking, deception is foreseen and not intended (“Essentially, under this definition, you are only lying if you expect that you will be successful in deceiving someone about what you believe” (Fallis 2009, 45)).

The speaker is also attempting to get the hearer to have this false belief about what the speaker believes “in a special way—by getting his victim to place his faith in him” (Chisholm and Feehan 1977, 149). This is the breach of trust or breach of faith in lying: “Lying, unlike the other types of deception, is essentially a breach of faith” (Chisholm and Feehan 1977, 153). Their complete definition of a lie may be stated as follows:

• (L6) To lie = df to (i) make a believed-false or believed-not-true statement to another person; (ii) believe that the conditions are such that the other person is justified in believing that the statement is believed to be true by the person making the statement; (iii) believe that the conditions are such that the other person is justified in believing that the person making the statement intends to contribute causally to the other person believing that the statement is believed to be true by the person making the statement. (Chisholm and Feehan 1977; cf. Guenin 2005)

According to L6 it not possible to lie if the speaker believes that the conditions are such that the hearer is not justified in believing that the speaker is making a truthful statement. Kant provides an example in which a thief grabs a victim by the throat and asks him where he keeps his money. If the victim were to make the untruthful statement, “I have no money,” Kant says that this is not a lie, “for the other knows that… he also has no right whatever to demand the truth from me” (Kant 1997, 203; but see Mahon 2009). Chisholm and Feehan hold that the victim is not making an assertion, and hence, is not lying, given that the victim believes that the thief is not justified in believing that the victim is being truthful (Chisholm and Feehan 1977, 154–155; but see Strudler 2009 (cf. Strudler 2005; 2010), for the argument that the thief can believe that the victim is credible, even if not trustworthy, because he is motivated by the threat of violence).

Charles Fried also holds that lying requires an assertion and a breach of faith, but he rejects L6, arguing that it is possible for the victim to lie to the thief in Kant’s example (Fried 1978, 55 n1). According to him, making an assertion involves making a statement and intending to cause belief in the truth of that statement by giving an implicit “warranty”or an implicit “ promise or assurance that the statement is true” (Fried 1978, 57). When one asserts, one intends to “invite belief, and not belief based on the evidence of the statement so much as on the faith of the statement” (Fried 1978, 56). A lie is an untruthful assertion. The speaker intends to cause belief in the truth of a statement that the speaker believes to be false. Hence, a lie involves an intention to deceive. The speaker also implicitly assures or promises the hearer that the statement that is made is true. Hence, the speaker is giving an insincere assurance, or breaking a promise— “in lying the promise is made and broken at the same moment”— and every lie involves a “breach of trust” (Fried 1978, 67).

Fried’s definition of lying may be stated as follows (modified to include cases in which speakers only intend to deceive about their beliefs):

• (L7) To lie = df to (i) make a believed-false statement to another person; (ii) intend that that other person believe that the statement is true [and that the statement is believed to be true] [or intend that the other person believe that the statement is believed to be true]; (iii) implicitly assure the other person that the statement is true; (iv) intend that that other person believe that the statement is true [and that the statement is believed to be true] [or intend that the other person believe that the statement is believed to be true] on the basis of this implicit assurance. (Fried 1978)

David Simpson also holds that lying requires an assertion and a breach of faith. In asserting “we present ourselves as believing something while and through invoking (although not necessarily gaining) the trust of the one” to whom we assert (Simpson 1992, 625). This “invocation of trust occurs through an act of ‘open sincerity’” according to which “we attempt to establish… both that we believe some proposition and that we intend them to realize that we believe it” (Simpson 1992, 625). Lying is “insincere assertion” in the sense that “the asserter’s requisite belief is missing” (Simpson 1992, 625). This entails that someone who lies aims to deceive in three ways. First, “we have the intention that someone be in error regarding some matter, as we see the fact of the matter” (Simpson 1992, 624). This is the “primary deceptive intention” (Simpson 1992, 624). Second, we intend to deceive the other person “regarding our belief regarding that matter… We don’t lie about this belief, but we intend to deceive regarding it” (Simpson 1992, 624). We intend that they be deceived, about whatever matter it is, on the basis of their being deceived about our belief in this matter. Finally, someone who lies “insincerely invokes trust” (Simpson 1992, 625). We intend that they be deceived about our belief in this matter on the basis of this insincere invocation of trust. Other forms of intended deception that are not lies do not attempt to deceive “by way of a trust invoked through an open sincerity” (Simpson 1992, 626). This is what makes lies special: “it involves a certain sort of betrayal” (Simpson 1992, 626).

Since it is possible to lie without having the primary deceptive intention, Simpson’s definition needs to be modified accordingly:

• (L8) To lie = df to: (i) make a statement to another person; (ii) lack belief in the truth of the statement; (iii) intend that the other person believe: (a) that the statement is true and that the statement is believed to be true [or (b) that the statement is believed to be true]; (iv) intend that the other person believe: (c) that it is intended that the other person believe that the statement is true; (d) that it is intended that the other person believe that the statement is believed to be true; (v) invoke trust in the other person that the statement is believed to be true by means of an act of ‘open sincerity’; (vi) intend that the other person believe (a), or (b), on the basis of (v). (Simpson 1992)

Paul Faulkner holds that lying necessarily involves telling someone something, which necessarily involves invoking trust. He distinguishes between telling and making an assertion, and argues that in certain cases the implication of my assertion “is sufficiently clear that I can be said to have told you this” (Faulkner 2013, 3102) even if I did not assert this. He defines telling as follows: “ x tells y that p if and only if (i) x intends that y believe that p , and (ii) x intends that y believe that p because y recognizes that (i)” (Faulkner 2013, 3103). In telling another person something, the speaker intends that the hearer believe what she is stating or implying, but she intends that the hearer believe what she is stating or implying for the reason that “ y [the hearer] believes x [the speaker]” (Faulkner 2013, 3102). It follows that tellings “operate by invoking an audience’s trust” (Faulkner 2013, 3103). In lying, the speaker intends that the hearer believe what she is stating or implying on the basis of trust: “In lying, a speaker does not intend his audience accept his lie because of independent evidence but intends his audience accept his lie because of his telling it . The motivation for presenting his assertion as sincere is to thereby ensure that an audience treats his intention that the audience believe that p as a reason for believing that p ” (Faulkner, 2007, 527) A lie is an untruthful telling. The speaker believes that what she asserts or implies is false, she intends that the hearer believe that what she states or implies is true, she intends that the hearer believe that she intends this, and she intends that this be the reason that the hearer believes that what she states or implies is true: “ x ’s utterance U to y is a lie if and only if (i) in uttering U , x tells y that p , and (ii) x believes that p is false” (Faulkner 2013, 3103).

Faulkner’s definition of lying also needs to be modified to include cases in which speakers only intend to deceive about their beliefs:

• (L9) To lie = df to (i) utter some proposition to another person; (ii) believe that the proposition is false; (iii) intend that the other person believe that the proposition is true and is believed to be true [or intend that the other person believe that the proposition is believed to be true]; (iv) intend that the other person believe that it is intended that the other person believe that the proposition is true; (v) intend that the other person believe that the proposition is true and is believed to be true [or intend that the other person believe that the proposition is believed to be true] for the reason that it is intended that the other person believe that the proposition is true. (Faulkner 2007; 2013)

It is an implication of Complex Deceptionist definitions of lying that certain cases of putative lies are not lies because no assertion is made. Consider the following case of an (attempted) confidence trick double bluff (Newey 1997, 98). Sarah, with collaborator Charlie, wants to play a confidence trick on Andrew. She wants Andrew to buy shares in Cadbury. She decides to deceive Andrew into thinking that Kraft is planning a takeover bid for Cadbury. Sarah knows that Andrew distrusts her. If she tells him that Kraft is planning a takeover bid for Cadbury, he will not believe her. If she tells him that there is no takeover bid, in an (attempted) double bluff, he might believe the opposite of what she says, and so be deceived. But this simple double bluff is too risky on its own. So Sarah gets Charlie, whom Andrew trusts, to lie to him that Kraft is about to launch a takeover bid for Cadbury. She also gets Charlie to tell Andrew that she believes that it is false that Kraft is about to launch a takeover bid for Cadbury. Sarah then goes to Andrew, and tells him, “Kraft is about to launch a takeover bid for Cadbury.” She does not intend that Andrew believe that she believes that Kraft is about to launch a takeover bid for Cadbury. However, she intends that he believe that she is mistaken, and that in fact Kraft is about to launch a takeover bid for Cadbury. As a result, he will be deceived.

According to L6, L7, L8, and L9, Sarah is not lying, because she is not asserting anything. According to Simpson, for example, Sarah would only be “ pretending to invoke trust” (Simpson 1992, 628), and would not be invoking trust. In such a case, the speaker intends to represent himself as “ intending to represent himself as believing what he does not” (Simpson 1992, 628). In order to lie, “one must pretend sincerity, but also act on an intention that this sincerity be accepted—otherwise one is pretending to lie, and not lying” (Simpson 1992, 629). Sarah would be merely pretending to lie to Andrew, in order to deceive him.

Another case of a putative lie that is not a lie according to Complex Deceptionist definitions of lying is a triple bluff (cf. Faulkner 2007, 527). Imagine an even more devious Pavel, from the example above, telling an openly distrustful Trofim, in response to Trofim's question, that he is going to “Pinsk.” He is actually going to Minsk, but he answers“Pinsk” in order to have Trofim believe that he is attempting a double bluff. If it works, Trofim will respond by telling him “Liar! You say you are going to Pinsk in order to make me believe you are going to Minsk. But I know you are going to Pinsk.” According to L6, L7, L8, and L9, Pavel is not lying to Trofim. He is pretending to attempt to deceive him with a double bluff, in order to actually attempt to deceive him with a triple bluff. At no point is he invoking trust, and breaching that trust.

Moral Deceptionists hold that in addition to making an untruthful statement with an intention to deceive, lying requires the violation of a moral right of another, or the moral wronging of another.

According to Chisholm and Feehan, every lie is a violation of the right of a hearer, since “It is assumed that, if a person x asserts a proposition p to another person y , then y has the right to expect that x himself believes p . And it is assumed that x knows, or at least that he ought to know, that, if he asserts p to y , while believing himself that p is not true, then he violates this right of y ’s” (Chisholm and Feehan 1977, 153, [variables have been changed for uniformity]). Nevertheless, it is not part of their definition of lying that lying involves the violation of the right of another person. According to most philosophers, the claim that lying is (either defeasibly or non-defeasibly) morally wrong is “a synthetic judgment and not an analytic one” (Kemp and Sullivan 1993, 153). However, ‘lie’ is considered by some philosophers to be a thick ethical term that it both describes a type of action and morally evaluates that type of action negatively (Williams 1985, 140). For some philosophers, “the wrongfulness of lying is… built into the definition of the term” (Kemp and Sullivan 1993, 153). For these philosophers, the claim that lying is (either defeasibly or non-defeasibly) morally wrong is a tautology (Margolis 1962).

According to Hugo Grotius, it is part of the meaning of ‘lie’ when it is “strictly taken” that it involves “the Violation of a Real right” of the person lied to, namely, “the Freedom of him… to judge” (Grotius 2005, 1212). One can only lie to someone who possesses this right to exercise liberty of judgment. Grotius’s definition of lying is therefore as follows (modified accordingly):

• (L10) To lie = df to make a believed-false statement to another person, with the intention that that other person believe that statement to be true (or believe that the statement is believed to be true, or both), violating that person’s right to exercise liberty of judgment. (Grotius 2005)

According to L10, one cannot lie to “Children or Madmen,” for example, since they lack the right of liberty of judgment (Grotius 2005, 1212). One cannot lie to someone who has given “express Consent” to be told untruths, since he has given up the right to exercise his liberty of judgment about these matters (Grotius 2005, 1214). One cannot lie to someone who by “tacit Consent” or presumed consent “founded upon just Reason” has given up the right to exercise his liberty of judgment about some matter, “on account of the Advantage, that he shall get by it,” such as when “a Person… comforts his sick Friend, by making him believe what is false,” since “ no Wrong is done to him that is willing ” (Grotius 2005, 1215–1217). Furthermore, “he who has an absolute Right over all the Rights of another,” is not lying when he “makes use of that Right, in telling something false, either for his particular Advantage, or for the publick Good” (Grotius 2005, 1216–1218). The right to exercise one’s liberty of judgment can also be taken away in cases “When the life of an innocent Person, or something equal to it,” is at stake, or when “the Execution of a dishonest Act be otherwise prevented” (Grotius 2005, 1221). In such a case, the person has forfeited his right, and “speaking falsely to those—like thieves—to whom truthfulness is not owed cannot be called lying” (Bok 1978, 14).

Alan Donagan also incorporates moral conditions into his definition of lying (modified to include cases in which speakers only intend to deceive about their beliefs):

• (L11) To lie = df to freely make a believed-false statement to another fully responsible and rational person, with the intention that that other person believe that statement to be true [or the intention that that other person believe that that statement is believed to be true, or both]. (Donagan 1977)

According to L11, it is not possible to lie to “children, madmen, or those whose minds have been impaired by age or illness” (Donagan 1977, 89), since they are not fully responsible and rational persons. It is also not possible to lie to “a would-be murderer who threatens your life if you will not tell him where his quarry has gone” (Donagan 1977, 89), and in general when you are acting under duress in any way (such as a witness in fear of his life on the witness stand, or a victim being robbed by a thief), since statements made in such circumstances are not freely made.

It has been objected that these moral deceptionist definitions are unduly narrow and restrictive (Bok 1978). Surely, for example, it is possible to lie to a would-be murderer, whether it is impermissible, as some absolutist deontologists maintain (Augustine 1952; Aquinas 1972 (cf. MacIntyre 1995b); Kant 1996 (cf. Mahon 2006); Newman 1880; Geach 1977; Betz 1985; Pruss 1999; Tollefsen 2014), or permissible (i.e., either optional or obligatory), as consequentialists and moderate deontologists maintain (Constant 1964; Mill 1863; Sidgwick 1981; Bok 1978; MacIntyre 1995a; cf. Kagan 1998).

It has also been objected that these moral deceptionist definitions are morally lax (Kemp and Sullivan 1993, 158–9). By rendering certain deceptive untruthful statements to others as non- lies, they make it permissible to act in a way that would otherwise be open to moral censure. In general, even those philosophers who hold that all lies have an inherent negative weight, albeit such that it can be overridden, and hence, who hold that lying is defeasibly morally wrong, do not incorporate moral necessary conditions into their definitions of lying (Bok 1978; Kupfer 1982; cf. Wiles 1988).

Non-Deceptionists hold that an intention to deceive is not necessary for lying.

For Simple Non-Deceptionists (Augustine 1952 (cf. Griffiths 2003, 31); Aquinas 1952; Shibles 1985), there is nothing more to lying than making an untruthful statement. According to Aquinas, for example, a jocose lie is a lie. This position is not defended by contemporary philosophers.

For Complex Non-Deceptionists, untruthfulness is not sufficient for lying. In order to differentiate lying from telling jokes, being ironic, acting, etc., a further condition must be met. For some Complex Non-Deceptionists, that further condition is warranting the truth of the untruthful statement. For other Complex Non-Deceptionists, that condition is making an assertion.

Thomas Carson holds that it is possible to lie by making a false and untruthful statement to an addressee without intending to deceive the addressee, so long as the statement is made in a context such that one “warrants the truth” of the statement (and one does not believe oneself to be not warranting the truth of the statement), or one intends to warrant the truth of the statement:

• (L12) A person x tells a lie to another person y iff (i) x makes a false statement p to y , (ii) x believes that p is false or probably false (or, alternatively, x does not believe that p is true), (iii) x states p in a context in which x thereby warrants the truth of p to y , and (iv) x does not take herself to be not warranting the truth of what she says to y . (Carson 2006, 298; 2010, 30)
• (L13) A person x tells a lie to another person y iff (i) x makes a false statement p to y , (ii) x believes that p is false or probably false (or, alternatively, x does not believe that p is true), and (iii) x intends to warrant the truth of p to y . (Carson 2010, 37)

Carson includes the falsity condition in both of his definitions; however, he is prepared to modify both definitions so that the falsity condition is not required (Carson 2010, 39). He also holds that the untruthfulness condition is not stringent enough, since, if a speaker simply does “not believe” her statement to be true (but does not believe it to be false), or believes that her statement is “probably false” (but does not believe it to be false), then she is lying.

Carson gives two examples of non-deceptive lies: a guilty student who tells a college dean that he did not cheat on an examination, without intending that the dean believe him (since “he is really hard-boiled, he may take pleasure in thinking that the Dean knows he is guilty”), because he knows that the dean’s policy is not to punish a student for cheating unless the student admits to cheating, and a witness who provides untruthful (and false) testimony about a defendant, where there is a preponderance of evidence against the defendant, without the intention that the testimony be believed by anyone, in order to avoid suffering retaliation from the defendant and/or his henchmen (Carson 2006, 289; 2010, 21). Neither person is lying according to the definitions of lying of Simple Deceptionists (L1, L2, L3, L4, and L5) or Complex Deceptionists (L6, L7, L8, and L9) (cf. Simpson 1992, 631) or Moral Deceptionists (L10, L11). Both are lying according to L12 and L13, because each warrants the truth of his statement, even though neither intends to deceive his addressee.

It has been argued that the witness and the student do have an intention to deceive (Meibauer 2011, 282; 2014a, 105). It has also been argued that they are being deceptive, even if they lack an intention that their untruthful statements be believed to be true (Lackey 2013; but see Fallis 2015). However, it has also been argued that they fail to warrant the truth of their statements, and hence fail to be lying according to L12 and L13. One argument is that, in the witness example, the statement is coerced, and “Coerced speech acts are not genuinely assertoric” (Leland 2013, 3; cf. Kenyon 2010). “In the context of a threat of violent death, the mere fact that he is speaking under oath is not sufficient to institute an ordinary warranting context” (Leland 2013, 4). Another argument is that the witness and the student are not warranting the truth of their statements because they believe that their audiences believe that they are being untruthful.

Carson has said that “If one warrants the truth of a statement, then one promises or guarantees, ether explicitly or implicitly, that what one says is true” (Carson 2010, 26) and “Warranting the truth of a statement presupposes that the statement is being used to invite or influence belief. It does not make sense for one to guarantee the truth of something that one is not inviting or influencing others to believe” (Carson 2010, 36). The result is that to lie is to breach trust: “To lie, on my view, is to invite others to trust and rely on what one says by warranting its truth, but, at the same time, to betray that trust by making false statements that one does not believe” (Carson 2010, 34). The combination of warranting the truth of one’s statement and breaching trust would appear to make Carson’s definition of lying similar to that of Complex Deceptionists such as Chisholm and Feehan. It would also appear to produce similar results. For example, Carson says the following about negotiators:

In the US, it is common and often a matter of course for people to deliberately misstate their bargaining positions during negotiations. Such statements are lies according to standard dictionary definitions of lying—they are intentional false statements intended to deceive others. However, given my first definition of lying [L12], such cases are not lies unless the negotiator warrants the truth of what he says… Suppose that two “hardened” cynical negotiators who routinely misstate their intentions, and do not object when others do this to them, negotiate with each other. Each person recognizes that the other party is a cynical negotiator, and each is aware of the fact that the other party knows this. In this sort of case, statements about one’s minimum or maximum price are not warranted to be true. (Carson 2010, 191)

If a negotiator makes an untruthful statement, “That is the highest I can go,” to another negotiator, then, since the negotiator believes that the other negotiator believes that he is making an untruthful statement, he cannot intend to warrant the truth of his statement, and/or the context (of negotiation) is such that he is not warranting the truth of his statement. As a result, he is is not lying, according to L12. He is not lying according to L13, either, at least if it is true that you cannot “intend to do something that you do not expect to succeed at” (Fallis 2009, 43 n 48; cf. Newey 1997, 96–97).

It seems that the same thing can be said about the student and the witness. If the student believes that the dean already knows he is guilty, and if the witness believes that the jury, etc., already knows that the defendant is guilty, then it seems that neither can intend to warrant the truth of his statement, and/or the context is such that neither is warranting the truth of his statement. If this is so, then neither is lying according to L12 and L13. Carson has said, about their Complex Deceptionist definition of lying, “Chisholm and Feehan’s definition has the very odd and unacceptable result that a notoriously dishonest person cannot lie to people who he knows distrust him” (Carson 2010, 23). It does seem, however, that Carson’s definition has the same result.

Jennifer Saul also holds that it is possible to lie without intending to deceive. She has provided a modified version of L12 that combines the warranting context condition, and the not believing that one is not warranting condition, in the single condition of believing that one is in a warranting context :

• (L14) If the speaker is not the victim of linguistic error/malapropism or using metaphor, hyperbole, or irony, then they lie iff (i) they say that p ; (ii) they believe p to be false; (iii) they take themselves to be in a warranting context. (Saul 2012, 3)

According to Saul, it is not possible to lie if one does not believe that one is in a warranting context. Saul considers the case of a putative lie told in a totalitarian state: “This is the case of utterances demanded by a totalitarian state. These utterances of sentences supporting the state are made by people who don’t believe them, to people who don’t believe them. Everyone knows that false things are being said, and that they are only being said only because they are required by the state. […] It seems somewhat reasonable to suggest that, since everyone is forced to make these false utterances, and everyone knows they are false, they cease to be genuine lies” (Saul 2012, 9). Saul adds that “People living in a totalitarian state, making pro-state utterances, are a trickier case (which they should be). Whether or not their utterances are made in contexts where a warrant of truth is present is not at all clear” (Saul 2012, 11). If a speaker is making an untruthful statement to a hearer, and “Everyone knows that false things are being said,” that is, the speaker knows that the hearer knows that the speaker is being untruthful, then the speaker does not believe that she is in a warranting context. According to L14, the speaker is not lying. However, it is arguable that in both the student and the witness cases, “Everyone knows that false things are being said,” and hence, that the speaker does not believe that he is in a warranting context. If this is so, then according to L14, neither the student nor the witness is lying.

Roy Sorensen agrees with Carson that lying does not require an intention to deceive, and that there can be non-deceptive “bald-faced” lies (Sorensen 2007) and “knowledge-lies” (Sorensen 2010). However, he rejects L12, since it entails that one cannot lie when the falsity of what one is stating is common knowledge: “Carson’s definition of lying does not relieve the narrowness. The concept of warrant is not broad enough to explain how we can lie in the face of common knowledge. One can warrant p only if p might be the case. When the falsehood of p is common knowledge, no party to the common knowledge can warrant p because p is epistemically impossible” (Carson 2007, 254). According to Sorensen, a negotiator who tells “a falsehood that will lead to better coordination between buyer and seller” is telling a bald-faced lie (Sorensen 2007, 262).

Sorensen defines lying as follows: “Lying is just asserting what one does not believe” (Sorensen 2007, 256). It is a condition on telling a lie that one makes an assertion. Sorensen differentiates between assertions and non-assertions according to “narrow plausibility”: “To qualify as an assertion, a lie must have narrow plausibility. Thus, someone who only had access to the assertion might believe it. This is the grain of truth behind ‘Lying requires the intention to deceive.’ Bald-faced lies show that assertions do not need to meet a requirement of wide plausibility, that is, credibility relative to one’s total evidence” (Sorensen 2007, 255).

Sorensen provides, as examples of assertions, and hence, lies, the servant of a maestro telling an unwanted female caller that the sounds she hears over the phone are not the maestro and that the servant is merely “dusting the piano keys,” and a doctor in an Iraqi hospital during the Iraq war telling a journalist who can see patients in the ward in uniforms that “I see no uniforms” (Sorensen 2007, 253). The claim that these are assertions, however, and therefore lies, is controversial (cf. Keiser 2015). These statements neither express the speaker’s belief, nor aim to affect the belief of the addressee in any way, since their falsehood is common knowledge (cf. Williams 2002, 74). As it has been said: “Sorensen does not offer a definition of asserting a proposition (with necessary and sufficient conditions)… To the extent that he does not fully analyze the concept of assertion, Sorensen’s definition of lying is unclear” (Carson 2010, 36). It may be argued against Sorensen that the “utterances in question are not assertions” (Keiser 2015, 12), and hence, on his own account, fail to be lies.

Don Fallis also holds that it is possible to lie without intending to deceive. He has also defended the assertion condition for lying: “you lie when you assert something that you believe to be false” (Fallis 2009, 33). He has held that you assert something when you you make a statement and you believe that you are in a situation in which the Gricean norm of conversation, ‘Do not say what you believe to be false,’ is in effect. His definition of lying was thus as follows:

You lie to x if and only if (i) you state that p to x , (2) you believe that you make this statement in a context where the following norm of conversation is in effect: Do not make statements that you believe to be false, and (iii) you believe that p is false. (Fallis 2009, 34).

Counterexamples to this definition (Pruss 2012; Faulkner 2013; Stokke 2013a) have prompted a revision of this definition in order to accommodate these counterexamples:

• (L15) You lie if and only if you say that p , you believe that p is false (or at least that p will be false if you succeed in communicating that p ), and you intend to violate the norm of conversation against communicating something false by communicating that p (Fallis 2012, 569)
• (L16) You lie if and only if you say that p , you believe that p is false (or at least that p will be false if you succeed in communicating that p ), and you intend to communicate something false by communicating that p . (Fallis 2012, 569)

Both L15 and L16 are able to accommodate the following counterexample to the earlier definition: “when Marc Antony said to the Roman people, ‘Brutus is an honorable man’ … the citizens of Rome know that (a) Antony did not believe that Brutus was an honorable man, that (b) Antony was subject to a norm against saying things that he believed to be false, and that (c) Antony had been a cooperative participant in the conversation so far. Thus, they were led to conclude that Antony was flouting the norm in order to communicate something other than what he literally uttered. In fact, the best explanation of his statement was that he wanted to communicate the exact opposite of what he literally uttered” (Fallis 2012, 567). Since Antony does not intend to violate the norm of conversation against communicating something that he believes to be false (that Brutus is an honorable man) by saying “Brutus is an honorable man,” or, more simply, since Antony does not intend to communicate something false with his untruthful statement, it follows that Antony is not lying. However, in the case of a guilty witness, Tony, against whom there is overwhelming evidence, who says “I did not do it,” without the intention that anyone believe him, he does intend to violate the norm of conversation against communicating something that he believes to be false (that he did not do it) by saying “I did not do it,” or, more simply, he does intend to communicate something believed-false with his untruthful statement, even though he does not intend that anyone believe this.

It has been contended that non-deceptive liars do not intend to communicate anything believed-false with their untruthful statements, and, indeed, may even intend to communicate something believed-true with their untruthful statements (Dynel 2011, 151). Fallis rejects the claim that non-deceptive liars do not intend to communicate anything believed-false, even if they intend to communicate something believed-true:

Bald-faced liars might want to communicate something true. For instance, Tony may be trying to communicate to the police that that they will never convict him. But that does not mean that he does not also intend to communicate something false in violation of the norm. He wants what he actually said to be understood and accepted for purposes of the conversation. It is not as if “I did not do it” is simply a euphemism for “You’ll never take me alive, coppers!” (Fallis 2012, 572 n 24)

However, in the case of polite untruths, such as “Madam is not at home,” the untruthful statement is simply a euphemism: “For example, the words ”She is not at home,“ delivered by a servant or a relative at the door, have become a mere euphemism for indisposition or disinclination” (Isenberg 1973, 256). In the case of polite untruths, it seems, there is no intention to communicate anything believed-false. In the case of the servant who tells the female caller, “I’m dusting the piano keys,” or the Iraqi doctor who tells the journalist “I see no uniforms,” or the negotiator who tells the other negotiator “That is the highest I can go,” or the person living in the totalitarian state who makes the pro-state utterance, it is also arguable that there is no intention to communicate anything believed-false. If this is true, then there is some support for the claim that non-deceptive liars do not intend to communicate anything believed-false with their untruthful statements, and hence, that they are not lying according to L15 or L16.

Andreas Stokke also holds that it is possible to lie without intending to deceive. He has also defended the assertion condition for lying: “you lie when you assert something you believe to be false” (Stokke 2013a, 33). According to Stokke, to “assert that p is to say that p and thereby propose that p become common ground” (Stokke 2013a, 47). A proposition, p , becomes common ground in a group “if all members accept (for the purpose of the conversation) that p , and all believe that all believe that all accept that p , etc.” (Stokke 2013a, 49, quoting Stalnaker 2002, 716). Stokke thus defines lying as follows:

• (L17) x lies to y if and only if … x says that p to y , and … x proposes that p become common ground, and … x believes that p is false. (Stokke 2013a, 49)

In the case of a speaker making an ironic untruthful statement, the speaker does not propose that the believed-false proposition (e.g., “Brutus is an honorable man”) become common ground (Stokke 2013a, 50). However, in the case of a non-deceptive liar, the speaker does propose that the believed-false proposition (e.g., “I did not cheat”) become common ground (Stokke 2013a, 52). The fact that in the case of a non-deceptive lie it is common knowledge that what the speaker is saying is (believed to be) false does not alter the fact that the speaker is proposing that the believed-falsehood become common ground. Indeed, even if the (believed) truth is initially common ground, before the speaker proposes that the believed-falsehood become common ground, it is still the case that the non-deceptive liar is proposing to “update the common ground with her utterance” (Stokke 2013a, 54). For example, in the case of the student and the dean, “The student wants herself and the Dean to mutually accept that she did not plagiarize” (Stokke 2013a, 54).

It is possible to argue that Stokke’s account of assertion, and hence L17, is faced with a dilemma when it comes to non-deceptive lies. Either, in the case of a non-deceptive lie, the speaker does propose that the believed-false proposition become common ground, but becoming common ground is too weak to count as asserting, or becoming common ground is strong enough to count as asserting, but, in the case of a non-deceptive lie, the speaker does not propose that the believed-false proposition become common ground. Stokke considers Stalnaker’s example of a guest at a party saying to another guest, “The man drinking a martini is a philosopher,” and of the two guests proceeding to talk about the philosopher, when it is common knowledge that the drink in question is not a martini. About this example Stalnaker says: “perhaps it is mutually recognized that it is not a martini, but mutually recognized that both parties are accepting that it is a martini. The pretense will be rational if accepting the false presupposition is an efficient way to communicate something true” (Stalnaker 2002, 718). However, if proposing that a believed-false proposition become common ground can mean engaging in and sustaining a “pretence,” possibly in order to communicate truths, then it is not clear that this counts as making an assertion (cf. Keiser 2015). Hence, a non-deceptive liar may be proposing that her believed-false proposition become common ground without this being an act of making an assertion. But this means that she is not lying, according to L17. Alternatively, if proposing that a believed-false proposition become common ground means something more than this, such that the speaker intends or wants herself and her hearer “to mutually accept” her believed-false proposition, then it is not clear that a non-deceptive liar intends or wants this. If this is correct, then non-deceptive lies fail to be lies according to L17.

3. Traditional Definition of Deception

The dictionary definition of deception is as follows: “To cause to believe what is false” ( OED 1989). There are several problems with this definition, however (Barnes 1997; Mahon 2007; Carson 2010). The principal problem is that it is too broad in scope. On this definition, mere appearances can deceive, such as when a white object looks red in a certain light (Faulkner, 2013). Furthermore, it is possible for people to inadvertently deceive others. If Steffi believes that there is a talk on David Lewis and the Christians on Friday, and she tells Paul that “There is a talk on Lewis and the Christians on Friday,” and as a result Paul believes that there is a talk on C. S. Lewis and the Christians on Friday, then Steffi has deceived Paul. Also, it is possible for people to mistakenly deceive other people. If Steffi mistakenly believes that there is not a philosophy talk on Friday, and she tells Paul that there is not a philosophy talk on Friday, and he believes her, then then Steffi has deceived Paul.

Although some philosophers hold that deceiving may be inadvertent or mistaken (Demos 1960; Fuller 1976; Chisholm and Feehan 1977; Adler 1997; Gert 2005), many philosophers have argued that it is not possible to deceive inadvertently or mistakenly (Linsky 1970; van Horne 1981; Barnes 1997; Carson 2010; Saul 2012; Faulkner 2013). They hold that deception, like lying, is intentional . They reserve term “mislead” to cover cases of causing false beliefs either intentionally or unintentionally (Carson 2010, 47).

A modified version of the dictionary definition that does not allow for either inadvertent or mistaken deceiving is as follows:

• (D1) To deceive = df to intentionally cause to have a false belief that is known or believed to be false.

D1 may be taken as the traditional definition of deception, at least in the case of other-deception (Baron 1988, 444 n. 2). As contrasted with ‘lying,’ ‘deceive’ is an achievement or success verb (Ryle 1949, 130). An act of deceiving is not an act of deceiving unless a particular result is achieved. According to D1, that result is a false belief . Note that D1 is not restricted to the deception of other persons by other persons; it applies to anything that is capable of having beliefs, such as (possibly) chimpanzees, dogs, and infants.

There is no statement condition for deception. In addition to deceiving by means of lying, it is possible to deceive using natural or causal signs (indices), such as packing a bag as though one were going on a holiday, in order to catch a thief (Kant 1997, 202). It is possible to deceive by using signs that work by resemblance (icons), for example by posting a smiley face emoticon about a news item that one is actually unhappy about. Finally, it is possible to deceive by non-linguistic conventional signs (symbols), such as wearing a wedding ring when one is not married, or wearing a police uniform when one is not a police officer. It is also possible for a person to deceive by cursing, making an interjection or an exclamation, issuing a command or an exhortation, asking a question, saying “Hello,” and so forth. It is also possible to deceive by omitting to make certain statements, or by remaining silent.

There is also no untruthfulness condition for deception. It is possible to deceive by making a truthful and true statement that intentionally implies a falsehood. This is a palter. Palters include Bill Clinton stating “There is no improper relationship,” with the intention that it be believed that there was never an improper relationship (Saul 2012, 30), greeting a famous person by his or her first name with the intention that other people believe that you are a close friend of his, or making a reservation for a restaurant or a hotel as “Dr.,” intending to be believed to be a (typically wealthier) physician rather than a (typically less wealthy) academic (Schauer and Zeckhauser 2009, 44). If Pavel truthfully and truly tells Trofim that he is going to Pinsk, with the intention that the distrustful Trofim believe falsely that Pavel is going to Minsk, and as a result Trofim believes falsely that Pavel is going to Minsk, then Pavel deceives Trofim (a double bluff). It is also possible to deceive using truthful statements that are not assertions, such as jokes, ironic statements, and even the lines of a play delivered on stage, so long as the intention to deceive can be formed. If, for example, I am asked if I stole the money, and I reply in an ironic tone, “Yeah, right, of course I did,” when I did steal the money, intending that I be believed to have not stolen the money, and if I am believed, then I have deceived using a truthful statement (it is unclear if such cases of “telling the truth falsely” (Frank 2009, 57) are to be considered as cases of paltering).

There is also no addressee condition for deception. In addition to deceiving addressees, it is possible to deceive those listening in, as in a bogus disclosure (e.g., deceiving F.B.I. agents secretly known to be listening in on a telephone conversation) or a disclosure (e.g., deceiving NASA handlers openly listening to exchanges between astronauts and their wives in Capricorn One ). It is also possible to deceive an addressee about some matter other than the content of the statement made (e.g., making a truthful statement, but faking an accent).

Several objections can be made to D1. One objection is that it is not necessary that the deceiver causes another person to have a false belief that is (truly) believed to be false by the deceiver: “if I intentionally cause you to believe that p where p is false and I neither believe that p is true nor believe that p is false” (Carson 2010, 48) then this is still deception (van Frassen 1988; Barnes 1997; cf. Shiffrin 2014, 13). For example, if Michael has no belief whatsoever regarding the condition of the bridge, but he convinces Gertrude that the bridge is safe, and the bridge happens to be dangerous, then Michael deceives Gertrude about the bridge being safe (van Frassen 1988, 124). Or, if Alyce places a fake rabbit in Evelyn’s garden, in which lives a reclusive rabbit, in order to guarantee that Evelyn believes that she is seeing a rabbit in her garden (one way or the other), and Evelyn sees the fake rabbit, and calls Alyce on the phone and tells her “I am looking at a rabbit in my garden!” then Alyce has deceived Evelyn, even though she cannot believe or know that Evelyn is seeing the fake rabbit rather than the real rabbit (Barnes 1997, 11). Although this objection to D1 is not necessarily compelling (Mahon 2007, 191–2), a modified definition of interpersonal deception that incorporates this objection is as follows:

• (D2) A person x deceives another person y if and only if x intentionally causes y to believe p , where p is false and x does not believe that p is true. (Carson 2010, 48)

The most common objection to D1 is that it is not necessary that the deceiver intentionally cause another person to have a new false belief. Although this form of deception, according to which a person intentionally brings about “the change from the state of not being deceived… to that of being deceived” (Chisholm and Feehan 1977, 144), is the most normal form of deception, it is not the only form. A person may deceive another person by causing that person to continue to have a false belief (Fuller 1976, 21; Chisholm and Feehan 1977, 144; Mahon 2007 189–190; Carson 2010, 50; Shiffrin 2014, 19). This is where, “but for the act” of the deceiver, the person “would have lost or given up” the false belief (Chisholm and Feehan 1977, 144), or least have a greater chance of losing the false belief. A modified definition of interpersonal deception that incorporates this objection is the following:

• (D3) A person x deceives another person y if and only if x intentionally causes y to believe p (or persist in believing p ), where p is false and x knows or believes that p is false. (Carson 2010, 50)

A further objection to D1 (and D2 and D3) is that it is not sufficient for deception that a person intentionally causes another person to have a false belief that she truly believes or knows to be false; it must also be that this false belief is caused by evidence , and that the evidence is brought about by the person in order to cause the other person to have the false belief (Linsky 1970, 163; Fuller 1976, 23; Schmitt 1988, 185; Barnes 1997, 14; Mahon 2007). If Andrew intentionally causes Ben to believe (falsely) that there are vampires in England by, for example, operating on Ben’s brain, or giving Ben an electric shock, or drugging Ben, then Andrew does not deceive Ben about there being vampires in England. Also, if Andrew causes Ben to believe falsely that there are vampires in England by getting Ben to read a book that purports to demonstrate that there are vampires in England, then Andrew does not deceive Ben about there being vampires in England. However, if Andrew writes a book that purports to demonstrate that there are vampires in England, and Ben reads the book, and as a result Ben comes to believe that there are vampires in England, then Andrew does deceive Ben about there being vampires in England (Fuller 1976). A modified definition of interpersonal deception that incorporates this objection is the following:

• (D4) To deceive = df to intentionally cause another person to have or continue to have a false belief that is known or truly believed to be false by bringing about evidence on the basis of which the person has or continues to have the false belief. (Mahon 2007, 189–190)

All of the definitions so far considered are definitions of positive deception , where a person “has been caused to add to his stock of false beliefs” or has been caused to continue to have a false belief (Chisholm and Feehan 1977, 144). A further objection to D1 (and D2, D3, and D4) is that it is not necessary for deception to cause a new belief or to cause to continue to have a false belief. One can deceive another person by causing the person to cease to have a true belief, or by preventing the person from acquiring a true belief. These are both cases of negative deception , according to which a person “has been caused to lose one of his true beliefs” or been prevented from gaining a true belief (Chisholm and Feehan 1977, 143–144). For example, if I intentionally distract someone who is prone to forgetting things irretrievably when distracted, in order to make that person forget something irretrievably, and, as a result, that person loses a (veridical) memory irretrievably, then I have caused him to cease to have a true belief. (In science-fiction the same result can be achieved by using a memory-erasing device, as in the neuralyzer used in the 1997 science-fiction film Men in Black ). Also, if I hide a section of the newspaper from someone in order to prevent her from learning about some news item, such as an earthquake in a foreign country that harmed no-one, then I prevented her from acquiring a true belief about a distant earthquake. A modified definition of interpersonal deception that incorporates this objection is the following:

• (D5) To deceive = df to intentionally cause another person to acquire a false belief, or to continue to have a false belief, or to cease to have a true belief, or to be prevented from acquiring a true belief.

However, this objection to D1 (and D2, D3, and D4) is not necessarily compelling. It may be argued that negative deception is not deception at all. After all, no false belief has been acquired or sustained. It may be argued that to prevent someone from acquiring a true belief is to keep that person in ignorance, or to keep that person “in the dark,” rather than to deceive that person (Mahon 2007, 187–188; cf. Carson 2010, 53). The state of being ignorant is not the same as the state of being mistaken. One may not know what city is the capital city of Estonia (Tallinn); this is different from mistakenly believing that Riga is the capital city of Estonia. Similarly, although it is more unusual, rendering a person ignorant of some matter is not the same as deceiving that person, at least if it results in no false belief. For example, in the 2004 science-fiction film The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind , people go to Lacuna, Inc., to have their memories of their previous relationships, as well as their visits, erased. Those who run Lacuna, Inc., make their clients forget things, or render them ignorant of things. They do not deceive them in doing this. Chisholm and Feehan admit that Augustine and Aquinas “do not call it ‘deception’” to “hide the truth” (Chisholm and Feehan 1977, 187).

D5 only counts as deception cases of deception “by commission” (Chisholm and Feehan 1977, 143–144). According to Chisholm and Feehan, it is also possible to deceive “by omission” (Chisholm and Feehan 1977, 143–144). One may allow a person to acquire a false belief, or allow a person to continue with a false belief, or allow a person to cease to have a true belief, or allow a person to continue without a true belief. For example, one may allow a person to read a news story and acquire a belief that one knows is false (e.g., a news story about the CEO of your company resigning for health reasons, when you know he was forced out for mismanagement of funds), and one may allow a person to continue to have a false belief by not correcting the person’s false belief (e.g., not correcting a child’s belief in Santa Claus). Or, for example, one may allow a person to forget a veridical memory by not stopping them from getting distracted, and one may allow a person to continue without knowing about an earthquake that has occurred in a foreign country. According to Chisholm and Feehan, there can positive and negative deception by commission and by omission. A modified definition of interpersonal deception that incorporates this objection is the following:

• (D6) To deceive = df to intentionally cause another person to acquire a false belief, or to continue to have a false belief, or to cease to have a true belief, or to be prevented from acquiring a true belief, or to intentionally allow another person to acquire a false belief, or to continue to have a false belief, or to cease to have a true belief, or to be prevented from acquiring a true belief.

Finally, D6 only counts as deception actions and omissions that are intentional. According to Chisholm and Feehan, however, deception can be unintentional. A modified definition of interpersonal deception that incorporates this objection is the following:

• (D7) To deceive = df to cause another person to acquire a false belief, or to continue to have a false belief, or to cease to have a true belief, or be prevented from acquiring a true belief, or to allow another person to acquire a false belief, or to continue to have a false belief, or to cease to have a true belief, or be prevented from acquiring a true belief. (Chisholm and Feehan 1977, 145).

The objection to D5 that negative deception is not deception also applies to D6 and D7.

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The Cause and Effect of telling Lies

A lie of any type ----white lie  which is not considered a bad or  a severe lie which affects the person lied upon are both a lie  and affects the person lied  little or very severely.

Lying among the adolescence and the youth had become epidemic and a thrill from the society. Every minute someone lies. Lies to get his/her point accepted and may be to acquire fame. Thus, being in the atmosphere of lies younger generation started to consider this point as a common norms of daily life. 

At home parents monitors and teaches their children about this malice and try to built –in a child the habit of not to lie. But the easiest way to surpass the punishment or rage of the parents to a child is to lie. The consequence always never happens positive. After all a lie remains a lie and harms or creates an adverse effect on the subject or event.

At school, the teachers try to build up the moral of the students not to lie in a situation of distress. But in twenty-first century the process of presenting lies have become innovative among the students. They lie out of fear, wanting to become a hero among the others school friends or avoid a complain to their parents. But in the process jeopardize the way of making them an honest, fair student and a meaningful human being in the society helpful to the nation.

In the office, a person to lie his / her boss to avoid professional punishment  or firing from the service or just to acquire a fame of successful  “ idiot genius “ among his/her colleague. This may many a times gain them temporary relief or fame. But generally harms their future evaluation as an able worker/officer/manager or harm the organization or a colleague/team member.

A friend who pampers others with wrong praises actually lies about you and does more wrong to you than any better. A friend who is actually straight forward and delivers the truth about you rather than  tries to falsely please you; is your actual  helpful friend and helps you develop a better means to life. It is very wrong attitude to influence others for the selfish means. To influence others is to instigate others and is very harmful than being an enemy to one. Therefore, be lovable to a friend but honest in your comments, advises or judgement to your friend rather than influence him/her to be liked by him/her wrongfully.

In the social judgement, when you lie a police; you fall into more trouble on an investigation which is bound to happen in the policing department. Then your quantum of punishment becomes very cumbersome and harsh.  It gives opportunity to more lying and results in catastrophe. Even if the matter may have been solved with ease or little punitive measures, it turns very complicated and very punitive. In this context the famous saying of the Holy Bible should not be forgotten “God sees everything, and reveals the truth”

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Home — Essay Samples — War — Aftermath of World War II — The Causes and Effects of World War II: A Comprehensive Analysis

The Causes and Effects of World War Ii: a Comprehensive Analysis

• Categories: Aftermath of World War II Effects of War

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Introduction, the treaty of versailles and economic instability, rise of totalitarian regimes, failure of appeasement and the league of nations, body paragraph 4: global effects of world war ii.

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Cause of death revealed for boy, 2, whose body was found next to dad's

T oddler Bronson Battersby, whose body was found lying next to his dad’s at their home in January, died from dehydration, a coroner’s court has heard.

The toddler ‘appeared to be quite malnourished’ when he was discovered dead between the legs of 60-year-old Kenneth Battersby in Skegness, Lincolnshire , an inquest opening was told.

An eight-minute hearing at Greater Lincolnshire Coroner’s Court on Thursday heard they were found after a neighbour called police on the afternoon of January 9.

In evidence to the hearing, a coroner’s officer confirmed Bronson’s body was formally identified by a detective sergeant on January 15, three days after a post-mortem examination carried out at Leicester Royal Infirmary which confirmed his cause of death as dehydration.

Detective inspector Claire Rimmer, of Lincolnshire Eastern Protecting Vulnerable Persons Unit, also gave evidence to the hearing, reading a statement on the circumstances in which Bronson’s body was found.

Ms Rimmer said Bronson lived with his dad, who had separated from the toddler’s mum, in a basement flat in Prince Alfred Avenue.

He told Senior Coroner Paul Smith: ‘At 3.25pm on January 9, police were called by a neighbour reporting concerns that she had not seen Kenneth Battersby for several days and there was a smell coming from the flat.’

After a social worker and a landlady gained entry to the flat, Kenneth’s body was found on the floor behind the living room door, preventing it from being opened further and leaving them ‘unaware that Bronson was also in the room’.

Paramedics attended and the deaths of Kenneth and Bronson were confirmed at 4.31pm, the court heard.

The coroner was told that a malnourished dog was found inside the property, while the bath tub was found ‘filled with water’.

Ms Rimmer added: ‘A final (pathologist’s) report has given dehydration as the cause of (Bronson’s) death.’

Adjourning the inquest to a provisional date of December 10, Mr Smith said he was awaiting reports from a number of agencies, adding: ‘I am satisfied that the circumstances of Bronson’s death are such that an inquest will be required.

‘It clearly requires a thorough and sensitive investigation.’

The police watchdog has previously said it will investigate whether there were any ‘missed opportunities’ by officers prior to the deaths of Bronson and his father, who relatives believe died from natural causes.

Lincolnshire County Council has confirmed Bronson had been known to children’s services and would typically be seen at least once a month by social workers.

In a statement issued shortly after the deaths, a spokesman for the county council confirmed the social worker communicated with Mr Battersby on December 27 and arranged to visit them on January 2, but there was no response when they arrived at the door.

The social worker ‘made inquiries at other addresses where the child could be’ and contacted the police, before a second unannounced visit on January 4 also went unanswered, and Lincolnshire Police was contacted again.

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Why the Pandemic Probably Started in a Lab, in 5 Key Points

By Alina Chan

Dr. Chan is a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard, and a co-author of “Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19.”

This article has been updated to reflect news developments.

On Monday, Dr. Anthony Fauci returned to the halls of Congress and testified before the House subcommittee investigating the Covid-19 pandemic. He was questioned about several topics related to the government’s handling of Covid-19, including how the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which he directed until retiring in 2022, supported risky virus work at a Chinese institute whose research may have caused the pandemic.

For more than four years, reflexive partisan politics have derailed the search for the truth about a catastrophe that has touched us all. It has been estimated that at least 25 million people around the world have died because of Covid-19, with over a million of those deaths in the United States.

Although how the pandemic started has been hotly debated, a growing volume of evidence — gleaned from public records released under the Freedom of Information Act, digital sleuthing through online databases, scientific papers analyzing the virus and its spread, and leaks from within the U.S. government — suggests that the pandemic most likely occurred because a virus escaped from a research lab in Wuhan, China. If so, it would be the most costly accident in the history of science.

Here’s what we now know:

1 The SARS-like virus that caused the pandemic emerged in Wuhan, the city where the world’s foremost research lab for SARS-like viruses is located.

• At the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a team of scientists had been hunting for SARS-like viruses for over a decade, led by Shi Zhengli.
• Their research showed that the viruses most similar to SARS‑CoV‑2, the virus that caused the pandemic, circulate in bats that live r oughly 1,000 miles away from Wuhan. Scientists from Dr. Shi’s team traveled repeatedly to Yunnan province to collect these viruses and had expanded their search to Southeast Asia. Bats in other parts of China have not been found to carry viruses that are as closely related to SARS-CoV-2.

The closest known relatives to SARS-CoV-2 were found in southwestern China and in Laos.

Large cities

Mine in Yunnan province

Cave in Laos

South China Sea

The closest known relatives to SARS-CoV-2

were found in southwestern China and in Laos.

philippines

The closest known relatives to SARS-CoV-2 were found

in southwestern China and Laos.

Sources: Sarah Temmam et al., Nature; SimpleMaps

Note: Cities shown have a population of at least 200,000.

There are hundreds of large cities in China and Southeast Asia.

There are hundreds of large cities in China

and Southeast Asia.

The pandemic started roughly 1,000 miles away, in Wuhan, home to the world’s foremost SARS-like virus research lab.

The pandemic started roughly 1,000 miles away,

in Wuhan, home to the world’s foremost SARS-like virus research lab.

The pandemic started roughly 1,000 miles away, in Wuhan,

home to the world’s foremost SARS-like virus research lab.

• Even at hot spots where these viruses exist naturally near the cave bats of southwestern China and Southeast Asia, the scientists argued, as recently as 2019 , that bat coronavirus spillover into humans is rare .
• When the Covid-19 outbreak was detected, Dr. Shi initially wondered if the novel coronavirus had come from her laboratory , saying she had never expected such an outbreak to occur in Wuhan.
• The SARS‑CoV‑2 virus is exceptionally contagious and can jump from species to species like wildfire . Yet it left no known trace of infection at its source or anywhere along what would have been a thousand-mile journey before emerging in Wuhan.

2 The year before the outbreak, the Wuhan institute, working with U.S. partners, had proposed creating viruses with SARS‑CoV‑2’s defining feature.

• Dr. Shi’s group was fascinated by how coronaviruses jump from species to species. To find viruses, they took samples from bats and other animals , as well as from sick people living near animals carrying these viruses or associated with the wildlife trade. Much of this work was conducted in partnership with the EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S.-based scientific organization that, since 2002, has been awarded over $80 million in federal funding to research the risks of emerging infectious diseases.
• The laboratory pursued risky research that resulted in viruses becoming more infectious : Coronaviruses were grown from samples from infected animals and genetically reconstructed and recombined to create new viruses unknown in nature. These new viruses were passed through cells from bats, pigs, primates and humans and were used to infect civets and humanized mice (mice modified with human genes). In essence, this process forced these viruses to adapt to new host species, and the viruses with mutations that allowed them to thrive emerged as victors.
• By 2019, Dr. Shi’s group had published a database describing more than 22,000 collected wildlife samples. But external access was shut off in the fall of 2019, and the database was not shared with American collaborators even after the pandemic started , when such a rich virus collection would have been most useful in tracking the origin of SARS‑CoV‑2. It remains unclear whether the Wuhan institute possessed a precursor of the pandemic virus.
• In 2021, The Intercept published a leaked 2018 grant proposal for a research project named Defuse , which had been written as a collaboration between EcoHealth, the Wuhan institute and Ralph Baric at the University of North Carolina, who had been on the cutting edge of coronavirus research for years. The proposal described plans to create viruses strikingly similar to SARS‑CoV‑2.
• Coronaviruses bear their name because their surface is studded with protein spikes, like a spiky crown, which they use to enter animal cells. T he Defuse project proposed to search for and create SARS-like viruses carrying spikes with a unique feature: a furin cleavage site — the same feature that enhances SARS‑CoV‑2’s infectiousness in humans, making it capable of causing a pandemic. Defuse was never funded by the United States . However, in his testimony on Monday, Dr. Fauci explained that the Wuhan institute would not need to rely on U.S. funding to pursue research independently.

The Wuhan lab ran risky experiments to learn about how SARS-like viruses might infect humans.

1. Collect SARS-like viruses from bats and other wild animals, as well as from people exposed to them.

2. Identify high-risk viruses by screening for spike proteins that facilitate infection of human cells.

2. Identify high-risk viruses by screening for spike proteins that facilitate infection of

human cells.

In Defuse, the scientists proposed to add a furin cleavage site to the spike protein.

3. Create new coronaviruses by inserting spike proteins or other features that could make the viruses more infectious in humans.

4. Infect human cells, civets and humanized mice with the new coronaviruses, to determine how dangerous they might be.

• While it’s possible that the furin cleavage site could have evolved naturally (as seen in some distantly related coronaviruses), out of the hundreds of SARS-like viruses cataloged by scientists, SARS‑CoV‑2 is the only one known to possess a furin cleavage site in its spike. And the genetic data suggest that the virus had only recently gained the furin cleavage site before it started the pandemic.
• Ultimately, a never-before-seen SARS-like virus with a newly introduced furin cleavage site, matching the description in the Wuhan institute’s Defuse proposal, caused an outbreak in Wuhan less than two years after the proposal was drafted.
• When the Wuhan scientists published their seminal paper about Covid-19 as the pandemic roared to life in 2020, they did not mention the virus’s furin cleavage site — a feature they should have been on the lookout for, according to their own grant proposal, and a feature quickly recognized by other scientists.
• Worse still, as the pandemic raged, their American collaborators failed to publicly reveal the existence of the Defuse proposal. The president of EcoHealth, Peter Daszak, recently admitted to Congress that he doesn’t know about virus samples collected by the Wuhan institute after 2015 and never asked the lab’s scientists if they had started the work described in Defuse. In May, citing failures in EcoHealth’s monitoring of risky experiments conducted at the Wuhan lab, the Biden administration suspended all federal funding for the organization and Dr. Daszak, and initiated proceedings to bar them from receiving future grants. In his testimony on Monday, Dr. Fauci said that he supported the decision to suspend and bar EcoHealth.
• Separately, Dr. Baric described the competitive dynamic between his research group and the institute when he told Congress that the Wuhan scientists would probably not have shared their most interesting newly discovered viruses with him . Documents and email correspondence between the institute and Dr. Baric are still being withheld from the public while their release is fiercely contested in litigation.
• In the end, American partners very likely knew of only a fraction of the research done in Wuhan. According to U.S. intelligence sources, some of the institute’s virus research was classified or conducted with or on behalf of the Chinese military . In the congressional hearing on Monday, Dr. Fauci repeatedly acknowledged the lack of visibility into experiments conducted at the Wuhan institute, saying, “None of us can know everything that’s going on in China, or in Wuhan, or what have you. And that’s the reason why — I say today, and I’ve said at the T.I.,” referring to his transcribed interview with the subcommittee, “I keep an open mind as to what the origin is.”

3 The Wuhan lab pursued this type of work under low biosafety conditions that could not have contained an airborne virus as infectious as SARS‑CoV‑2.

• Labs working with live viruses generally operate at one of four biosafety levels (known in ascending order of stringency as BSL-1, 2, 3 and 4) that describe the work practices that are considered sufficiently safe depending on the characteristics of each pathogen. The Wuhan institute’s scientists worked with SARS-like viruses under inappropriately low biosafety conditions .

In the United States, virologists generally use stricter Biosafety Level 3 protocols when working with SARS-like viruses.

Biosafety cabinets prevent

viral particles from escaping.

Viral particles

Personal respirators provide

a second layer of defense against breathing in the virus.

DIRECT CONTACT

Gloves prevent skin contact.

Disposable wraparound

gowns cover much of the rest of the body.

Personal respirators provide a second layer of defense against breathing in the virus.

Disposable wraparound gowns

cover much of the rest of the body.

Note: ​​Biosafety levels are not internationally standardized, and some countries use more permissive protocols than others.

The Wuhan lab had been regularly working with SARS-like viruses under Biosafety Level 2 conditions, which could not prevent a highly infectious virus like SARS-CoV-2 from escaping.

Some work is done in the open air, and masks are not required.

Less protective equipment provides more opportunities

for contamination.

Some work is done in the open air,

and masks are not required.

Less protective equipment provides more opportunities for contamination.

• In one experiment, Dr. Shi’s group genetically engineered an unexpectedly deadly SARS-like virus (not closely related to SARS‑CoV‑2) that exhibited a 10,000-fold increase in the quantity of virus in the lungs and brains of humanized mice . Wuhan institute scientists handled these live viruses at low biosafet y levels , including BSL-2.
• Even the much more stringent containment at BSL-3 cannot fully prevent SARS‑CoV‑2 from escaping . Two years into the pandemic, the virus infected a scientist in a BSL-3 laboratory in Taiwan, which was, at the time, a zero-Covid country. The scientist had been vaccinated and was tested only after losing the sense of smell. By then, more than 100 close contacts had been exposed. Human error is a source of exposure even at the highest biosafety levels , and the risks are much greater for scientists working with infectious pathogens at low biosafety.
• An early draft of the Defuse proposal stated that the Wuhan lab would do their virus work at BSL-2 to make it “highly cost-effective.” Dr. Baric added a note to the draft highlighting the importance of using BSL-3 to contain SARS-like viruses that could infect human cells, writing that “U.S. researchers will likely freak out.” Years later, after SARS‑CoV‑2 had killed millions, Dr. Baric wrote to Dr. Daszak : “I have no doubt that they followed state determined rules and did the work under BSL-2. Yes China has the right to set their own policy. You believe this was appropriate containment if you want but don’t expect me to believe it. Moreover, don’t insult my intelligence by trying to feed me this load of BS.”
• SARS‑CoV‑2 is a stealthy virus that transmits effectively through the air, causes a range of symptoms similar to those of other common respiratory diseases and can be spread by infected people before symptoms even appear. If the virus had escaped from a BSL-2 laboratory in 2019, the leak most likely would have gone undetected until too late.
• One alarming detail — leaked to The Wall Street Journal and confirmed by current and former U.S. government officials — is that scientists on Dr. Shi’s team fell ill with Covid-like symptoms in the fall of 2019 . One of the scientists had been named in the Defuse proposal as the person in charge of virus discovery work. The scientists denied having been sick .

4 The hypothesis that Covid-19 came from an animal at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan is not supported by strong evidence.

• In December 2019, Chinese investigators assumed the outbreak had started at a centrally located market frequented by thousands of visitors daily. This bias in their search for early cases meant that cases unlinked to or located far away from the market would very likely have been missed. To make things worse, the Chinese authorities blocked the reporting of early cases not linked to the market and, claiming biosafety precautions, ordered the destruction of patient samples on January 3, 2020, making it nearly impossible to see the complete picture of the earliest Covid-19 cases. Information about dozens of early cases from November and December 2019 remains inaccessible.
• A pair of papers published in Science in 2022 made the best case for SARS‑CoV‑2 having emerged naturally from human-animal contact at the Wuhan market by focusing on a map of the early cases and asserting that the virus had jumped from animals into humans twice at the market in 2019. More recently, the two papers have been countered by other virologists and scientists who convincingly demonstrate that the available market evidence does not distinguish between a human superspreader event and a natural spillover at the market.
• Furthermore, the existing genetic and early case data show that all known Covid-19 cases probably stem from a single introduction of SARS‑CoV‑2 into people, and the outbreak at the Wuhan market probably happened after the virus had already been circulating in humans.

An analysis of SARS-CoV-2’s evolutionary tree shows how the virus evolved as it started to spread through humans.

SARS-COV-2 Viruses closest

to bat coronaviruses

more mutations

Source: Lv et al., Virus Evolution (2024) , as reproduced by Jesse Bloom

The viruses that infected people linked to the market were most likely not the earliest form of the virus that started the pandemic.

• Not a single infected animal has ever been confirmed at the market or in its supply chain. Without good evidence that the pandemic started at the Huanan Seafood Market, the fact that the virus emerged in Wuhan points squarely at its unique SARS-like virus laboratory.

5 Key evidence that would be expected if the virus had emerged from the wildlife trade is still missing.

In previous outbreaks of coronaviruses, scientists were able to demonstrate natural origin by collecting multiple pieces of evidence linking infected humans to infected animals.

Infected animals

Earliest known

cases exposed to

live animals

Antibody evidence

of animals and

animal traders having

been infected

Ancestral variants

of the virus found in

Documented trade

of host animals

between the area

where bats carry

closely related viruses

and the outbreak site

Infected animals found

Earliest known cases exposed to live animals

Antibody evidence of animals and animal

traders having been infected

Ancestral variants of the virus found in animals

Documented trade of host animals

between the area where bats carry closely

related viruses and the outbreak site

For SARS-CoV-2, these same key pieces of evidence are still missing , more than four years after the virus emerged.

For SARS-CoV-2, these same key pieces of evidence are still missing ,

more than four years after the virus emerged.

• Despite the intense search trained on the animal trade and people linked to the market, investigators have not reported finding any animals infected with SARS‑CoV‑2 that had not been infected by humans. Yet, infected animal sources and other connective pieces of evidence were found for the earlier SARS and MERS outbreaks as quickly as within a few days, despite the less advanced viral forensic technologies of two decades ago.
• Even though Wuhan is the home base of virus hunters with world-leading expertise in tracking novel SARS-like viruses, investigators have either failed to collect or report key evidence that would be expected if Covid-19 emerged from the wildlife trade . For example, investigators have not determined that the earliest known cases had exposure to intermediate host animals before falling ill. No antibody evidence shows that animal traders in Wuhan are regularly exposed to SARS-like viruses, as would be expected in such situations.
• With today’s technology, scientists can detect how respiratory viruses — including SARS, MERS and the flu — circulate in animals while making repeated attempts to jump across species . Thankfully, these variants usually fail to transmit well after crossing over to a new species and tend to die off after a small number of infections. In contrast, virologists and other scientists agree that SARS‑CoV‑2 required little to no adaptation to spread rapidly in humans and other animals . The virus appears to have succeeded in causing a pandemic upon its only detected jump into humans.

The pandemic could have been caused by any of hundreds of virus species, at any of tens of thousands of wildlife markets, in any of thousands of cities, and in any year. But it was a SARS-like coronavirus with a unique furin cleavage site that emerged in Wuhan, less than two years after scientists, sometimes working under inadequate biosafety conditions, proposed collecting and creating viruses of that same design.

While several natural spillover scenarios remain plausible, and we still don’t know enough about the full extent of virus research conducted at the Wuhan institute by Dr. Shi’s team and other researchers, a laboratory accident is the most parsimonious explanation of how the pandemic began.

Given what we now know, investigators should follow their strongest leads and subpoena all exchanges between the Wuhan scientists and their international partners, including unpublished research proposals, manuscripts, data and commercial orders. In particular, exchanges from 2018 and 2019 — the critical two years before the emergence of Covid-19 — are very likely to be illuminating (and require no cooperation from the Chinese government to acquire), yet they remain beyond the public’s view more than four years after the pandemic began.

Whether the pandemic started on a lab bench or in a market stall, it is undeniable that U.S. federal funding helped to build an unprecedented collection of SARS-like viruses at the Wuhan institute, as well as contributing to research that enhanced them . Advocates and funders of the institute’s research, including Dr. Fauci, should cooperate with the investigation to help identify and close the loopholes that allowed such dangerous work to occur. The world must not continue to bear the intolerable risks of research with the potential to cause pandemics .

A successful investigation of the pandemic’s root cause would have the power to break a decades-long scientific impasse on pathogen research safety, determining how governments will spend billions of dollars to prevent future pandemics. A credible investigation would also deter future acts of negligence and deceit by demonstrating that it is indeed possible to be held accountable for causing a viral pandemic. Last but not least, people of all nations need to see their leaders — and especially, their scientists — heading the charge to find out what caused this world-shaking event. Restoring public trust in science and government leadership requires it.

A thorough investigation by the U.S. government could unearth more evidence while spurring whistleblowers to find their courage and seek their moment of opportunity. It would also show the world that U.S. leaders and scientists are not afraid of what the truth behind the pandemic may be.

More on how the pandemic may have started

Where Did the Coronavirus Come From? What We Already Know Is Troubling.

Even if the coronavirus did not emerge from a lab, the groundwork for a potential disaster had been laid for years, and learning its lessons is essential to preventing others.

By Zeynep Tufekci

Why Does Bad Science on Covid’s Origin Get Hyped?

If the raccoon dog was a smoking gun, it fired blanks.

By David Wallace-Wells

A Plea for Making Virus Research Safer

A way forward for lab safety.

By Jesse Bloom

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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Alina Chan ( @ayjchan ) is a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard, and a co-author of “ Viral : The Search for the Origin of Covid-19.” She was a member of the Pathogens Project , which the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists organized to generate new thinking on responsible, high-risk pathogen research.

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Cause of death revealed for boy, 2, whose body was found next to dad’s

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Toddler Bronson Battersby, whose body was found lying next to his dad’s at their home in January, died from dehydration, a coroner’s court has heard.

The toddler ‘appeared to be quite malnourished’ when he was discovered dead between the legs of 60-year-old Kenneth Battersby in Skegness, Lincolnshire , an inquest opening was told.

An eight-minute hearing at Greater Lincolnshire Coroner’s Court on Thursday heard they were found after a neighbour called police on the afternoon of January 9.

In evidence to the hearing, a coroner’s officer confirmed Bronson’s body was formally identified by a detective sergeant on January 15, three days after a post-mortem examination carried out at Leicester Royal Infirmary which confirmed his cause of death as dehydration.

Detective inspector Claire Rimmer, of Lincolnshire Eastern Protecting Vulnerable Persons Unit, also gave evidence to the hearing, reading a statement on the circumstances in which Bronson’s body was found.

Ms Rimmer said Bronson lived with his dad, who had separated from the toddler’s mum, in a basement flat in Prince Alfred Avenue.

He told Senior Coroner Paul Smith: ‘At 3.25pm on January 9, police were called by a neighbour reporting concerns that she had not seen Kenneth Battersby for several days and there was a smell coming from the flat.’

After a social worker and a landlady gained entry to the flat, Kenneth’s body was found on the floor behind the living room door, preventing it from being opened further and leaving them ‘unaware that Bronson was also in the room’.

Paramedics attended and the deaths of Kenneth and Bronson were confirmed at 4.31pm, the court heard.

The coroner was told that a malnourished dog was found inside the property, while the bath tub was found ‘filled with water’.

Ms Rimmer added: ‘A final (pathologist’s) report has given dehydration as the cause of (Bronson’s) death.’

Adjourning the inquest to a provisional date of December 10, Mr Smith said he was awaiting reports from a number of agencies, adding: ‘I am satisfied that the circumstances of Bronson’s death are such that an inquest will be required.

‘It clearly requires a thorough and sensitive investigation.’

The police watchdog has previously said it will investigate whether there were any ‘missed opportunities’ by officers prior to the deaths of Bronson and his father, who relatives believe died from natural causes.

Lincolnshire County Council has confirmed Bronson had been known to children’s services and would typically be seen at least once a month by social workers.

In a statement issued shortly after the deaths, a spokesman for the county council confirmed the social worker communicated with Mr Battersby on December 27 and arranged to visit them on January 2, but there was no response when they arrived at the door.

The social worker ‘made inquiries at other addresses where the child could be’ and contacted the police, before a second unannounced visit on January 4 also went unanswered, and Lincolnshire Police was contacted again.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected] .

For more stories like this, check our news page .

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The oil and gas industry has been lying about global warming for decades — accountability is long overdue

Professor Emeritus, Department of Geography and Environment, Western University

Disclosure statement

Gordon McBean receives funding from scientific funding organizations at the University. He is affiliated with the Liberlal Party of Canada.

Western University provides funding as a member of The Conversation CA-FR.

Western University provides funding as a member of The Conversation CA.

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The science is clear: the planet is warming at an alarming rate and we need to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

For decades, effective actions have lagged behind the needs of the moment. The 2022 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report suggested that at least part of the reason for this inaction has been “due to misinformation about climate science that has sowed uncertainty.”

The full scale of this misinformation was revealed in May 2024, when the United States House Committee on Oversight and Accountability completed its three year investigation into how U.S. oil companies sought to avoid accountability for climate change.

The report — tellingly titled Denial, Disinformation and DoubleSpeak: Big Oil’s Evolving Efforts to Avoid Accountability for Climate Change — explores Big Oil’s decades-long campaign of deception and denial finding that:

“Documents demonstrate for the first time that fossil fuel companies internally do not dispute that they have understood since at least the 1960s that burning fossil fuels causes climate change and [that they] then worked for decades to undermine public understanding of this fact and to deny the underlying science”.

Even with what we know about the scale of climate misinformation , these findings make for truly shocking reading.

The committee found that “Big Oil’s deception campaign evolved from explicit denial of the basic science underlying climate change to deception, disinformation, and doublespeak,” and that the fossil fuel industry deliberately spread confusing and misleading narratives, lobbied against climate action and strategically funded under-resourced universities while silencing opposition voices.

The report concluded that, as the climate science became stronger, Big Oil shifted its strategy to one of public support for action while privately avoiding it as part of an “elaborate campaign of deception.”

While the findings of this report were centred around the U.S., it is likely that many of the same conclusions would apply here in Canada. Indeed, the 2022 IPCC report made clear that while misinformation and the deliberate undermining of science is mainly a phenomenon in the U.S., there are “similar patterns in Canada.”

Oil and gas in Canada

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) is the Canadian oil and gas industries’ main lobbying body.

Its website acknowledges the existence of climate change and boldly claims that the “industry is well positioned with expertise in both science and technology to reduce emissions. The global collective challenge is to reduce GHG emissions while also meeting growing demand for affordable and reliable energy.”

Meanwhile, the World Petroleum Congress — a major mouthpiece of the global oil and gas industry — held its 24th event in Calgary in 2023 on the theme of Energy Transition: The Path to Net Zero .

A very different view from that of the oil and gas industry can be found in a 2021 report prepared by Environmental Defence Canada and Oil Change International , which assessed “the climate plans of Canadian oil and gas producers.”

The report concluded that the climate plans of eight Canadian oil and gas producers are — in similar form to their U.S. counterparts — woefully lacking and at times overtly misleading.

Key conclusions of their assessment are that “Canadian oil and gas companies have released a range of complex, misleading climate change pledges that must not be taken at face value.” Moreover, “despite all the talk from Canadian oil and gas companies about climate leadership, their current business plans would fuel further climate disaster and global injustice.”

Unfortunately, it seems like this misinformation continues to have an effect.

In a 2024 study by the group Re.Climate , it was found that while Canadians report high levels of concern about climate change, climate denial remains persistent. The report found that “many Canadians say they do not believe we can meet our energy and climate objectives, even when they agree that climate change is a serious threat that requires concerted effort.”

Moreover, there are significant differences across regions and demographics. Mirroring the U.S., Conservative voters were found to be much less concerned about climate change and less supportive of transitioning off fossil fuels. Across Canada, about 72 per cent of Canadians are worried about climate change, with the percentage varying between 84 per cent in Québec to just 45 per cent in Alberta.

Read more: Why the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion is a bad deal for Canadians — and the world

The persistent denial of climate change is likely the enduring result of industry misinformation, political and energy ideologies , and the actions of climate change denier groups, such as the misleadingly named Friends of Science Society which actively denies the existence of global warming.

The only way to address climate change is by tackling misinformation head on. Holding the oil and gas industry to account for decades of deceit in the U.S. and Canada is an important first step in that process.

• Fossil fuels
• Climate change
• Global warming
• Oil and gas
• Misinformation

Head of School, School of Arts & Social Sciences, Monash University Malaysia

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