Lying and Deception

Thomas Carson offers the most comprehensive and up-to-date investigation of moral and conceptual questions about lying and deception. Part I addresses conceptual questions and offers definitions of lying, deception, and related concepts such as withholding information, "keeping someone in the dark," and "half truths." Part II deals with questions in ethical theory. Carson argues that standard debates about lying and deception between act-utilitarians and theircritics are inconclusive because they rest on appeals to disputed moral intuitions. He defends a version of the golden rule and a theory of moral reasoning. His theory implies that there is a moral presumption against lying and deception that causes harm — a presumption at least as strong as that endorsedby act-utilitarianism. He uses this theory to justify his claims about the issues he addresses in Part III: deception and withholding information in sales, deception in advertising, bluffing in negotiations, the duties of professionals to inform clients, lying and deception by leaders as a pretext for fighting wars, and lying and deception about history (with special attention to the Holocaust), and cases of distorting the historical record by telling half-truths. The book concludes with aqualified defence of the view that honesty is a virtue.

I think that Carson's analysis comes very close to capturing the normative element of lying ... Carson has produced an excellent work that combines conceptual analysis, moral theory, and applied philosophy. Anyone interested in lying and deception from any of these philosophical perspectives should read this book. Moreover, Carson is right to emphasize the conceptual and moral importance of warranting the truth of what you do not believe., The book is well organized and carefully and subtly argued. Carson is grounded in both philosophical scholarship and intellectual history. The book moves from theory to application and opens areas of applied ethics not often discussed ... the book is also rich with stories and examples and in some places it soars as with the discussion of the Iraq war. Lying and Deception deserves to be widely read as Carson has threaded years of scholarship on this topic into a rich and coherent account. Two thumbs up!, I cannot here do justice to Carson's defense of the Golden Rule... nor to his application of his definitions and moral arguments to the range of issues considered in the final chapters... This book is important insofar as it is a lengthy treatment of a topic that is too often relegated to parts of books or articles. Thankfully, this situation is changing, and Carson has done much to bring about this change., Carson makes the strong case that honesty in the negative sense is a virtue in ordinary circumstances, while in the positive sense it often is not... Anyone with a philosophical interest in the concept of lying will find Carson's book rewarding, and it is necessary reading for those interested in the subtle distinctions between lying and its related terms.

Thomas L. Carson is Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University Chicago. He is the author of two books, Value and the Good Life (University of Notre Dame Press) and The Status of Morality (D.Reidel), and is the co-editor of Morality and the Good Life (OUP) and Moral Relativism (OUP).