Kant tell an a priori lie
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Roy Sorensen
Abstract
An a priori lie is a lie that contradicts an a priori truth. Rather sportingly, the a priori liar leaves himself open to refutation by armchair methods such as calculation. My thesis is that Immanuel Kant precludes the existence of a priori lies. For asserting a proposition requires raising a rational expectation of its truth. If the hearer believes the negation of an a priori proposition, Kant blames the deceived, not the deceiver. We are sometimes permitted to believe beyond the evidence but never against the evidence. The impossibility of a priori lies vindicates the advocate’s assumption that one cannot lie with deliberately invalid deductions or by engaging in insincere legal semantics.
Abstract
An a priori lie is a lie that contradicts an a priori truth. Rather sportingly, the a priori liar leaves himself open to refutation by armchair methods such as calculation. My thesis is that Immanuel Kant precludes the existence of a priori lies. For asserting a proposition requires raising a rational expectation of its truth. If the hearer believes the negation of an a priori proposition, Kant blames the deceived, not the deceiver. We are sometimes permitted to believe beyond the evidence but never against the evidence. The impossibility of a priori lies vindicates the advocate’s assumption that one cannot lie with deliberately invalid deductions or by engaging in insincere legal semantics.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Contents VII
- Introduction: On lying and disleading 1
-
I Lies and deception: The landscape of falsehood
- Lying, deception, and related concepts: A conceptual map for ethics 15
- The morality of deception 41
- Kant tell an a priori lie 65
-
II Lying, deception, and speaker commitment: Empirical evidence
- Is lying morally different from misleading? An empirical investigation 89
- “I was only quoting”: Shifting viewpoint and speaker commitment 113
- Memefying deception and deceptive memefication: Multimodal deception on social media 139
-
III Puffery, bluffery, bullshit: How to not quite lie
- Bald-faced bullshit and authoritarian political speech: Making sense of Johnson and Trump 165
- Practice to deceive: A natural history of the legal bluff 195
- Just saying, just kidding: Liability for accountability-avoiding speech in ordinary conversation, politics and law 227
-
IV Crossing the perjury threshold: Deceit and falsehood in the courtroom
- Perjury cases and the linguist 261
- Trickery and deceit: How the pragmatics of interrogation leads innocent people to confess – and factfinders to believe their confessions 289
- The context of mistrust: Perjury ascriptions in the courtroom 309
- What counts as a lie in and out of the courtroom? The effect of discourse genre on lie judgments 353
- Lies, deception, and bullshit in law 381
- Index 409
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Contents VII
- Introduction: On lying and disleading 1
-
I Lies and deception: The landscape of falsehood
- Lying, deception, and related concepts: A conceptual map for ethics 15
- The morality of deception 41
- Kant tell an a priori lie 65
-
II Lying, deception, and speaker commitment: Empirical evidence
- Is lying morally different from misleading? An empirical investigation 89
- “I was only quoting”: Shifting viewpoint and speaker commitment 113
- Memefying deception and deceptive memefication: Multimodal deception on social media 139
-
III Puffery, bluffery, bullshit: How to not quite lie
- Bald-faced bullshit and authoritarian political speech: Making sense of Johnson and Trump 165
- Practice to deceive: A natural history of the legal bluff 195
- Just saying, just kidding: Liability for accountability-avoiding speech in ordinary conversation, politics and law 227
-
IV Crossing the perjury threshold: Deceit and falsehood in the courtroom
- Perjury cases and the linguist 261
- Trickery and deceit: How the pragmatics of interrogation leads innocent people to confess – and factfinders to believe their confessions 289
- The context of mistrust: Perjury ascriptions in the courtroom 309
- What counts as a lie in and out of the courtroom? The effect of discourse genre on lie judgments 353
- Lies, deception, and bullshit in law 381
- Index 409
