Thomas L. Carson: Lying and Deception. Theoryand Practice, OxfordOxford University Press, 2010, 280 pp, £ 37.00

Norbert Anwander

Published online: 30 December 2011# Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

“Thomas Carson offers the most comprehensive and up-to-date investigation of moral andconceptual questions about lying and deception.” Or so it says on the dust jacket. If only forthe lack of competitors in this niche, the promotional statement is probably not untrue. As Iwill explain, it should nevertheless be considered deceptive.

The book’s highlight is the first chapter. It elaborates on an influential paper of Carson’son what a lie is. He proposes this definition: “A person S tells a lie to another person S1 iff:1. S makes a false statement X to S1, 2. S believes that X is false or probably false (or,alternatively, S does not believe that X is true), 3. S states X in a context in which S therebywarrants the truth of X to S1, and 4. S does not take herself to be not warranting the truth ofwhat she says to S1.” (30) Carson takes it to be necessary for lying that one’s statement is infact false. He admits that not everyone shares his linguistic intuitions and offers a more“internalist” version on which someone can be a liar even though what she says happens tobe true. In any case, Carson’s real challenge to conventional wisdom is that his definitiondoes not require an intention to deceive. He cites cases of “bald-faced lying” in support ofthe view that it is possible for one to lie in the absence of any hope or even wish to deceiveone’s audience. It may be in a speaker’s interest just to “go on record” (21) as claiming thetruth of something she knows to be false. What is essential, instead, is for the liar to warrantthe truth of her statement. Thus, “any lie violates an implicit promise or guarantee that whatone says is true” (15). In my view, Carson’s insightful analysis is a significant improvementover the standard definition. It also has great potential to enlighten our understanding ofwhat is wrong with lying.

Carson next provides a definition of deceiving and various related concepts such aswithholding information, keeping someone in the dark, spin, and half-truths. We shouldwelcome this attention to the many ways in which communication can be manipulativewhile falling short of an outright lie. It is not always clear, however, what Carson takeshimself to be doing here. Is his belief that these concepts lend themselves to rigorousanalysis, or is he rather stipulating definitions for further usage? Consider also his criticismof Harry Frankfurt on bullshit (58–63): Given that Frankfurt basically ‘invented’ this

Ethic Theory Moral Prac (2012) 15:277–279DOI 10.1007/s10677-011-9320-9

N. Anwander (*)Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Institut für Philosophie, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germanye-mail: norbert.anwander@philosophie.hu-berlin.de

concept, does it really make sense to charge him with being mistaken about the conditionsof bullshit?

Hopes get dashed when we turn to moral theory. Carson begins Part II by rejecting theview that lying is always wrong. He is primarily concerned to show that Kant’s absoluteprohibition on lying has no basis in any of the formulations of the Categorical Imperative.Carson’s sympathies are more with the position at the opposite end of the spectrum: Foract-utilitarianism, although there is a presumption against lies when they cause harm, lyingas such is not wrong. However, as Carson notes, this strikes many as too permissive. Theyshare W.D. Ross’s intuition that lies are prima facie wrong and that there is something to besaid against lying even when overall it is the morally right thing to do. Which view is thecorrect one? Carson’s main point is that appeal to intuitions will not help to decide thedebate between act-utilitarians and their opponents because these intuitions are themselvesin dispute among reasonable people. As a way out of this “dialectical impasse” (127), heproposes his own theory of moral reasoning, based on the Golden Rule. Rationality andconsistency tests, Carson concludes, support “a presumption against harmful lying anddeception that is at least as strong as that endorsed by act-utilitarianism” (159). His positioncondemns lying and deception when they produce more harm than benefit but remainsneutral as to whether such conduct can be wrong in other cases too.

I wonder how this mininalist view on the morality of lying coheres with Carson’s earlierdefinition. Recall that in order to lie, “one must make a statement that one warrants to betrue” (3). One way the notion of warranting gets spelled out is that you are justified incomplaining if the statement I make to you is not true (27). An alternative characterizationappeals to the trust which the liar both invites and betrays. And there was the idea that lyinginvolves breaking a promise to communicate truthfully (24). Given this analysis, would itnot seem natural to locate the wrong of lying in the betrayal of trust or the breaking of apromise? Arguably something along these lines is even required for Carson’s account towork. For how could those who have been lied to necessarily have a legitimate complaintunless the very act of lying wrongs them? Carson’s own analysis, I suspect, commits him toseeing something morally wrong in lying, prior to any harm it may contingently cause.

Carson is aware of a more obvious objection to his position. Due to its neutralitybetween act-utilitarianism and competing views, it at best confirms the trivial but fails usprecisely when moral judgements about lying and deception are controversial (165). Indefence he points out that these may well be cases where reasonable people disagree and nodefinite answers are to be had. However, as one reads along, another problem with theminimalist approach adopted in this book gets ever more pressing, viz. that it is stultifyingand boring. Surely, philosophy must have more interesting things to say about the ethics oflying and deception than there being a moral presumption against them in case they causeharm. This is all the more disappointing given the possibilities for a nuanced discussionprovided by Carson’s conceptual investigation. One such intriguing question brought tolight by his subtle analysis would concern the morality of bald-faced lies.

Many of the considerations featuring prominently in the current ethical discussion oflying fail to show up in this monograph. The index does not list entries for trust, respect, orautonomy. Such gaps reflect the limits of the theoretical frameworks that Carson considers.While he comments on recent scholarship on Kant’s peculiar views about lying, all that isKantian in spirit rather than in letter gets ignored. Equal neglect is applied to a good deal ofcontemporary moral theory. Contractualists, virtue ethicists, or those curious about what aparticularistic approach to lying might reveal, will find this part of the book a letdown.Unless a variation on Richard Hare’s Moral Thinking (1981) counts as the latest in moralthought, Carson’s investigation should not be advertised as being up-to-date.

278 N. Anwander

The background of Carson’s rather lame thesis about the morality of lying is hisambition to answer the complete menagerie of (meta)ethical bad guys: the skeptic, theegoist, and the relativist. He even aims to establish moral judgements that no rational andinformed person could reject. This policy is an honourable if not a wise one. Taking on thebig challenges to morality comes at the expense of close engagement with the specificquestions surrounding lying and deception. The problem is exacerbated by Carson’sdemanding account of moral judgements. He takes it as true by definition that the moralwrongness of an action overrides all countervailing reasons (134). (His confidence on thispoint comes as a surprise, given that the overridingness-thesis is rejected by manyreasonable and well-informed people.) We are thus not allowed to judge some act of lyingmorally wrong unless we also mean to settle the practical question of what to do. However,Carson’s investigation is already hampered by his almost exclusive focus on overalljudgements with little time wasted on elucidating reasons that would merely count againstlying but fail to be decisive.

Perhaps the constraints imposed on moral theorizing anticipate Part III, where theintended audience has decidedly shifted from philosophers to business ethicists.Presumably the patience of the latter to get to the moral (or indeed practical) bottom lineis more limited. As a contribution to philosophy, Carson’s case studies do not makecompelling reading. But it would be mistaken to expect otherwise. If one takes seriously theresult of Part II, all that remains is to determine whether particular instances of lying anddeception produce more harm than benefit. This is foremost an empirical task. Discussingprimarily business practices but also political preparations for war and the writing ofhistory, Carson carries it out with a keen eye for the deleterious effects that liars anddeceivers are prone to overlook.

The book’s tripartite structure suggests a progression from conceptual analysis throughmoral theory to applied ethics. But the distinctions from Part I are neither systematicallyexploited nor do they seem to make much moral difference. And for all Carson says aboutapplying the moral conclusions reached in Part II, his case studies appeal to moral ideasother than the presumption against harmful lying and deception. For instance, “a principleof self-defense” (194) is employed to decide when it is morally permissible for negotiatorsto lie about their position. Other examples reveal how the morality of communicativeinteractions turns on the allocation of responsibilities between speaker and audience. I wishthere had been more connection between the moral considerations doing interesting workand Carson’s lengthy disquisition on moral theory.

A note on the selection of cases and their presentation: There is some overlap, and onehas to share the hobby historian’s love of detail to appreciate Carson’s narratives. Readerswho care for efficient presentation and a modicum of elegance will not be pleased by pages167–256. Others may regret the missed opportunity to explore a wider range of issues, forexample lying and deception among friends, between adults and children, in medicalcontexts, or in the academia. Any of this would have helped to make the blurb’s claimabout comprehensiveness more justified.

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