The Intent to Deceive

Chisholm, Roderick M.; Feehan, Thomas D.

doi:10.2307/2025605

Cited by 274 publications

(143 citation statements)

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“…Such deception raises interesting issues, but to discuss them would be a diversion from our main objective. For detailed treatments of some definitional complexities, see Chisholm and Feehan (1977) and Fried (1978, Ch. 3).…”

Section: University Of Maryland and Harvard Business Schoolmentioning

confidence: 99%

Promoting Honesty in Negotiation: An Exercise in Practical Ethics

Cramton¹,

Dees²

1993

Bus Ethics Q

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Abstract:In a competitive and morally imperfect world, business people are often faced with serious ethical challenges. Harboring suspicions about the ethics of others, many feel justified in engaging in less-than-ideal conduct to protect their own interests. The most sophisticated moral arguments are unlikely to counteract this behavior. We believe that this morally defensive behavior is responsible, in large part, for much undesirable deception in negotiation. Drawing on recent work in the literature of negotiations, we present some practical guidance on how negotiators might build trust, establish common interests, and secure credibility for their statements thereby promoting honesty. We also point out the types of social and institutional arrangements, many of which have become commonplace, that work to promote credibility, trust, and honesty in business dealings. Our approach is offered not only as a specific response to the problem of deception in negotiation, but as one model of how research in business ethics might offer constructive advice to practitioners.…there is such a gap between how one lives and how one ought to live that anyone who abandons what is done for what ought to be done learns his ruin rather than his preservation… -Niccolo MachiavelliWe must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.-George Bernard Shaw F business ethics is to have a significant impact on business practice, many of us working in the field will need to take a more pragmatic approach to our craft (Dees and Cramton, 1991). Our work should help ethically sensitive business people establish stable institutional arrangements that promote and protect ethically desirable conduct, and it should help individuals to develop strategies for effective ethical behavior in a competitive and morally imperfect world. This paper is offered as one model of more practical business ethics To illustrate the model we have selected the topic of deception in negotiation. Negotiation is a pervasive feature of business life. Success in business typically requires successful negotiations. It is commonly believed that success in negotiation is enhanced by the skillful use of deceptive tactics, such as bluffing, exaggeration, posturing, stage-setting, and outright misrepresentation. As White (1980, p. 927) candidly states, "The critical difference between those who are successful negotiators and those who are not lies in this capacity both to mislead and not to be misled." Some shrewd practitioners have advanced the art of deception beyond prudent concealment of preferences to more aggressive forms of strategic misrepresentation. 1Given the high value placed on honesty, the incentives for deception in negotiation create a serious moral tension for business people, as well as a public relations problem for business. The public relations problem is not new. In ancient Athens, Hermes, a trickster who stole his brother's (Apollo's) cattle on the day he was born and later lied about it, was the patro...

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Section: University Of Maryland and Harvard Business Schoolmentioning

confidence: 99%

Promoting Honesty in Negotiation: An Exercise in Practical Ethics

Cramton¹,

Dees²

1993

Bus Ethics Q

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“…As Sissela Bok explains in her influential book Lying: moral choice in public and private life (1978, p. 7), a false person is not merely one that happens to make statements that are found to be wrong, mistaken or incorrect; rather, the label of 'false' is deserved whenever somebody is intentionally deceitful. However, as Chisholm and Feehan (1977) show, the intention to deceive and a lie are not identical, and should not be confused. They also argue that different types of deception carry different types of moral weight.…”

Section: Frankfurt's Theoretical Understanding Of 'Bullshit'mentioning

confidence: 97%

On bullshit in cultural policy practice and research: notes from the British case

Belfiore

2009

International Journal of Cultural Policy

128

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In 2005, Harry G. Frankfurt, a retired professor of moral philosophy at Princeton University, made it into the best-sellers chart with his book On Bullshit. Taking his essay as its starting point, this article explores the analysis of bullshit and the prevalence of bullshitting in the contemporary public sphere. Frankfurt's short essay indeed provides an intellectual framework to interpret and understand contemporary rhetoric and practice in the cultural policy field, as well as recent trends in cultural policy research. Through a discussion of selected New Labour's cultural policy documents in Britain, the article aims to show that many of the key actors in the cultural policy debate indeed display the 'indifference to how things really are' and the cultivation of vested interests which Frankfurt attributes to the activity of bullshitting. The final part of the text discusses the implications of the present status quo for 'critical' cultural policy research.

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“…Deception has long been an important topic in philosophy (see Augustine 1952; Kant 1996; Chisholm & Feehan 1977;Mahon 2007;Carson 2010). However, the focus has been almost exclusively on human deception.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…10 The sender's strategy tells her what signals to send in each state. 6 These constraints are not essential to the framework (see Martínez 2015, pp. 223-27; McWhirter 2016, p. 760).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%