Abstract
This chapter provides a set of reflections on lying in public life to underline the central significance of truth and truth-telling to questions of self, politics, and society. From Augustine through to Montaigne, lying has been viewed as a sin that admits no reservations, and accordingly, it has become the basis for jurisprudence in the Anglo-American tradition. In general, lying is considered a deformation of meaning and language, and that it is harmful to society. Truth and truthfulness are considered a precondition for society. This chapter reviews Foucault on the history of truth-telling by reference to parrhesia (free speech) that has a precise relation to truth in Euripides and Plato, arguing that his account must be supplemented with an anthropology of the “culture of lying”. This chapter concludes by considering Arendt’s perceptive assessment on the history of the lie in political culture holding that “the lie did not creep into politics by some accident of human sinfulness; moral outrage, for this reason alone, is not likely to make it disappear.”
This article has been previously published as Peters, M. A. (2015). The history and practice of lying in public life. Review of contemporary philosophy, 14, 47–62.
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Notes
- 1.
See the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Child Abuse at http://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/. The Interim Report was released on June 30, 2014. I am reminded of the comments of Michael Ignatieff (2001) made in The Guardian: “Since its report came out in 1998, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission has become a model for other societies seeking to rebuild their ethical order and find healing and justice after periods of war or tyranny.” And we might add “systematic institutional child abuse”. He continues: “There are many ways to do this: the de-Nazification of West Germany after 1945 followed by the de-Stasification of East Germany after 1989, the Chilean, Salvadorean and Argentine truth commissions, the international tribunals in The Hague and Arusha, the indictment of Pinochet. In all these processes, the essential problem is how to balance peace and justice, forgetting and forgiving, healing and punishment, truth and reconciliation.” And now to the central point, he makes relevant to my inquiry: “you cannot create a culture of freedom unless you eliminate a specific range of impermissible lies. I put it this way—a range of impermissible lies—because all societies, and all human beings lie to them selves all the time. Citizens of liberal democracies are fooling themselves if they think we live in truth. None of us can support very much truth for very long. But there are a few lies that do such harm that they can poison a society just as there are a few lies in private life that can destroy a life.”
- 2.
See the inspired review essay “Mendacious Flowers” by Jay (1999), reviewing George Stephanopoulos’ All too Human: A Political Education and Christopher Hitchens’ No One Left to Lie to: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton.
- 3.
See http://www.law.ua.edu/programs/symposiums/law-and-lies/. The rest of the quotation insofar as it concerns the law runs: “And what is true in our public life is also true in our legal life. While the law recognizes deceit as a cause of action in torts, as the late Arthur Leff famously noted, the law tolerates a lot of deception in 60 market transactions. In addition, while law condemns lying under oath, it condones deceptive silence. While law condemns entrapment, it condones deception and decoys as acceptable tools in the enforcement of the criminal law. While the law values truth it defends the right to lie as an aspect of freedom of speech. This conference will investigate the way law responds to lying and deception. When and where are they tolerated? When and where are they condemned? What can we learn about law by examining its attitude toward lies?”
- 4.
Augustine starts his inquiry with the question of the innocent or charitable lie and whether it is right in any circumstances to tell a lie, see http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1312.htm.
- 5.
See Nietzsche’s famous and, apparently, only footnote in the entire corpus of his work, which appears after the first essay of the Genealogy of Morals.
- 6.
I use the male pronoun here on purpose as the parrhesiastes must know his own genealogy and status, and is usually a male citizen (see Foucault 2001, p. 18).
- 7.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie that mentions 30 “types” of lying though it is doubtful if these are discreet types.
- 8.
It is reported that Americans and Europeans share stereotypical beliefs about the way liars act: characteristically they avert their gaze, turn away, and pause while giving implausible accounts. Yet these beliefs are “probably false”. See Global Deception Research Team (2006). On Mead’s alleged hoaxing, see Freeman (1999).
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Peters, M.A. (2018). The History and Practice of Lying in Public Life. In: Peters, M.A., Rider, S., Hyvönen, M., Besley, T. (eds) Post-Truth, Fake News. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8013-5_6
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