tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post460989102270477101..comments2024-03-28T19:56:42.305-05:00Comments on Alexander Pruss's Blog: Deception and lyingAlexander R Prusshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-71258194161258614292008-09-29T20:39:00.000-05:002008-09-29T20:39:00.000-05:00But I would not expect unalloyed good to ever come...But I would not expect unalloyed good to ever come from something that's intrinsically bad. <BR/><BR/>However, placebo effect.<BR/><BR/>However, people want things they shouldn't want. (Lie to them about availability.) <BR/><BR/>And so on. <BR/><BR/><BR/>Incidentally, I'll cut to the chase. Let's consider the fact that our knowledge is incomplete.<BR/><BR/>Some of these gaps in knowledge are critical, as we have found in the past when we closed some. <BR/><BR/>But by having a false belief, we can make up for this knowledge gap. ("Effectiveness is the measure of truth.") We can produce an algorithm that simulates the knowledge (to some extent) until such time as we gain the legitimate belief. <BR/><BR/>If false beliefs are intrinsically bad, how or why does this work?Alrenoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11119846531341190283noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-69446339495619584342008-09-29T20:18:00.000-05:002008-09-29T20:18:00.000-05:00Because sometimes good comes from an intrinsically...Because sometimes good comes from an intrinsically bad cause. :-)Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-33201181665188425012008-09-29T15:53:00.000-05:002008-09-29T15:53:00.000-05:00I'd like to take the ball off the field entirely.i...I'd like to take the ball off the field entirely.<BR/><BR/><I>it is surely intrinsically bad to have a false belief.</I><BR/><BR/>Then why can I think of several examples of good outcomes from false beliefs?Alrenoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11119846531341190283noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-76934489383742695412008-08-21T17:29:00.000-05:002008-08-21T17:29:00.000-05:00I am inclined to think asserting to oneself is lik...<I>I am inclined to think asserting to oneself is like promising to oneself. I don't think one can really promise things to oneself.</I><BR/><BR/>Why? Suppose I've just finished talking to my boss. I walk into the back yard alone and utter "my boss is a complete idiot". <BR/><BR/>The next day my boss asks me whether I asserted that he was an idiot. Could I truly say no? Now suppose my voice was accidentally recorded by neighbor, who was not present when I spoke and had by chance left his portable recorder on.<BR/><BR/>Since my neighbor dislikes me, he has played the recording to my boss. When I deny that I asserted that he was an idiot, my boss plays the recording back to me. "Do you still deny that you asserted that I was an idiot?". <BR/><BR/>I think it would be very hard to say that I didn't assert that, in light of this evidence.Mike Almeidahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12001511002085064198noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-36772801425831891022008-08-21T14:40:00.000-05:002008-08-21T14:40:00.000-05:00I am inclined to think asserting to oneself is lik...I am inclined to think asserting to oneself is like promising to oneself. I don't think one can really promise things to oneself. (The basic problem is that the promisee can always release the promiser from a promise. So a promise to self would not have any binding power.)<BR/><BR/>There is an act we describe as "promising to oneself", but I think it's not really a promise, in that it does not generate the kind of obligation a promise does (as you can see, I rather like the idea of characterizing speech acts by their normative consequences), if it generates any kind of obligation at all. <BR/><BR/>Here's an idea. I am now alone and whispering three things: "2+2=3. 2+2=4. 2+2=5." Are any or all of these three sentences <EM>assertions</EM> that I am making? I just whispered them in order to generate an example for this comment. I do not intend to communicate the fact that 2+2=3 or that 2+2=5 to anybody, even myself. Nor does it seem right to say that I am lying. But if I were asserting all three sentences, then two of them would be lies. <BR/><BR/>Let us suppose that I wanted to utter these three arithmetical sentences to myself, and wanted to make the middle one be an assertion. What would I have to do? I suppose I would have to do something mental, engage in some kind of intending perhaps, with regard to the middle one. But what exactly am I intending about the utterance "2+2=4" that makes it an assertion? <BR/><BR/>Maybe there is some primitive thought that, if thought along with an act of speech, makes that act of speech into an assertion. I don't have an argument ruling this out. But I prefer a more reductive theory on which what makes an act of speech an assertion is an intention that is, at least in part, further analyzable. This intention may be an intention to commit oneself to the truth of something (to stand behind its truth, as it were), or maybe an intention to communicate something. I don't know--I don't have an analysis that I am happy with, but I prefer my sketchy attempts to just taking it as primitive.<BR/><BR/>I wonder if the difference is that you do not think of "assertion" as beefily as I do. To get a bit clearer on what we mean by the word, let me ask this question. If an actor on stage says: "I can call spirits from the vasty deep" (Owen Glendower in Henry IV, Part I), is the sentence an assertion, and is the actor asserting? I am not sure about the first, but the answer to the second is negative.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-80228272089445904542008-08-21T13:42:00.000-05:002008-08-21T13:42:00.000-05:00To make an assertion is to offer testimony, and a ...<I>To make an assertion is to offer testimony, and a constitutive part of offering testimony is a solicitation of trust through offering an appearance of sincerity (this offering may be contextual)</I><BR/><BR/>Either my intuitions are way off, or I'm not understanding this. Why couldn't I come out of my home one fine morning with no one around, look to the sky and assert, "this is the nicest Texas morning I've experienced in my life'. I'm not testifying to anyone, I'm the only one there; I'm not soliciting trust. Whose trust? I'm making an assertion that only I will hear. But certainly it is an assertion, even absent trust solicitation and absent testimony.Mike Almeidahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12001511002085064198noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-60506934719893624172008-08-21T08:45:00.000-05:002008-08-21T08:45:00.000-05:001. I don't think the bank robber is lying. 2. Tha...1. I don't think the bank robber is lying. <BR/><BR/>2. That an action is a mere deceit and does not involve an intention that the other believe a falsehood does not imply that the action is permissible. While we have a conclusive reason not to lie (because lying is wrong), we have a <EM>prima facie</EM> reason not to deceive (e.g., because we have a <EM>prima facie</EM> reason to contribute to others' epistemic quests). So the robber's deceit will still be morally objectionable if she does not have a reason sufficient to override the <EM>prima facie</EM> considerations, as typically she does not.<BR/><BR/>3. I don't know exactly what it means to say that "the evidence indicates p", when "evidence" means something other than "evidence available to one". Does it mean "sum total of the evidence available to persons"? (Including angelic persons?)<BR/><BR/>4. Intentions have to have something to do with how one expects one's goal to be achieved. Now in normal cases (i.e., cases of normal interpersonal trust), testimony is appropriately taken as a reason for belief in what is testified to, rather than as evidence. In a way, testimony functions rather like simple requests. When someone makes a simple request such as "Could you please move over" or "Do you have the time?", we automatically obey, barring good reason to the contrary. Likewise, if someone tells us something, in the ordinary course of things (i.e., when we do not have reason to think the person unreliable or insincere, when we do not have evidence against the claim made), we just believe. We do not weigh evidence. We <EM>may</EM> form the additional belief that the utterance is evidence for p, but in normal cases that additional belief, if present at all, is not expressly formulated.<BR/><BR/>Thus, in the ordinary course of things, I can expect the following to happen when I tell you that p. You will believe that p, and because of your belief that p, you will act a certain way. Moreover, there is a pretty strong sense of "I can expect" here, in that by telling you p, I have invited you to accept my testimony, i.e., to believe p.<BR/><BR/>Now, imagine a liar who insincerely says p in order to get me to do A. I thus believe p, and therefore do A. Could we say that the liar did not intend me to believe p? Well, if the liar did not intend me to believe p, but intended me instead to believe that there is evidence for p and to act on this fact, then the liar has <EM>failed</EM>. For the success of an action plan requires not merely that the end should be fulfilled (my doing A), but that the end should follow from the action in the intended way. If I didn't come to believe that there is evidence for p or I didn't act on the evidence but on the belief, then the hypothetical liar has failed. But it seems deeply implausible to suppose that the liar's action plan was a failure, especially in light of the fact that I did exactly what the liar invited me to.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-13473218661448886352008-08-21T01:14:00.000-05:002008-08-21T01:14:00.000-05:00Also, I may be having some trouble imagining when ...Also, I may be having some trouble imagining when deception wouldn't serve just as well as lying. At the end of The Dark Knight (spoiler), Batman gets the city of Gotham to think he is responsible for some murders, because it will be for the city's benefit to act on the belief that Batman did the murders. But presumably the city could act just as well on the basis of the belief that the available evidence suggests that Batman did the murders. Batman need only deceive, not lie, to achieve his end of having the city act well.<BR/><BR/>And when I think of the usual cases commonly described as lying, I find myself seeing them as, at bottom, mere deceptions, or as cases in which deception would work just as well, i.e. cases in which the liar would be just as successful if he only wanted people to believe that the evidence available to them suggested some conclusion, and that they act appropriately.<BR/><BR/>Even if I want Jane Doe to think me kind (or rich or whatever) so that she'll love me, her belief in my kindness, which would lead to her love for me, could have successfullly substituted for it the belief that the evidence available to her indicates I am kind, for then she would still love me. Or perhaps not; perhaps love would kick in only if she (falsely) believed in my kindness, dictating that my act be one of lying and not of deception. I think I've confused the account and am now calling lots of lies mere deceptions.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-41277659279211754582008-08-21T00:43:00.000-05:002008-08-21T00:43:00.000-05:00Does it matter that in sticking out one's hat to g...Does it matter that in sticking out one's hat to get away in a shootout, there really is not more evidence that one is somewhere one is not? What I mean is, when you stick out your hat you offer a piece of evidence that you're somewhere you're not. That piece of evidence makes it rational for the shooter to shoot at the hat, even if he doesn't go further and form the (false) belief you're where he's shooting. He doesn't go so far as to form that belief, but he does form the belief that the evidence indicates you to be under the hat.<BR/><BR/>But if the shooter had access to certain other evidence, such as his oppenent's plan to stick out the hat, then he would not shoot at the hat. In a case of deception one presents evidence selectively to get someone to act in a way he would not act were he privy to all the evidence, since presumably access to all the evidence would lead him to form a true belief, whereas in cases of deception one attempts to get someone to act on the basis of evidence that supports a false belief (even if the person does not form the false belief supported by the evidence available to him). Assume that it takes a judgment to evaluate available evidence to determine the conclusion this evidence suggests, even if this judgment is not followed by another that forms a belief about the truth of this conclusion. I suppose for deception to be legitimate, one would have to say that the deceiver is always leading the deceived to believe "The evidence available to me suggests X" as opposed to "The evidence suggests X," since the latter would be a false belief while the former wouldn't be.<BR/><BR/>Jarringly, this view does seem to suggest that lots of cases normally called lying and condemned as such are in fact cases of deception, and only condemnable because of the evil ends they are directed toward. A robber who points his finger through his jacket to make the bank teller think he's pointing a gun at her may only be hoping she forms the belief that the evidence available to her suggests that he in fact has a gun. (I admit this is de facto implausible, except for any robbers who read this blog. Most robbers would just as soon have the teller think they really have a gun.) But the robber might not be lying; he might only be deceiving for the sake of an evil end, the teller's handing over money not rightfully his.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-86472562741049673162008-08-20T13:30:00.000-05:002008-08-20T13:30:00.000-05:00One more thought: From a Kantian point of view, se...One more thought: From a Kantian point of view, self-deception seems particularly problematic.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-82250402412004560452008-08-20T13:26:00.000-05:002008-08-20T13:26:00.000-05:00To make an assertion is to offer testimony, and a ...To make an assertion is to offer testimony, and a constitutive part of offering testimony is a solicitation of trust through offering an appearance of sincerity (this offering may be contextual).<BR/><BR/>Consider someone saying: "I hereby insincerely affirm that I am a descendant of King George III." I don't know what kind of speech act this is, but this person has <EM>not</EM> asserted that she is a descendant of GIII.<BR/><BR/>Now, there can be an appearance of sincerity directed at oneself (sincere sounding mental speech), and so maybe there can even be a kind of self-trust.<BR/><BR/>I agree that it is possible to lie while knowing one will not be believed, just as it would be possible for me to try to win a chess game against Deep Blue, while knowing I will lose.<BR/><BR/>So you may be right that it is possible to lie to oneself. I think it depends in part how linguistic thought is, since I take lies to be essentially linguistic.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-66654917548481684812008-08-20T10:38:00.000-05:002008-08-20T10:38:00.000-05:00Strictly speaking, self-deception is not lying, be...<I>Strictly speaking, self-deception is not lying, because there is no trust or communication involved</I><BR/><BR/>This seems mistaken twice over. First, I can lie to people who do not trust me. Second, I trust myself. I just know (or, in most cases I know) when I'm lying to myself. That does not prevent me from lying. I also know when a child is lying. That doesn't prevent him from lying either.Mike Almeidahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12001511002085064198noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-7834820906573250672008-08-20T08:51:00.000-05:002008-08-20T08:51:00.000-05:00Mike,Strictly speaking, self-deception is not lyin...Mike,<BR/><BR/>Strictly speaking, self-deception is not lying, because there is no trust or communication involved, just as it would not be lying if I used neurourgery to induce in you the belief that I am heir to the throne of England. Still if the malevolence argument works, it rules these cases out. I am willing to bite the bullet.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-77222273761218768482008-08-20T08:30:00.000-05:002008-08-20T08:30:00.000-05:00I'm not so sure that lying is always wrong. What i...I'm not so sure that lying is always wrong. What if I lie to myself? I bring myself to believe what I know is a falsehood: namely, that my chances of surviving the next surgery is greater than .5. The belief is clearly unwarranted, and I might know that. But I cling to the idea that I'm in the group that is going to survive. I say, "sure, <I>the</I> chances of surviving are less than .5. But <I>my</I> chances are higher, since I'm convinced I'm in the survivors group. I may use all sorts of tricks to get myself to believe it. It's a very familiar response to such situations.<BR/>It might be worth noting that Plantinga considers such a response consistent with proper functioning. Indeed, he thinks that such beliefs might well override better warranted beliefs without any violation of proper functioning. So, at least some people think that we were designed to form such beliefs in such circumstances. If so, it is not likely to be wrong to form such beliefs.Mike Almeidahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12001511002085064198noreply@blogger.com