Knowledge‐lies re‐examined

Abstract

Sorensen says that my assertion that p is a knowledge‐lie if it is meant to undermine your justification for believing truly that ∼p, not to make you believe that p and that, therefore, knowledge‐lies are not intended to deceive. It has been objected that they are meant to deceive because they are intended to make you more confident in a falsehood. In this paper, I propose a novel account according to which an assertion that p is a knowledge‐lie if it is intended not to provide evidence that p but to make you stop trusting all testimonies concerning whether p (in a room full of obvious liars, you will trust no one), which is how they undermine your testimonial knowledge. Because they are not intended to provide evidence that bears on the truth of p, they are not intended to make you more confident in a falsehood; therefore, knowledge‐lies are not intended to deceive. This makes them a problem for the traditional account, which takes the intention to deceive as necessary for lying, and an interesting example of Kant's idea that allowing lies whenever one feels like it would bring it about that statements in general are not believed.

Lying, speech acts, and commitment

“…In recent years an impressive case has been mounted against deceptionist accounts (Carson et al 1982, p. 17;Carson 2006;Sorensen 2007Sorensen , 2010Arico and Fallis 2013;Fallis 2015Fallis , 2018Krstić 2018Krstić , 2019Marques 2020), prompting several authors to abandon condition (c). Scholars who reject (c) acknowledge that a definition featuring only (a) and (b) would be too broad, as it would include ironic, metaphorical, and fictional utterances.…”

Can You Lie Without Intending to Deceive?

“…Sorensen's proposal is contentions and has quickly attracted strong challenges contesting both his conception and the examples that he offers (Fallis ; Staffel , forthcoming; Lackey ). I discuss knowledge‐lies and propose a novel account elsewhere (Krstić ) . Hence, this concept will not be discussed further here.…”

“…Kenyon (2003Kenyon ( , 2010, Staffel (2011, forthcoming), Meibauer (2011Meibauer ( , 2014aMeibauer ( , 2014bMeibauer ( , 2016aMeibauer ( , 2016b, Lackey (2013), Tollefsen (2014), Dynel (2015), Leland (2015), and Keiser (2016). And with some replies from Fallis (2015), Stokke (2017), and Krstić (2017), this debate has become very interesting.…”

“…Kenyon (, ), Staffel (, forthcoming), Meibauer (, , , , ), Lackey (), Tollefsen (), Dynel (), Leland (), and Keiser (). And with some replies from Fallis (), Stokke (), and Krstić (), this debate has become very interesting.…”