Lies & Lying
Lies & Lying
“O what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.”
Sir Walter Scott
Lying is one of the most common 'wrong' acts that we carry out; some consider it an unavoidable part of human nature. Most people would say that lying is always wrong — except when there's a good reason for it! [1]
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1    What's a Lie?
"The essence of lying is in deception, not in words."    John Ruskin
Lying is giving some information while believing it to be untrue, intending to deceive by doing so. A lie has three essential features:
•    A lie communicates some information
•    The liar intends to deceive or mislead
•    The liar believes that what they are 'saying' is not true
This definition says that what makes a lie a lie is that the person intends to deceive (or at least to mislead). It says nothing about whether the information given is true or false.
Some philosophers believe that lying requires a statement of some sort; they say that the liar must actually speak or write or gesture. Sissela Bok defines a lie as: “an intentionally deceptive message in the form of a statement.” [2] Others stretch the definition to include doing nothing in response to a question, knowing that this will deceive the questioner. Others include 'living a lie' — those cases where someone behaves in a way that misleads the rest of us as to their true nature. There are some features that people think are part of lying but aren't actually necessary: A lie does not have to give false information; a lie does not have to be told with a bad (malicious) intention - white lies are an example of lies told with a good intention.
The Russians have a special form of lying, 'vranyo', which doesn't appear to have an English equivalent. But you often know it when you see it...
Vranyo ['lousy lying']
“When I recently opened The New York Times and saw Vladimir Putin … walking out of the Black Sea with two nearly intact ancient amphorae in his hands, the vranyo alarm went off. … The smell of vranyo was so strong I had to put down the paper. … Putin was lying to us, we knew he was lying, he knew we knew he was lying, but he kept lying anyway, and we pretended to believe him.”  Elena Gorokhova [ New York Times, 2011]
Some people argue that the term 'vranyo' [враньё] was pioneered by the Soviets and perfected by Putin — it's a special word in Russia which means telling a barefaced lie which you do not expect anyone to believe. In his 1983 book, 'Russia: Broken Idols, Solemn Dreams,' published at the waning of the Cold War, David Shipler, the longtime Moscow correspondent for the New York Times, gave a more nuanced explanation of vranyo: “You could say vranyo means 'lies,'" he wrote but "a Russian friend explained vranyo this way: ‘You know I’m lying, and I know that you know, and you know that I know that you know, but I go ahead with a straight face, and you nod seriously and take notes.’” Extracts from Glossophilia.[2]
In this short video clip from RT, the UK’s suspects in the Skripal case, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, talk exclusively with RT’s editor-in-chief. "We went to Salisbury as tourists to see the cathedral [with its] famous for 123 metre spire."[3] [See also the Satire & Humour page.]
Mikael Klintman might call vranyo a ‘lousy lie’ — a type of lie or false truth that seems so obviously implausible that it doesn’t seem designed to deceive, but rather, signal something else.[4] In the research for his new book, ‘Knowledge Resistance: How We Avoid Insight from Others,’ Klintman found that, by being so obviously false, some lying can be viewed as "a display of power — of not having to submit to truth and facts like the rest of us.” Lousy lying can also be used as "a way of bonding and forming loyalty within groups[; or] to gain or signal distance from another group [; or] to communicate social status and make the person appear highly knowledgeable" — although it can also have the opposite effect on those of different political leanings...
2    Why Lying is Wrong
“If a Lie be believ’d only for an Hour, it has done its Work, and there is no farther occasion for it.
Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it; so that when Men come to be undeceiv’d, it is too late; the Jest is over, and the Tale has had its Effect…”  Jonathan Swift

There are many reasons why people think lying is wrong. Lying is bad because:
•    a generally truthful world is a good thing: lying diminishes trust between human beings — if people generally didn't tell the truth, life would become very difficult, as nobody could be trusted and nothing you heard or read could be trusted - you would have to find everything out for yourself; an untrusting world is also bad for liars - lying isn't much use if everyone is doing it
•    it treats those who are lied to as a means to achieve the liar's purpose, rather than as a valuable end in themselves — Many people think that it is wrong to treat people as means not ends
•    it makes it difficult for the person being lied to make a free and informed decision about the matter concerned — Lies lead people to base their decisions on false information
•    it cannot sensibly be made into a universal principle — Many people think that something should only be accepted as an ethical rule if it can be applied in every case
•    it's a basic moral wrong — Some things are fundamentally bad - lying is one of them
•    it's something that Good People don't do
•    it corrupts the liar — Telling lies may become a habit and if a person regularly indulges in one form of wrong-doing they may well become more comfortable with wrong-doing in general
Some philosophers say lying is bad because language is essential to human societies and carries the obligation to use it truthfully — when people use language they effectively 'make a contract' to use it in a particular way - one of the clauses of this contract is not to use language deceitfully. Some religious people argue lying is bad — see below.
3    What Harm Do Lies Do?
"Lies are the social equivalent of toxic waste: everyone is potentially harmed by their spread."
Sam Harris
Lies obviously hurt the person who is lied to (most of the time), but they can also hurt the liar, and society in general.

The person who is lied to suffers if they don't find out because: they are deprived of some control over their future because — they can no longer make an informed choice about the issue concerned; they are not fully informed about their possible courses of action; they may make a decision that they would not otherwise have made; they may suffer damage as a result of the lie.
The person who is lied to suffers if they do find out because: they feel badly treated — deceived and manipulated, and regarded as a person who doesn't deserve the truth; they see the damage they have suffered; they doubt their own ability to assess truth and make decisions; they become untrusting and uncertain and this too damages their ability to make free and informed choices; they may seek revenge.
The liar is hurt because: he has to remember the lies he's told — he must act in conformity with the lies; he may have to tell more lies to avoid being found out; he has to be wary of those he's lied to; his long-term credibility is at risk — he will probably suffer harm if he's found out; if he's found out, people are more likely to lie to him; if he's found out he's less likely to be believed in future; his own view of his integrity is damaged; he may find it easier to lie again or to do other wrongs.Those who tell 'good lies' don't generally suffer these consequences — although they may do so on some occasions.
Society is hurt because: the general level of truthfulness falls — other people may be encouraged to lie; lying may become a generally accepted practice in some quarters; it becomes harder for people to trust each other or the institutions of society; social cohesion is weakened; eventually no-one is able to believe anyone else and society collapses.
4    When is it OK to Lie / Deceive?
Sissela Bok [4] put forward a process for testing whether a lie could be justified. She calls it the test of publicity — which lies, if any, would survive the appeal for justification to reasonable persons. If we were to apply this test as a thought experiment we would bring together a panel of everyone affected by a particular lie - the liar, those lied to and everyone who might be affected by the lie. We would then put forward all our arguments for telling a particular lie and then ask that 'jury' of relevant and reasonable persons if telling this lie was justified. But what could we do in the real world? First, inspect our own conscience and ask whether the lie is justified; second, ask friends or colleagues, or people with special ethical knowledge what they think about the particular case; thirdly, consult some independent persons about it.
This sort of test is most useful when considering what we might call 'public' lying — when an institution is considering just how much truth to tell about a project — perhaps a medical experiment, or a proposed war, or an environmental development.
In most cases of personal small scale lying there is no opportunity to do anything more than consult our own conscience — but we should remember that our conscience is usually rather biased in our favour. A good way of helping our conscience is to ask how we would feel if we were on the receiving end of the lie. It's certainly not foolproof, but it may be helpful.

Bok sets out some factors that should be considered when contemplating a lie:
•    Are there some truthful alternatives to using a lie to deal with the particular problem?
•    What moral justifications are there for telling this lie - and what counter-arguments can be raised against those justifications?
•    What would a public jury of reasonable persons say about this lie?
Catching Cybercriminals: Big companies are turning to deception technology to thwart intruders. Juicy fake data (login credentials, customer details, intellectual property and the like) is uploaded onto a shadow network which looks like the real thing, and this is constantly changed as if it were being used. 
5    Other Situations That Can Involve Lying
"History is a set of lies agreed upon." Napoleon
Lying to enemies
When two countries are at war, the obligation to tell the truth is thought to be heavily reduced and deliberate deception is generally accepted as part of the way each side will try to send its opponent in the wrong direction, or fool the enemy into not taking particular actions. In the same way each side accepts that there will be spies and that spies will lie under interrogation. There are two main moral arguments for lying to enemies: enemies do not deserve the same treatment as friends or neutrals, because enemies intend to do us harm and can't grumble if we harm them in return by lying to them; lying to enemies will prevent harm to many people, so the good consequences outweigh the bad ones.
Mental Reservations
"A liar should have a good memory.” Quintilian
This legalistic device divides a statement into two parts: the first part is misleading, the two parts together are true — however only the first part is said aloud, the second part is a 'mental reservation'. Here are some examples:
•    "I have never cheated on my wife" (except last Thursday)
•    "I did not steal the cakes" (on Thursday afternoon)
•    "I did not touch the painting" (but my glove did)
This device seems outrageous to the modern mind, but a few centuries ago it was much used.
One common occasion for mental reservations was in court, when a person had sworn an oath to tell the truth and expected God to punish them if they lied. If they'd stolen some sheep on Tuesday they could safely tell the court "I did not steal those sheep" as long as they added in their mind "on Monday". Since God was believed to know every thought, God would hear the mental reservation as well as the public statement and therefore would not have been lied to.
Sissela Bok says that this device is recommended to doctors by one textbook. If a feverish patient, for example, asks what his temperature is, the doctor is advised to answer "your temperature is normal today" while making the mental reservation that it is normal for a person in the patient's precise physical condition.
Lying to liars
If someone lies to you, are you entitled to lie to them in return? Has the liar lost the right to be told the truth? Human behaviour suggests that we do feel less obliged to be truthful to liars than to people who deal with us honestly. Most moral philosophers would say that you are not justified in lying to another person because they have lied to you.
From an ethical point of view, the first thing is that a lie is still a lie — even if told to a liar. Secondly, while the liar may be regarded as having lost the right to be told the truth, society as a whole still retains some sort of right that its members should use language truthfully. But is it a pardonable lie? The old maxim 'two wrongs don't make a right' suggests that it isn't, and it's clear that even if the liar has lost their right to be told the truth, all the other reasons why lying is bad are still valid.
White Lies
"The lie is the basic building block of good manners."    Quentin Crisp
A white lie is a lie that is not intended to harm the person being lied to — indeed it's often intended to benefit them by making them feel good, or preventing their feelings being hurt.
For example, I go to a dinner party and my hostess asks how I like the dish she's prepared. The true answer happens to be 'I think it tastes horrible' but if I say 'it's delicious' that's a white lie. Most people would approve of that white lie and would regard telling the truth as a bad thing to do. (But this lie does do some harm — the hostess may feel encouraged to make that dish again, and so future guests will have to suffer from it.)
White lies usually include most of these features: they are not intended to harm the person lied to; they are not intended to harm anyone else; they don't actually harm anyone (or only do trivial harm); the lie is about something morally trivial; they aren't told so often that they devalue what you say.White lies are not a totally good thing: the person being lied to is deprived of information that they might find useful even if they found it unpleasant; the person telling the lies may find it easier to lie in future and they may come to blur the boundary between white lies and more blameworthy lies.
White lies weaken the general presumption that lying is wrong and may make it easier for a person to tell lies that are intended to harm someone, or may make it easier to avoid telling truths that need to be told — for example, when giving a performance evaluation it is more comfortable not to tell someone that their work is sub-standard.

So it turns out that those little white lies we humans are so so good at may be the social glue that binds us all together...
6   Theology & Lying
Some religious people argue lying is bad because it misuses the God-given gift of human communication — God gave humanity speech so that they could accurately share their thoughts — lying does the opposite. Here's a couple of short comments:
Christian Theology
St. Augustine (354-430) taught that lying was always wrong, but accepted that this would be very difficult to live up to and that in real life people needed a get-out clause. He argued that God gave human beings speech so that they could make their thoughts known to each other; therefore using speech to deceive people is a sin, because it's using speech to do the opposite of what God intended. The true sin of lying is contained in the desire to deceive.Augustine believed that some lies could be pardoned, and that there were in fact occasions when lying would be the right thing to do. He grouped lies into 8 classes, depending on how difficult it was to pardon them. Here's his list (with the least forgivable lies at the top):
•    Lies told in teaching religion
•    Lies which hurt someone and help nobody
•    Lies which hurt someone but benefit someone else
•    Lies told for the pleasure of deceiving someone
•    Lies told to please others in conversation
•    Lies which hurt nobody and benefit someone
•    Lies which hurt nobody and benefit someone by keeping open the possibility of their repentance
•    Lies which hurt nobody and protect a person from physical 'defilement'
What Islam says about Lying
Muslim scholars teach that Muslims should generally be truthful to each other, unless the purpose of lying is to "smooth over differences" or "gain the upper-hand over an enemy". More specifically, some have suggested three circumstances —during battle / war; in order to bring peace between two people; and when a wife and husband are fighting with each other and they lie to bring about an end to their problems. Others have suggested that there are four occasions when it is allowable for a Muslim to tell a falsehood: to save one's life; to effect a peace or reconciliation; "to persuade a woman;" and on the occasion of a journey or expedition. [6]

It is also written that "there are several forms of lying to non-believers that are permitted under certain circumstances, the best known being taqiyya (the Shia name)... typically those that advance the cause of Islam — in some cases by gaining the trust of non-believers in order to draw out their vulnerability and defeat them."
7   On Lying & Self-Deception
“Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.”    Ludwig Wittgenstein

"The one charm about marriage is that it makes a life of deception
absolutely necessary for both parties."                            Oscar Wilde

Today we use social media — subconsciously or otherwise — to present a false picture of ourselves and our lives because we want to look good. Indeed, as Stephens-Davidowitz shows in ‘Everyone Lies’ we have become (perhaps always were) inveterate liars — we lie to our children, our partners, our doctors, our employers and to ourselves.[7] But perhaps the foundational book on the subject of deception is by Robert Trivers, one of the most influential evolutionary theorists alive today.
In ‘Deceit and Self-Deception’ Trivers argues that “We are thoroughgoing liars, even to ourselves. Our most prized possession — language — not only strengthens our ability to lie but greatly extends its range. We can lie about events distant in space and time, the details and meaning of the behavior of others, our innermost thoughts and desires...” In the book, Trivers also shows how evolutionary biology provides the foundation for a functional view of the subject — and how natural selection favours self-deception.
Self-deception is a process of denying or rationalizing away the relevance, significance, or importance of opposing evidence and logical argument. But why, why self-deception? Well, it appears we deceive ourselves “the better to deceive others, and thereby reap advantage, including charming mates and tricking rivals.” Self-deception also helps us cope with life and forget or minimise uncomfortable or painful memories — and perhaps embellish the ‘good old times’.
Trivers’ premise is that if we can only see our own point of view, we can authentically argue our case because our deceits blind us to the truth. He notes that denial is often easy to get started but hard to stop. We may enjoy a temporary benefit of deceiving others and self, but we suffer a long-term cost.” So self-deception helps us get on with one another better, but it can also be very expensive, and sometimes fatal…
In October Jim Al-Khalili talked to Richard Wiseman, the charismatic psychologist, on lying, luck and the paranormal in The Life Scientific.  Wiseman is Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire. Fascinating discussion in front of a live audience...
How do you tell if someone is lying? When Wiseman conducted a nationwide experiment to identify the tell-tale signs, the results were surprising. If you want to spot a liar, don’t look at them. Listen to what they say and how they say it. in If you want to distinguish fact from fiction, radio, not TV or video is your friend. Visual cues distract us from what is being said and good liars can control their body language more easily than their voice. Depressingly, Richard has also shown that our nearest and dearest are the most able to deceive us. [8]
“It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief... that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe
his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for
the commission of every other crime.”   Thomas Paine [The Age of Reason, 1794]
Are YOU a Good Liar?
Richard Wiseman  has a simple test to determine whether you are a good liar or not. It's called the 'Q' test and it takes only a few seconds to complete. Here's what you need to do: Using the first finger of your dominant hand, draw a capital letter Q on your forehead. OK, you're done.
Now, which side of your forehead did you draw the tail of the letter Q? Find out here what your choice could mean...
A World Without Lies
At the premiere of his 2009 film 'The Invention of Lying' Ricky Gervais remarked that “a world without lies would be a terrible world" not least because it would be a world without fiction.”

The film is an American fantasy romantic comedy set in an alternative reality in which everyone tells the truth until, that is, a screenwriter — in a film industry limited to historical readings (because there is no fiction) — seizes the opportunity to lie for personal gain...
8   Orwell's 1984
"Once a country is habituated to liars, it takes generations to bring the truth back." Gore Vidal
In George Orwell’s dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, there is a ‘Ministry of Truth’ which is responsible for propaganda, historical revisionism, culture and entertainment. Of course, as with the other ministries in ‘Oceania’, the name is a misnomer as the Ministry’s main purpose is misinformation and falsifying historical events so that they agree with Big Brother – it's the place where lies are manufactured.

So much of what Orwell imagined / foretold is today becoming a reality...
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Notes
1    This is an edited (and heavily redacted) version of an article entitled ‘Ethics Guide Lying’ (published by the BBC in 2014) but with lots of quotes and some new material added (including the material on Islam). You will find a number of other sections in the original article:  Lying and ethical theory; Philosophers on lying; Lying under serious threat (e.g. of torture or execution); and Lying and medical ethics.

2       Glossophilia is a love of language, be it foreign or native. The term refers to people with a deep and passionate love for language and the structure of language.

3      "On 4 March 2018, Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military officer and double agent for the UK's intelligence services, and his daughter, Yulia Skripal, were poisoned in the city of Salisbury, England with a Novichok nerve agent, according to UK sources and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). After three weeks in a critical condition, Yulia regained consciousness and was able to speak; she was discharged from hospital on 9 April. Sergei was also in a critical condition until he regained consciousness one month after the attack; he was discharged on 18 May.[9][10] A police officer was also taken into intensive care after attending the incident. By 22 March he had recovered enough to leave the hospital... On 5 September 2018, British authorities identified two Russian nationals, using the names Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, as suspected of the Skripals' poisoning, and alleged that they were active officers in Russian military intelligence." [Wikipedia]

4     An example of lousy lying that Klintman gives in his book is the claims by Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, that Moscow has “reasons to assume” the recent Novichok nerve agent poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was done by Germans. He notes that "Novichok was developed by the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s and is the same substance found in the 2018 poisoning of Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter."

5   The authors of 'Ethics Guide Lying' note that “Nobody who writes about lying nowadays can do so without acknowledging an enormous debt to Sissela Bok's ground-breaking book: ‘Lying: Moral choice in public and private life’ (1978). 

6   The first statement is from a piece by Sami Zaatari; the second, from an article from Islam Tomorrow. This is not my subject: if either of these authors is incorrect I would appreciate someone letting me know. Thank you!

7   Stephens-Davidowitz points out that ‘Big Data’ is a kind of ‘digital truth serum’ because it supplies honest data on matters that people lie about in surveys, not least attitudes to race and sex.

8    Richard is a rare breed: "a scientist who is also a practising magician. By the age of 17 he was performing magic tricks at children’s parties and a member of the exclusive Magic Circle. He chose to study psychology to try and understand why we believe the unbelievable and spent many years doing research on the paranormal: studying séances, haunted places and extra sensory perception. Could a belief in the paranormal be the price we pay for scientific discovery, he wonders?" [BBC]
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