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ABSTRACT
This paper introduces the category of ‘non-deceptive manipulation that causes false beliefs’, analyzes how it narrows the traditional scope of ‘deception’, and draws moral implications.
KEYWORDS:
Notes
1 Patrick Todd's [Citation2013] diagnosis is correct: ‘direct philosophical treatments of the notion of manipulation are few and far between.’
2 The first philosophical book on the concept of manipulation is very recent: Coons and Weber [Citation2014].
3 I favour the former understanding, but shall not pursue that debate, as it is inconsequential for any substantial claim in this paper.
4 Two terminological clarifications: (1) if we viewed deception and manipulation as separate entities, then ‘non-deceptive manipulation’ would obviously be redundant; (2) hereafter, causing ‘false beliefs’ refers to false-beliefs-that-are-believed-to-be-false.
5 I follow the vast majority of thinkers in viewing intention as necessary for deception.
6 Hence, for instance, Thomas Carson [Citation2010: 50] defines deception thus: ‘A person S deceives another person S1 if, and only if, S intentionally causes S1 to believe x (or persist in believing x), where x is false and S does not believe that x is true’. See also James Mahon's [Citation2007] review of definitions of deception.
7 I will forego providing my own definition of deception; this would require discussing subtle points wholly tangential to my focus. Rather, no matter what the precise definition, recognizing the category of non-deceptive manipulations that cause false beliefs will require adding clauses that restrict the scope of the traditional definitions, in ways discussed below.
8 Although manipulativeness is admittedly a vice, this should be understood as characterizing not the person who manipulates (simpliciter), but instead the person who manipulates improperly: much manipulation is morally unproblematic, as discussed below.
9 See Mahon [Citation2007: 185, 192]. Carson's definition above is a good example.
10 This formulation owes to Faden and Beauchamp [Citation1986: ch. 10].
11 To quote Sarah Buss [Citation2005: 214], ‘No rational chooser can do anything without the aid of nonrational influences.’
12 This has an affinity with Noggle [Citation1996].
13 For example, by deflecting attention from certain considerations or by fixating on others (see examples below).
14 In exceptional cases, language itself can be used non-linguistically: performing linguistic acts can be used to show something unrelated to the conventional meaning of what is said: see, e.g., Searle [Citation1969: 44–5].
15 There is a trivial sense in which non-propositional influences can be called propositional: e.g. ‘This house smells like pine’ or ‘This pill is blue.’ But this is unhelpful: unlike the Kant example, the contents of these (true) propositions are not the contents of the false beliefs created.
16 One might doubt that non-propositional influence at all works by forming beliefs. In response, (1) granting that non-propositional communication (sometimes) influences non-cognitively, it is sufficient for my argument that some cases influence cognitively; (2) there is sound empirical evidence for this dynamic (e.g. Krosnick et al. [Citation1992]); (3) certain authorities even argue that all such influence is cognitive (e.g. Mitchell et al. [Citation2009]); (4) various theoretical models explain the structure of the cognitive process (e.g. Bizer et al. [Citation2003]); (5) regardless of such models, it is enough that one predicts correctly that, say, an unwarranted negative thought will more likely be primed consequent to introducing noxious stimuli, and that one intends this effect, for there to be non-deceptive manipulation that causes false beliefs.
17 For an intuition close in spirit, see Meibauer [Citation2005].
18 Jennifer Saul [Citation2012a] makes the important claim that linguistic classifications should be sensitive to the ethical aims in making such classifications—this is the intention here, too.
19 To the extent that the Gettier challenge to knowledge requires that the truth of the matter features as the direct justification of the true belief, in defining deception we find an ‘inverse Gettier condition’ of sorts: the falsehood communicated must feature as the direct justification of the false belief. (Further elaboration on this diagnosis must await another occasion.)
20 Understanding deception as necessarily communicating falsehoods diminishes the gap between deceptions and lies, but major differences remain: lies alone cannot be non-linguistic and cannot assert what is literally true.
21 See Williams [Citation2002] and Saul [Citation2012b], regarding the equivalence between lies and false implicatures.
22 These cases have a structure similar to ‘double bluff’; and, while some double bluffs are deceptions, other cases sharing that structure are merely manipulations that cause false beliefs (elaborating on the distinguishing conditions cannot be attempted here). That some such cases aren't deceptions suffices to make my point.
23 The author would like to thank Dalia Drai, Stephen Kershnar, and Yakir Levin for their helpful comments on earlier drafts. Two anonymous reviewers for AJP deserve tremendous gratitude for their dedicated help in improving this paper greatly. Versions of this paper were presented in 2016 at the annual conference of the Israeli Philosophical Association, at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress at the University of Colorado, and the University of Hawaii–Manoa. Thanks for helpful comments are due to participants in all of these events, especially George Tsai from the University of Hawaii, and David Heyd from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.